Yes, it IS tough to choose.  Our purpose of this poll is 2-fold:

1. Let parents know the extent of skills that students are expected to pick up in Primary school.  In fact, only Science is a subject that Primary 1 and 2 students do not need to worry about, but that subject starts running very fast from Primary 3, so it will do your kids good to start early.

2. Let parents understand that since there is so many things for them to choose, if they have only so much time to achieve something (only 5 months before Primary 1), they better start arbitraging and focus their efforts on specific skills instead of everything.

I have my own bias towards what is important, so it would interesting to see what others think is most important for their children.

I suppose that's what Shichida and Trio/Little Neurotree (for 0-4 years old) and MindChamps and LogicMills (for 5-18 years old) are supposed to inculcate.

jedamum, what u mentioned are indeed very important, if not more important, than the more academically inclined stuff we listed. In a sense, it is more of installing a good attitude towards learning than just training good habits of mind. Things such as character building, civics and general good EQ and being people-savvy fall under this category. I've always felt that this cannot be trained, but only learnt through the child's observation of adult behavior.

To add on, mumwgals say it best in this forum thread.  She mentions the "soft life skills" that she is trying to impart to her children such as listening skills, anger management, being street smart, interpersonal skills, etc, while leaving it to the schools to train academic competencies.  These soft skills are critical and, in many cases, more important than academic proficiency.  It is necessary that we as parents provide a good foundation for these skills by demonstrating them in ourselves.  It is not good enough to simply highlight them to our children.

Quoted from Cheif Kiasu " It is necessary that we as parents provide a good foundation for these skills by demonstrating them in ourselves.  It is not good enough to simply highlight them to our children." 

Hi Addy,

Thanks for your comments.  As I noted in my review of MindChamps, I was only impressed by MindChamps AFTER I stripped away all the marketing fluff and saw at its core the trainers behind it all.  If only they focused more on the fact that they teach parents how to interact with their children (and vice versa) and relied less on trying to build up a aura of mystic around its "science" by giving it big names like "whole brain training".  They do have great trainers.