Thoughts and insights
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 Jadeite is a prized gemstone in China and amongst the Chinese diaspora. We know it as 翡翠玉. Thousands of Burmese men scour the hillsides of the Lonkin Township, in Kachin State, to find a jadeite boulder. One boulder will be enough to make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. If you examine the picture above, a jadeite boulder is a very ugly rock. Its surface betrays nothing of the beauty within. Yet, if you know how to pick the rock and later, work the rock, you will end up with gemstones of such breathtaking beauty that they command top dollar at Sotheby's. Jadeite, after being worked, glows with an inner light that seems to be alive. One would be forgiven for thinking that the stone is alive in some way.  Sometimes, I feel like one of those men scouring the hillsides of the Lonkin Township. No, I am not looking for jadeite boulders. I am looking for jadeite CHILDREN. These are children that look like losers. They hate school. They are disobedient. They are aggressive. They are stubborn. They have anger management issues. They cannot focus. Their grades are poor. They hate studying. These are children with Mothers who cry in front of me over Zoom, or in person. These are the Jadeite Children of Singapore. On the surface, the raw and unworked jadeite boulder looks so ugly that the untrained eye would dismiss it as a useless rock. On the surface, these children look terrible. They quite literally make their parents cry. When I find one, my heart flutters and I hear angels sing even when it is not X'mas. It was not always this way, you know. A few years ago, I rolled my eyes and prayed for strength. Now, it is all I can do to NOT jump up and down when I find one. Today, they are my raison d'être. These are the Hidden Gems of Singapore. Hidden Gem 1 This one punched his team mate in the stomach during my class. I had 6 facilitators helping me with my classes at that time. No one liked him. According to them, he was arrogant and contemptuous of people. I did not know why but I really liked him. I thought he was misunderstood. Needless to say, he had no friends. Today, he stands a good chance of being voted into his school's journalism CCA. He has to go around interviewing people. People like him. He was GEP. Hidden Gem 2 This one always came to class with an air of repressed violence, like a mini Bruce Lee. He was small, wiry and muscularly lean. This one got into fights in school every other week. On one occasion, he kicked his friend at the throat. On another, he kicked his errrr... School Principal. Then, one day, at a Bishan coffeeshop, he went into such a rage that he to be held down by 4 people: 2 sisters, his Mom and his brother. Today, he is in P6 and he has not got into a fight for an entire year and then some. Instead, he invented a game that can be played by 6 people, co-ordinated by the Game Master. He is the Game Master. He can coordinate about 6 games at a time. The whole class and some in other classes, all want to play his game. He now has many friends. He, too, was GEP. Hidden Gem 3 This one came to class looking apathetic and listless. If something looked remotely difficult, he did not want to do it. This was the first child who refused to play the games where he thought he might lose. He had the habit of speaking in a baby voice, and had absolutely no initiative at all. I thought that he had neither intelligence nor character. What a boring child! The only thing that set him apart was an attitude of extreme entitlement. If he did not like a game, he refused to play it. The whole class was expected to bend to his whim. Then, one day, he smacked his team mate during a discussion. Today, he has revealed himself to be a talented leader. He can draw out the shy ones' intelligence when leading them. He can harness and channel the strong will of the aggressive ones. He can mediate. Half of what he can do, I did not teach. It was simply inside him all along. This one is not GEP. In fact, he isn't even in the top class in his school. His grades in that middling class are mediocre, at best. Jadeite Children These are my Jadeite Children. Underneath the ugly, muddy and dirty surface, there is material that glows with different colours. That is the beauty of jadeite. Jadeite comes in imperial green, purple, brown, black, blue-green. Jadeite holds within it different patterns, and different degrees of translucency. All these come together in infinite ways. Every piece of jadeite is unique. Jadeite is not boring, like diamonds. Diamonds only sparkle. Diamonds are like God sat his angels down in a sweat shop to mass produce sparkling stones of the same design, and different colours. Jadeite is like God himself decided to paint in 3D, in the stone under the mountain. These are my Jadeite Children. Right now, I have a few unworked jadeite boulders. Jadeite Boulder 1 This one frightened me today, during Touch Rugby, when her face contorted into a mask of rage, and she roared at her friend, "I know you touched me!" She looked like Bilbo Baggins below. This one is gifted.  Jadeite Boulder 2
This one was a bully. He was aggressive in school, and in my class, he almost made a girl cry. Another girl almost exploded at him. He and I had a face-off in Lesson 4. I won. We are now at Lesson 10, and he is turning out nicely. I told his Papa today that this boy is CEO material. His brain turns quickly. He can read people. He has initiative. He has a strong will. This one scores only in the 60s in his P5 exams. Nobody said that carving jadeite is easy. Jadeite is 7 on the MOHS hardness scale. Jadeite carvers need to carve jadeite under a constant stream of flowing water. Else, the heat from the friction would destroy the stone. My job is to carve and shape these Jadeite Children to best bring out their innate beauty, without destroying them. Notice how a sculptor often uses flaws in a piece of jadeite as part of its final design. As such, flaws become assets. The natural strength of will in this child, if incorporated well into the final adult, is truly CEO material. Jadeite Boulder 3 This child's parents are quaking in their shoes. Their child refuses to do HW and to study. They fear he will end up in Normal stream because his grades are so poor. 2 weeks ago, he became so angry in my class that he drew his pen across the paper violently a few times. The paper almost tore. Today, he shyly told me that he hated school. So, I sat with him and listened to his woes. What no one else knew was that this child has amazing visual spatial ability. His brain can manipulate objects in 3D, with uncommon skill. Don't ask me how I know. Shhhh... trade secret. I cannot be teaching readers everything for free, right? Hah! The last child I taught with equivalent talent is doing 3D animation, and she is 1st among equals in that area. An Email So, this morning, when I received an email from a Papa saying, "His psychologist also said that he displays some ASD traits which we are now monitoring for. He has been having a tough time in school. Frequently gets into trouble, has anger issues, gets upset with specific assignments such as compo, writing about his feelings, and of course, Chinese, and often refuses these assignments. He loves learning and knowledge, but dislikes the structure in having to answer questions in a specific way." ... my heart went all aflutter and I heard angels sing, even though it is not X'mas. Jadeite children are rare. I have had the privilege of meeting many already. I am just not sure that there are enough such children to make my business viable!
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 This post is a continuation from HERE.
David S. Landes' book provides evidence that it is possible to raise capable children across multiple generations. Some parents are better at it than others. What are their parenting secrets? Dr. Pet is no historian. Dr. Pet is a psychologist. What follows are 2 parenting practices that I have observed in my parent coaching practice, which contribute to underperforming children. The Smothering Parent This parent cannot separate herself from her child. She feels a sense of worth from helping and serving her child. She helps the child with everything even if the child is clearly old enough to do many of the things. This parent sees the child as an extension of herself. She owns her child's triumphs and her child's disappointments. Her child becomes a way for this parent to feel validated and valued. This type of parenting completely disempowers the child. If docile, the child will not learn to be self-reliant. If not docile, this child will fight with the parent. Any time spent in conflict is time taken away from growth, development and achievement. The All or Nothing Parent This parent helps in everything until the child reaches a certain age. At that magic age, the parent decides that the child should be independent and so tells the child, "You are old enough to do this on your own. What is wrong with you? Why do you still need me to run after you?" That is a little like pulling a child out of a tub of nice hot water and plunging him into a tub of iced water. There is no transition. The transition from dependent child to independent child should not be so drastic. There should be interim stages. For example, many parents wake up one day and say to their child, "You are old enough to plan and monitor your own work. I am not helping you anymore." With my son, I went through 4 different stages: - Stage 1: I plan and explain to him why I plan things a certain way. - Stage 2: I do a vague plan and get his input on the specifics, always asking to understand why he prefers to plan a certain way. - Stage 3: He plans and explains to me why he plans things a certain way. - Stage 4: He plans and I don't care what he plans. By stage 4, I did not even have to tell him that he was old enough to do it on his own. He just naturally took over the planning and never felt for a single moment that there was something wrong with him. |
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Petunia Lee, Ph.D Archives
January 2022
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