wah..so interesting topics today...i've got lots to contribute..but after reading...dunno wat to say liao...

okie..from memory...
astro: wah! so teng actually can do so many things ah! he is so SUPER SMART!!!! i bet u must be super relieved now... and judging by his abilities and fine motor skills, ur iq + eq must be super high!!! WOW........
re: bb refusing to sleep
yup! i greatly believe bb is overstimulated liao...thus refuse to sleep. wat i do is i will hug n pat..n 'force' bb to calm down...by singing, humming, n patting. then gradually bb will sleep. this is recently proven correct. eg. my ah ma sometimes help me to put seth to sleep after his lunch. then she will say "dun sleep so early la. play abit.. so later can sleep longer." turn out... seth gets overstimulated, cos after food, sleepy time he played... then when ask him to sleep he will stare back at u. he is tired. cos he stopped moving..jus lie in arms n stare. refusing to close eyes. then eventually after he 'rested', he'll crawl up n play again. it went on for a few days... i was so upset cos if he dun sleep means he wun eat properly after that. one fine day i jus told my ah ma off... he needs to sleep. NOW! even thou he was struggling n still wide eyed n wanna play. i said a firm NO! n she jus ok loh..pat him lo.. n he slept! for the next 2 hrs! yup!
re: bb eating and playing
ok, i used to subject seth to high chair feeding. very strict. he was ok initially when eating fruit purees n cereals. however, when he advanced to proper meals with longer hours, he became fidgety...i was desperate..cos he will cry whenever i put him in the high chair and start feeding. he will refuse to open his mouth..even when crying!! astro suggested i try coarser food, cos maybe seth loves the challenge of texture. sure enuff, as soon as i gave him flaked salmon instead of pureed, he started to open his mouth. (of cos i also added his favourite mango!) but my hb figured out something else. he says seth is a hyper active kid! to him, eating is not an activity! playing, yes. so to ask him to sit still for half hour to eat is torturous. we r not respecting him. so that's y he is notti to us! he has no prob eating outside when we dine out..cos it's a new place n new chair n such! sure enuff.. i tried to feed him in different ways. sometimes i let him crawl around. he will crawl to me and eat a spoonful..then crawl away and come back when i call to him. no fuss! and when i do place him in his high chair, i give him finger foods in intervals.. when he is bored. he loves to eat things off fingers! once i even resorted to rolling his food into tiny rice balls and feeding him with my fingers. he finished them all!
re: discipline/educational classes
my belief and understanding is, every child is born with a clean slate. whatever they learn and experience is fully absorbed. esp in the initial years. imagine when u write on a blank piece of paper. u can write anything u want.. and u can read it clearly. but as u fill up the page, it gets messier. u may need to squeeze the info by the sides, in between words, maybe even overlapping. but eventually, u realise the actual words written on the first layer still shows up more clearly then the added on words. a child's character is built by the age of 4. whether he is kind, violent, rude, polite, fillial,loving or everything that makes us. anything after that is just an influence. it may or may NOT be absorbed and change the person. if the parent is patient n willing to sacrifice and help the child onto the right path, then good for him/her. but if the parent is busy, boh chup, impatient, or the super negative and scolding kind, then most likely the child will have no positive examples to learn from. i dun believe there is a thing as born gifted or wat. so far those gifted children we see have very capable parents who knows how to nurture their young. even when they r uneducated, they r either super loving or super encouraging. thus their kids are keen to learn n excel. i've yet to see a super boh chap busy gambling or vulgarities swearing parent bring up a gifted child.
alamak..i m not born gifted, nor am i super capable. the only way to produce a smart (i'm not even looking at gifted hor) child is to let him learn from others lo. i believe learning not only comes from education in schools, it also involves phsical activities. play is oso important, as in socially, he can learn from his friends and peers ma. isn't that the reason we send them to schools... if really shun qi zi ran..then no need to go school oso can survive ma... zi ran means survival..not education, no? last time when policemen r in shorts and noodles cost 5 cents a bowl, ppl have neighbours and tens of siblings and relatives under 1 roof. they learn from them naturally (zi ran). now we live in hdb with closed doors.. and 1 or 2 siblings... learn wat? last time ppl run around on earth and grass (zi ran) now we run on cement and bemper mats. last time veggies n poultry no insecticide, pesticides or growth enhancement (zi ran), now we have the bird flu, the pesticide and chemically induced veggies, plucked when unripe and allowed to 'ripen' on the way during delivering. last time no fridge to keep food fresh, now we have freezers to keep the nutrients frozen while we decide when to consume them. we really shouldn't be comparing the lifestyle of then and now. life has moved on. and so should we.
done! after today, please call me ms loh soh...
