Leaving your child with others.

Today many parents are working and have to leave their children with grandparents, kindergartens, day-care centers, maids or child-minders.

If you have grandparents like my aunt, the grandma whom I have told you about in ‘What if parents are not good at the chosen language‘, then you are indeed very lucky where language learning, cleanliness, good attitude, good behavior, good habits and safety are concerned.

However, grandparents tend to pamper their grandchildren too much. A pampered child may grow up thinking only of his/her own self. He/She may then grow up to be exceedingly demanding, and perhaps throwing tantrums whenever his/her demands are not met. This type of person would not find life easy as certainly most people would not give way to his/her demands to have everything suit his/her liking or wishes. This type of person may find himself or herself with very few, if any, friends. Relatives and family members may not like his/her ways. I do know of one such grandmother and certainly would not want any one of my children to end up with her fate. Do we want our children to fall into such a position? Certainly not but unless we realise such a problem early and ensure this does not occur, it may be too late to change the child by the time he/she has become a problem. This is one of those potholes in life that we must look out for.

Unfortunately, it is really difficult to disallow a grandparent to pamper a beloved grandchild. The best solution in such a situation is to leave the child for as short a time as possible with the grandparent. Be very careful in action as well as words for nobody would be happy to see the doting grandparent hurt.

When it comes to day-care centers and kindergartens, parents can always do a search for the best place to put a child. Is the place good, if not excellent, for language learning? Are the people involved kind and children loving? Ask those people who had sent their children there.

Distance should not be the criteria although I have heard parents tell their neighbours the place chosen is the nearest and most convenient, just on the way to the workplace. If need be, parents should spend a little more time and petrol to ensure the right place for their precious children. Their precious children’s whole future may be at stake!

Be it a maid or a child minder, one who can help to give your child a head start in life is certainly the best choice. Besides language learning, there is the safety aspect. Though you may be very busy in the office you could keep an eye on the maid (It’s not that easy where the child minder is concerned as your child would be at her home.) with an installed camera at various parts of the house. Nowadays, I am told you can monitor the camera from your office some distance away. There are parents I know who have just installed such surveillance cameras in their house. Well, it looks like much can be done if there is enough money at your disposal. Ultimately, how careful you choose the maid or child minder is important. If the maid or child minder loves children, the safety aspect is well taken care of. What other factors do you need to consider? Cleanliness is important. So are attitudes, behavior and habits. There is also the child minder’s children to think of. What kind of children are they? Are they lazy, vulgar, argumentative or rude? We ought to remember that all these people can slowly and gradually influence our children in all aspects.

Other factors such as money and perhaps the location are of no importance as far as giving your child the best head start is concerned.

Well, if both are working parents, you have to plan this carefully so that your child will benefit from your actions.

Leaving your child with other people.

Today many parents are working and have to leave their children with grandparents, kindergartens, day-care centers, maids or child-minders.
If you have grandparents like my aunt, the grandma whom I have told you about in ‘What if parents are not good at the chosen language‘, then you are indeed very lucky where language learning, cleanliness, good attitude, good behavior, good habits and safety are concerned.

However, grandparents tend to pamper their grandchildren too much. A pampered child may grow up thinking only of his/her own self. He/She may then grow up to be exceedingly demanding, and perhaps throwing tantrums whenever his/her demands are not met. This type of person would not find life easy as certainly most people would not give way to his/her demands to have everything suit his/her liking or wishes. This type of person may find himself or herself with very few, if any, friends. Relatives and family members may not like his/her ways. I do know of one such grandmother and certainly would not want any one of my children to end up with her fate. Do we want our children to fall into such a position? Certainly not but unless we realise such a problem early and ensure this does not occur, it may be too late to change the child by the time he/she has become a problem. This is one of those potholes in life that we must look out for.

Unfortunately, it is really difficult to disallow a grandparent to pamper a beloved grandchild. The best solution in such a situation is to leave the child for as short a time as possible with the grandparent. Be very careful in action as well as words for nobody would be happy to see the doting grandparent hurt.

When it comes to day-care centers and kindergartens, parents can always do a search for the best place to put a child. Is the place good, if not excellent, for language learning? Are the people involved kind and children loving? Ask those people who had sent their children there.

Distance should not be the criteria although I have heard parents tell their neighbours the place chosen is the nearest and most convenient, just on the way to the workplace. If need be, parents should spend a little more time and petrol to ensure the right place for their precious children. Their precious children’s whole future may be at stake!

Be it a maid or a child minder, one who can help to give your child a head start in life is certainly the best choice. Besides language learning, there is the safety aspect. Though you may be very busy in the office you could keep an eye on the maid (It’s not that easy where the child minder is concerned as your child would be at her home.) with an installed camera at various parts of the house. Nowadays, I am told you can monitor the camera from your office some distance away. There are parents I know who have just installed such surveillance cameras in their house. Well, it looks like much can be done if there is enough money at your disposal. Ultimately, how careful you choose the maid or child minder is important. If the maid or child minder loves children, the safety aspect is well taken care of. What other factors do you need to consider? Cleanliness is important. So are attitudes, behavior and habits. There is also the child minder’s children to think of. What kind of children are they? Are they lazy, vulgar, argumentative or rude? We ought to remember that all these people can slowly and gradually influence our children in all aspects.

Other factors such as money and perhaps the location are of no importance as far as giving your child the best head start is concerned.

Well, if both are working parents, you have to plan this carefully so that your child will benefit from your actions.

Help the teachers to perform well.

You are the most important person in your child's life. Then come the teachers. They play an important role in ensuring the success and happiness of your child. How effective the teachers play their role depends upon two factors.
a) The quality of the teachers.
b) What ideas on respect for others you have taught your children.

When it comes to the quality of the teachers, we have no alternative but to presume them good if not excellent unless proven otherwise. This means we must start with wholesome respect for the teachers and place confidence in them to do their job well. Just check on your children's progress as often as you can.

How effective good teachers are depends on the parents' attitude towards teachers. Through words and deeds a parent can convey the wrong attitude causing the child to have no respect for teachers and authority.

If children are taught a healthy respect for teachers, children will be well prepared to accept the teaching of the teachers. Without an obstacle obstructing the flow of knowledge from the teachers to the children, children are more interested in their lessons and progress will be so much faster.

Unfortunately there are parents who slow down the learning process with doubts about teachers. For example, there are parents who caused their children to become confused with what has been taught with: "Your teacher said! Your teacher said! Forget what your teacher said. I am your parent! Now throw those pieces of chocolate wrappers immediately and don't mess up your hands. By the time you take it to the dustbin, your hands will be dirty. Then you rub your dirty hands onto your trousers and this mummy will have to wash it. Now throw it away! I don't care where you throw it, Just do it. I don't want to have to wash dirtier clothes."

And all that damage done to the child's trust in his/her teacher's advise to throw the chocolate wrappers into a dustbin.

The poor child must be confused.Was the teacher wrong and could it be that which makes mummy so angry? Should I follow her teaching again? Poor child! What is she going to do with the next eleven or more years of learning from teachers?

Parents should not allow this to happen to their children. There are parents who unwittingly teach their children not to listen to their teachers.

Yet, later in life when these children have grown up to be litter-bugs and are fined or punished for littering by the law, their parents would be demanding "What have all these years of schooling taught you? Your teachers are useless! A simple thing like throwing rubbish into the dustbin; you're not capable of doing that! Useless school! Useless teachers!

So, parents should allow teachers to do their job and let children learn the correct things even if it means inconveniencing them a little.

How the right circumstances and the need to communicate helped

I am going to tell you how a child learned English in a year’s stay in a strange place.

When I attended a one-year TESL (Teaching of English as a Secondary Language) in University Malaya, I met a married Chinese couple with their only child, a girl aged three years. They were from Penang Island. The husband was attending the same TESL course while the wife was a housewife. They decided to stay in Kuala Lumpur so that they could be with the man of the family.

They thought of a suitable place to lodge and while doing so, the idea of having their child learn English in this new place. However, they were not thinking of placing her in a kindergarten or a boarding school. They realized that their child forced by circumstances to communicate in another language would be able to take on the challenge and overcome any obstacles in her path, emerging with sufficient language skills to survive in such a situation.

With at least a parent nearby, the child would not feel neglected or lost in facing the problem of having to communicate in another language.

How can such a situation be arranged? They determined to search for an English speaking family with no Chinese Language proficiency. With some effort, they did find an Indian family who speaks mostly English with hardly any Tamil language used.
They managed to rent a room there and stayed for a year. The Chinese girl had to listen to and talk to the Indian couple and their children in English. The girl’s mother gave her child lots of opportunity to play with the Indian children.

Soon, a year was over and the little Chinese girl had mastered sufficient English Language to talk, joke, scold and complain about her friends to their parents during the various situations that arise from time to time.

The right circumstances and the need to communicate are strong motivating forces in language learning.

What if parents are not good at the chosen language?

We ought to choose carefully the language or languages we want our children to be proficient in.

An international language such as the English Language is important as the world has become global, especially in the field of trade and commerce. The mother tongue or the language of the place you are residing in is important too as communication in every sphere of life in the ciuntry is essential. Whatever language it is, it is needed to put our children in the foremost path to success. In most cases high proficiency in a particular language determines the future of our children.

Unfortunately, not every parent is proficient in the necessary language. Well, if the language required is English, most probably that parent will not be able to reach this knowledge. However, since the aim of this blog is to help as many parents as possible, I hope those who understand or know this blog can help others to overcome their problems.

Let me tell you a true story about an aunt who helped her grandson learn English.
The parents of this child were very busy with earning a living and this grandma took on the job of caring for her grandchild.

During those days, we had 'Sesame Street' with words taught in an enjoyable way. There were also VCDs for teaching the alphabets with an alphabet song for the child to sing along with. There are so many teaching programmes on discs. On such programmes are big beautiful pictures with somebody pronouncing the names of the things shown.

This grandma would put the child in front of the television with the video player and allow the child to follow the entertaining programme. However, not every programme is good or entertaining. So, grandma got someone good in English to pick the programmes for her.

What are the criteria of a good programme?
1. Such a programme must be entertaining for young children.
2. It must show some kind of suitable activity.
3. There must be some music or appropraite sounds.
4. It has to be colourful.
5. It is good if there are songs for children to follow or sing along with.
6. The language used has to be correct and suitable to the level of the
targeted audience or children.
7. Are the words sufficiently big and clear for a very young child?
8. The pronunciation must be clear and sufficiently loud.

As the child grew, grandma looked for more suitable programmes with more songs, nursery rhymes and cartoon adventures; everyone of them with big subtitles so that the child can follow them. I visited this aunt and found her grandson improving at a tremendous speed.

For parents who are not proficient in the language, there is the kindergarten where teachers help the children with their language learning while there is an opportunity for children to mix and communicate with their peers.

I have seen the excellent language level of a grandson under the care of a grandma who had hardly any proficiently at all accomplishing her task of preparing her grandchild for life in the literate world, just with the aid of a television, a video player, suitable discs, books and the teachers at a kindergarten.

During and after the kindergarten phase, suitable entertaining storybooks were purchased for the child to enjoy and improve.With such aids, children can move one step nearer to success.

(Perhaps, what has been given is not comprehensive enough. Anyone with other means of tackling this problem is invited to put whatever he/she knows his/her comments so that many can benefit from his/her experience. Thank you.)

The role of television in language learning.

Usually, when we think of modern day distractions for children, what comes to mind are television and the computer.

In almost every household, a television is placed right in the living room where children often sit and watch cartoons and films as well as commercials. Actually, cartoons, films and commercials have their roles to play in teaching children how to use language. Although there is no reading involved, there is a lot of vocabulary to be learned or remembered through their usage.

When my children were very young, I showed them 'The Sound of Music', 'Little Orphan Annie' and other films from discs and video cassettes. They were children's favourites. The films mentioned here are loaded with songs which they enjoyed singing. When children are interested in a film, they can watch those same films again and again.My children were not interested in the adult-type stories usually shown on television. Usually such films are not suitable for children. In the mornings, there are suitable cartoons to help the children learn through entertainment.

What about the attractive commercials with their catchy tunes and beautiful rythmic language? They do teach children some vocabulary and how to use language to attract attention to things.

With oral language skills improved through cartoons, films and advertisement, television cannot actually be termed as a distraction at this early stage of a child's life.

However, there will come a time when there ought to be more reading than watching and listening.When the time arrives, how do you shift their attention to books and other reading materials?

If the parents have introduced them to beautiful pictures and big-sized words in books, the pictures in them will atttact the attention of the children. Thus, suitable attractive materials in books is the first answer.

Next is the pride and ego of a child who knows he/she can read. Together with praise for his ability from the parents, the pride, confidence and ego of the child leads him/her to greater interest in the ability to read even more words.Later on, in kindergarten and the first year of formal education, his ability to read can boost his/her confidence to excel in class. Success breeds success; so with his good performance in class, he yearns to be even better.

Third is the excellent selection of children's stories to entertain and keep his/her eyes glued to the stories in the books.Parents must be careful in the selection of suitable entertaining stories.

Parents must sacrifice by not watching so much television. Remember that parents are always in control of situations. Do not turn on the television without a good reason. Do not distract your child from the wonderful stories in books.

As such the television and the disc player have their roles in furthering the language skills of our precious children.

Let your child be familiar with books.

Words cannot become a part of your child’s vocabulary unless there is usage by your child. If you hear your child using correctly the words you have spoken to him/her, then you can be assured that the words have been understood and learned.
Once your child is able to pronounce the words and speak to you with whatever language you have been teaching him/her, it is time to have your precious child become familiar with one of the most important things in his life, books. Let him/her be familiar with books and the pictures, colours as well as the words in them.

A child imitates in order to learn. You are the child’s role model. Let the child see you enjoy the stories in the books. Read to your child. Let him see your mouth form the words so that he/she can do likewise. Once he/she can read simple words, your child can go on to reading stories. Start with very short, simple stories. Such stories are easily obtainable from books from the local library.

That was how my wife and I taught my children and my nephew how to read English books. We took the children to the library, sat them down on comfortable little chairs, and introduced the pictures in the books available there. Before this, we had already talked to them, my children and my nephew, in English. By the time we took them to the library, they could talk with very simple vocabulary. My elder son could say “Water the plants,” as he walked unsteadily around the plants in our compound with a sprayer in one hand. My nephew, about two years older than my elder son, would laugh at him and tell me about what he saw in English. We would teach them the names of things by saying the words and sentences and they would repeat them. Very soon, we had them read words and very short sentences.

Once my precious children and nephew could read simple sentences, we bought the already well-known Ladybird readers. The ladybird series go from easy most often used words to more difficult once, introducing the words gradually and repeatedly use whatever vocabulary which has been introduced earlier. In this manner, a child effortlessly remembers the words.

With such a reading aid, I noticed that my children and my nephew progressed easily and the desire to read more stories in English was well established after a fairly short time, especially when they realized they could read well. My son told me, that realization itself gave him the incentive to want to read even more. Each night, just before bedtime, my sons and my nephew (whenever my nephew stayed the night at my place which was quite often) would eagerly start reading the next outing or adventure of the two children and their dog.

After being able to complete the ladybird reading series, parents ought to make available books with suitable vocabulary for the children to continue this pleasurable past-time.

From here onwards, all that are required are suitable reading materials, perhaps chosen by the children themselves, with praise of the children's capabilities whenever visitors to the house offer opportunities to do so.

And reading is obviously one of the most important ways to learn, to gain knowledge, to know other civilizations, to understand other humans on this earth and to harvest the benefits of other people’s experiences which may take too many life-times to experience personally.

Thus, I consider the ability to read and understand one of the most important ways to put our precious children on a strong footing for success in life.