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Tending Our Gardens

It is really not easy being parents. Many of us struggle daily with parenting, with the various challenges we face with our children, more so if our children have special needs.

Many times we feel we have failed as parents because our children are “too sensitive”, “too insensitive”, “too active”, “too inactive”, “too loud”, “too quiet”, and “too clingy”, “too independent”, and the list goes on. We feel others judging us for the behaviour of our children. We feel (dare I say it?) embarrassed by what our children do or how they behave.

Such feelings are normal. Having such emotions do not make us less worthy parents. We do not need to feel ashamed of feeling embarrassed. What we need to do, however, is to recognise the emotion and remind ourselves we are doing our best. And, more importantly, remind ourselves that our children are doing their best. They are who they are. We cannot change that. What we can do is to change the level of our acceptance to their quirkiness, their uniqueness. At the same time, we can gently guide them, with the patience to know it may take hundreds, if not thousands of repetitions before our guidance sink in. 

Many parents lose faith and patience because they do not see results. Unfortunately, that negatively affects the children who may end up feeling unloved and unaccepted. That then causes them to act up even more, not because they want to, but because unmet needs trigger tantrums, outbursts and all sorts of behavioral challenges. 

As difficult as the journey may be, one thing I have realised in my own parenting journey is that challenges yield growth. The more challenges I face with my children, the more I grow as a person. I become more loving, more patient, more accepting, more creative. They are NOT a problem I need to fix. They are helping me identify MY gaps so I can grow, so I can guide them without spirally negatively downward in anger and frustration.

A few days ago, I was commenting to my teens that I feel so blessed they are so easy-going, accommodating and pleasant to be around. They did not become rebellious, argumentative, rude or dismissive towards me or their dad. I’m grateful they are able to respectfully discuss the differences in their desires from what we, the parents, have in mind for them. 

My teens concurred. Indeed they rarely, if ever, felt the need to rebel or fight us. “You are really blessed,” they agreed wholeheartedly, pleased with themselves.

But I said to them, “Maybe the way you were parented had something to do with it. If your dad or I had constantly forced you to do what we want you to do, you would probably rebel and fight us at every point. If we had shouted at you or hit you to get you in line instead of explaining and getting buy-in from you, you wouldn’t be so respectful towards us. So while we are blessed to have teens like you, you two are blessed to have parents like us.”

The teens thought for a moment and nodded. “Yes, mom. You are right.”

Parenting is about building relationships. What we put into the relationship is what we will reap from it. Sow respect and we will gain respect. Sow love and we will gain love. Our garden is dependent on the seeds we sow. The earlier we plant the seeds, the sooner we see the harvest.

What kind of “harvest” would you like to have? 

Happy Parenting!

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Mastermind for Teens

(As shared on Decoding Your Child Facebook post on 4 September 2019)

My sharing of our weekly mastermind sessions with our teens yesterday has generated some queries from parents on what mastermind sessions are and what they encompass. I would like to thank those parents for PM’ing me to ask. For the benefit of those who may have been too shy to ask, let me share a little more about our “Masterminds”.

Mastermind sessions are essentially mentoring sessions. 

Part 1: Review

In terms of the structure of our Masterminds (and different groups can have different structures), we always begin with a REVIEW of the previous week.

Some typical questions we would ask are

1) What went well?
2) What could be done better?
3) What goals have been achieved?
4) What goals have not been achieved and why not? 
5) What kind of support would have been helpful? 
6) What lessons have been learnt? 

We would celebrate successes mentioned in 1).

If there is guidance/teaching to be done based on the review, my husband or I would do a short teaching session. These usually pertain to mindsets, values, habits, systems, etc. For example highlighting the growth mindset my daughter had when she decided to enter into a race where her competitors were stronger than she was, or the willingness to learn exhibited by my son when his internship required him to learn new programming languages, or the strategies to combat procrastination, or the importance of being on time, etc.

Part 2: Looking Ahead

After our review, we’d plan for the upcoming week. Typical questions would include

A) What SMART goals to set? (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time Bound). Usu 3-4 goals per week.
B) How to achieve them?
C) Any extra support needed?
D) What activities/events are coming up? 

As to what kind of goals the children should set depends on the children themselves. One of mine wants to be more physically fit, so the goals are more fitness oriented. Another loves the arts and sets goals to complete more work in those areas. Sometimes, they have projects to complete and would set goals that will push them towards the completion of those projects. Sometimes, I may find a child lacking in an area and urge that child to think about a goal that will help him/her grow in that area. Most times, my main role when it comes to their goal-setting is to ask them how they plan to achieve it and whether they need any extra support to complete it.

After goal setting, we would synchronise our calendars and lock down slots throughout the week to do family activities together. If the kids have specific requests on activities they would like to do together or foods they would like to eat, we would pen those down in our calendars. If they have a upcoming performance, we will be reminded to attend. That way, our family time is always pre-fixed. 

After going through the calendar and factoring in all their activities, I’d disburse their allowance for the week. If they have excess savings from previous week(s), they’d pass to me to put in their banks. Usually, that’d be the time we talk a little about financial prudence and financial planning.

By the time our mastermind session is over, we would have learned what our children have done the previous week and what they have learned (if any ;p). If any corrective measure needs to be taken to prevent similar mistakes from happening, we would be able to identify them and make the necessary corrections. In addition, everyone is up to speed on the plans everyone has for the coming week. And we all begin the week with great clarity and purpose.

I hope this sharing on our Mastermind sessions is helpful to you. While I had thought Masterminds were more suitable for pre-teens and teens, my little 6-year-old has shown great interest in it. She wants to set goals and has been reviewing her goals throughout the week to ensure she meets all of them. She also wants to share her successes and the challenges she faced. And she most definitely wants to participate in the collection of allowance and counting of savings. So I guess as long as the child is keen, even a Primary 1 (First Grade) child can participate in a mastermind.

Do let me know if this is a process that will be helpful for you. Or if you have a different process, I’d love to hear from you!

Happy Parenting!

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Of Wolves and Dragons

What kind of a person will our child grow up to be?

We saw a live Ninjago performance at our recent visit to Legoland Malaysia. The story was about the ninjas rescuing a dragon from the forces of darkness so it will be a dragon of light and do good instead of a dragon of darkness and wreck havoc.

The thing is, it’s the same dragon with the same power. But what it would use its power for will depend on what it has been trained to do. 

Was it reared with love, kindness and encouragement? Or was it reared with darkness, hatred and resentment?

Obviously the environment will shape the type of dragon it would become.

It reminds me of the Cherokee story of the fight between the 2 wolves inside us, except in this version, the fight between light and darkness is internal.

You see, inside each and every one of us resides an “evil” wolf and a “good” wolf. The wolf that wins the fight is the one we feed. 

If we feed our wolves with anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and/or ego, the evil wolf will win.

But if we feed our wolves with joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith, the good wolf will win.

While our environment plays a role in shaping who we are, it is we who determine what we allow into our system. 

As parents, we not only control the environment which our children grow up in, we also serve as their teachers and guides. Subsequently, when our children grow up, we become the inner voices they hear when they process their thoughts. Are they capable enough? Are they good enough? Are they loving towards others? Are they showing empathy to those who have been mean to them? Are they kind? Are they resilient? What would they do when they encounter difficulties?  Their answers to these questions depend on what we teach them and what we say to them. 

Recently, A had a difficult time with another child and was repeatedly reduced to tears. I could take the easy way out and reduce interaction between that child and A. I could paint A as a victim and the other child a target for negative labels. But I see a higher purpose in their interaction. I helped A see how she could be a teacher to that child, to help that child learn gentleness and generosity. And at the same time, I felt it would help A build her resilience so she wouldn’t be so easily affected by what others say or do. Amazingly, she agreed to be a teacher. In fact she said, “I can stand up for myself because I am resilient. And I still love XYZ and I will be a teacher to help him be nicer.”

That really warmed my heart bcos she sees herself as a learner (in self-defence) and a teacher (in guiding the other child). When she grows up seeing adversities as opportunities to learn and teach, nothing will fazz her. Her blueprint in dealing with adversities and “difficult” people will be a positive one.

We, as parents, help our children build their blueprints: blueprint in dealing with setbacks, blueprint in dealing with difficult people, blueprint in dealing with abundance, etc etc. Our children carry these blueprints with them unconsciously. 

Many people live with negative blueprints without even realising their thoughts were “imprinted” from young. For those of us fortunate enough, we realise the existence of our negative blueprints and do our utmost best to undo them and create a new set of positive blueprints.

Hence it is very important that we remind our children they are capable (even when they make mistakes), that they are good enough based on the knowledge and skills they have at that moment. We show them how to empathise, love and be kind to others. We encourage them to get on their feet when they fall and help them see obstacles and challenges as opportunities for growth and development. 

Which wolf our kids will feed subsequently when they grow up really then depends on what we say to them and what we teach them when they are young.  Whether they will grow up to be dragons of light or dragons of darkness too will depend on the environment we provide for them.

While it may seem a scary thought with overwhelming responsibility, we can choose to see it in another way.

In order to build an environment of light for our children and be the voice that will feed their “good” wolf, we too will end up feeding our good wolf and become dragons of light. Now wouldn’t that be wonderful?

We may not be able to motivate ourselves to become better, but for the sake of our children, we will be able to do it. That’s why our children are our best teachers.

Happy Parenting!!

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Bringing Motivation Back To Our Children

(As shared on Decoding Your Child Facebook post on 31 May 2019)

If there’s something I hear most from parents, it is their frustration at their unmotivated teens, esp their boys. 

It is very interesting to note that motivation is not something we inculcate in our children. Like creativity, motivation is actually something we and our children are born with! (Just watch how fast a baby crawls towards his favourite toy!)

Unfortunately, along the way as our children grow up, we parents start to put up a lot of boundaries. We start dictating what they need to do. We start telling them a lot “no”s. And research shows that boys tend to get more “no”s than their female counterparts. 

The more persistent the child, the more vehement our “NO!” gets and the more demoralised the child becomes. For every “no” a child receives, a part of him is stifled. Of course I’m not saying we cannot say no to our children. But if our kids receive mostly “no”s for every request they make, they start to realise they have no say in their lives and they STOP to think about things they want to do or brew up interesting ideas they have or activities they want to pursue. THAT is how we kill BOTH their creativity and their motivation. Why motivation? Because they are no longer doing things they enjoy or want to. Because they are doing things that we tell them to do ALL THE TIME. And we know how extremely difficult it is to stay motivated doing something that someone else tells us to do. 

Hence if we want our children, esp our boys, to be motivated, give them room to pursue their interest. Give them back control over their lives. The more control they have over their lives, the more motivated they would become. 

Slowly but surely, we will see the spark of motivation and creativity rekindled in their eyes.

The school holidays are upon us. Do give as much time as possible for your children to chill, play and do what they like. It’s a time for them to recharge so they can fill THEIR cups and have room to find motivation within themselves.

Happy Vacation and Happy Parenting!!

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Teaching While Resolving Conflict

It All Began With A Cake

I had been craving for a chocolate cheesecake for quite some time. So the day before Mother’s Day, I told my teens that I would like to have a chocolate cheesecake to celebrate Mother’s Day. I even found a simple no-bake recipe and sent it to them. (I have realised that subtlety is frequently lost on teens. I need to be direct and specific to get what I want.)

Thankfully, they sprung into action and got busy with the cheesecake.  After putting the cake together, they left it in the fridge to chill overnight, in preparation for Mother’s Day celebration.

When my teens served it after dinner the next day, my 17-year old exclaimed, “That went well!” and my 14-year-old agreed with her brother.  I added, “Wow, that looks great!” But my little 6-year-old took one look at it and said, “That didn’t turn out well.”

My 14-year-old took offense at that. “What do you mean it didn’t turn out well?”  she asked incredulously.

And the evening went downhill after that.  Tears flowed because the 14-year-old was hurt by her sister’s critical remark while the 6-year-old was upset that her sister had challenged her opinion.

Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong?

Well, in my opinion, both were wrong.  

My littlest one had lacked tact in her comments and had hurt her sister.  My teen girl was too thin-skinned to take a critical remark despite getting good comments from her brother and me. 

Yet at the same time, both were right! 

My 6-year-old had probably based her impression of how the cake would look from what she had seen from the online recipe.  THAT cake had frosting and strawberries as well as chocolate drizzle on it. So comparing THAT with the decoration-free cake made by her siblings, it would be fair to say the actual cake “didn’t turn out well”.  

Similarly, my 14-year-old was right to insist the cake had turned out well because the teens had not intended to frost the cake, nor did they manage to buy strawberries to adorn the cake. They had intended to present a plain chocolate cheesecake and, as far as that went, the cake turned out really good!

What Caused This Conflict?

1) Expectations
Both my 14-year-old and 6-year-old had different expectations as illustrated above. And because of that difference, there was disagreement.

2) Focus
My 6-year-old was focused on how pretty the cake should look instead of focusing on the effort that her siblings had put in to make the cake on short notice. My 14-year-old was focused on the negative comment from her younger sister instead of the positive comments from her mother, the recipient of the cake, and her older brother. 

3) Carried Over Emotion
Prior to making the cake, my 14-year-old was, as usual, playing “mom” to her little sister, correcting the little one, telling her what to do, etc. Understandably, that did not go down well with the little one.  So she harboured some animosity towards her older sister. When presented with an opportunity to hurt with a negative comment, she grabbed it whole-heartedly.

Was she right to do so?  No. But was it understandable why she did it?  Yes.

How to Resolve This?

As with all conflict, we can always choose the punitive way or the loving way.  Of course, there is a third choice, which is to ignore it. Knowing me, I chose the loving way.  But for the sake of understanding, let us look at the impact or consequences of the other ways as well.

a) The Punitive Way
If I had chosen to reprimand the girls for their behaviour, I would have only focused on how they were wrong, that one was rude and the other was too thin-skinned. Both of them would have felt invalidated. The 6-year-old would learn it didn’t pay to be honest.  The 14-year-old would learn it was not ok to feel hurt by hurtful comments from someone whom she loves dearly.

Obviously, those were not the lessons I wanted my girls to get out of this conflict. 

Moreover, if I had opted for the punitive way, both would feel I was unfair, that I had obviously ignored the “wrong” done by the other party. That would breed their resentment towards me. Both would feel I was siding with the other party. 

2) Ignore It
If I had chosen to ignore it, I would be tacitly agreeing with what both were doing. They would both stand firm that they were right and the other party was wrong. And that would breed resentment towards the other for the perceived attack.

Furthermore, they would be upset with me for not putting the other person right. Since I did not reprimand them, they must be right, which means the other person was in the wrong. And, by their logic, if the other person were wrong, then I, as Mom, must correct that person. If I kept quiet, then I would also be in the wrong! And their resentment towards me would grow.

Obviously, breeding resentment was not one of my goals in building strong relationships within the family.

3) The Loving Way
What is the “loving” way?  To me, it is one where we help one another see others’ perspectives so they can each can agree or come to the conclusion the mistakes they have made.  

This was what I did to resolve their conflict.

I started by telling my 6-year-old that I thought the cake turned out really well because it was something her siblings had whipped up on short notice.  I agreed with her it would have looked nicer if her siblings had had time and the frosting and strawberries to decorate the cake, but because they didn’t, the cake was as great as it could have looked.  More importantly, it was the tastiest chocolate cheesecake I had ever had.  Hence, to me, the cake was a huge success.

With that, my 14-year-old was able to understand the “standard” her sister was using when she had made that hurtful comment.  It helped to somewhat soothe how she had felt.  

To help diffuse the tense situation further, I turned to my 14-year-old, looked her in the eye and told her all I wanted was a plain chocolate cheesecake and I got my wish. To me, the cake was a success because it was also extremely tasty. I added that she could choose to focus on what her little sister had said about the cake, or what her brother and I, the recipient of her gift, had felt about the cake. I acknowledged that she had felt hurt because she loved her sister dearly and the latter’s comments mattered to her.  I also added that I agreed with her that the little one could have been more tactful in her comment but seeing that she was but a 6-year-old, tact would be a difficult quality for her to possess. Hence, all of us needed to work harder to model tact for her to learn.

That helped my 14-year-old recalibrate what she could choose to hear: the praises or the criticism.  She realised her cake WAS a success (she had said so herself before her sister’s negative comment) and it did not matter what her sister had said. It also helped her realise that our every comment to one another was an opportunity to model tact and if she wanted tact from her sister, she needed to speak with tact as well.

As for the little one, she realised she was the “odd-one-out” thinking the cake was not a success.  It also helped her see she was being tactless in her comment and that she still had lots of room to learn how to be tactful. 

Doing what I did helped my girls reflect what they could each improve upon.  They did not feel “invalidated” as their “erroneous ways” were based on understandable reasons. But they knew what they could work on to become better and more loving towards each other. More importantly, they understood each other slightly better as a result of this conflict resolution.

Why Is This Important?

This is but a typical small conflict within any family.  Some may feel it’s not something worth blogging about.  But what triggered me to write about it was I realised the way we parents handle any conflict amongst our children will make a huge difference on how everyone feels about everyone.  

If we handle conflicts amongst the children in the punitive way, not only would that breed resentment in the children towards one other, it would also lead to our children resenting us, the parents, for being unfair! 

The same applies if we choose to ignore the conflicts. By not doing anything about something that we know about that is wrong, we are actually communicating something.  We are actually silently screaming to our kids, “IT’S OK! YOU ARE RIGHT! CARRY ON!” Like the punitive way, our children will resent one another and us because they don’t see us correcting the other party.

By choosing to resolve conflicts lovingly, we can help everyone see different perspectives.  We help our children develop empathy. With time and constant modeling from us, they will grow to develop the ability to see the “bigger” picture.  

And if I may add, it trains us to go beyond their conflict and allows us the breathing space decode their behaviour instead. We stop seeing our children as being naughty or rude or overly sensitive. We see them as children who have room for growth and development. We begin to accept them as children who are reacting based on their understanding and capability to control themselves. And THAT helps us regulate OUR blood pressure so we will not get triggered easily by their conflicts. That, in turn, allows us to discipline and guide our children with patience and love.

More Lessons

Was that the end of the episode?  No, not really.

My 14-year-old came to me at bedtime and had a long chat with me about how she had felt about her sister’s comment.  So I reiterated everything I had said earlier.  I also told her that we were all one another’s teachers.  

Whenever someone triggers us, there is something we need to learn from there. We can go beyond the incident and look deeper into why the other person is doing what he/she is doing. When we do that, we can grow our empathy. OR we can look deeper into ourselves and see why we react the way we do thereby growing our self-awareness.  OR we can do both and grow even faster!

In her case, the reason why she felt so hurt was because of her need to be perfect. That is why even though the majority of us had told her the cake was successful, she only heard the negative comment and took that to heart instead.  Hence for her, her lesson could be she needed to feel she was good enough. Even if there were room for improvement, she was good enough at that point in time with what she knew and what she had. The thing is this. Nobody is perfect. That is a fact. The sooner she acknowledges she is NOT perfect and can never be, the more she will be open and less offended when someone shows her where she can improve. If anything, she needs to be grateful to that person for helping her become a better person!

I am extremely grateful to have had that conversation with her because every time I “teach” that, I remind myself not to be prickly when someone criticises me. Yes, I too suffer from the syndrome of “being Ms Perfect”.  And I suspect most people suffer the same…

What about my 6-year-old? Well, I had a conversation with her the next day sharing with her how much her sister loved her and how her comment had hurt her sister. Then I asked her how would she feel if she had put in a lot of effort making something and someone just told her, “It didn’t turn out well.” She replied, “Sad.” I followed up with my favourite question, “What do you think you need to do now?”

And she went and gave her sister a hug and said, “I am sorry.” And her sister replied, “It’s ok. I love you.”

I love teaching with love. No accusations, no blaming, no tears.

Happy Parenting!!

Read more about improving relationships between siblings:

8 Ways to Help Siblings Get Along

What To Do When Kids Fight?