Many parents explain concepts to their children. Then, they assign practices. They correct practices. Finally, they give feedback for improvement. The more they do this, the more their children hate studying. Thousands of Singaporean children spend 12 years learning Chinese, but still cannot speak, nor write it halfway well.
Yet, almost everyone teaches like this because everyone thinks that effective teaching = making things idiot proof for the children. In my experience, this bores them and turns them off studying. The same parents also note that their children can learn some things without being taught. Some teenagers learn to speak Korean simply by listening to K-Pop and learning to dance K-Pop. Yet, no one teaches like this. We like to teach our children by telling them things in an idiot proof manner, almost as if children are too dumb to figure things out from complex stimuli. Yet, your toddlers learnt to talk in your mother tongue without you explaining concepts, assigning practices nor giving feedback for improvement. Children’s brains are built for figuring things out. If we taught by enabling them, instead of feeding them with idiot-proof explanations, they would enjoy studying a lot more. Parents turn pale when they see the difficulty of my work. Yet, none of the children do. I recently assigned a leadership research paper to 2 mothers to read with their boys. Both mothers turned pale and said, “Dr. Pet, there is no way I can get them to understand this research paper. I barely understand it myself!” Dr. Pet said, “Let me show you.” Enabling With Materials I gave the boys the research paper with certain parts highlighted. Enabling With Guiding Questions All I did was to ask 5 questions.
At no time did I explain anything to the boys. In fact, the boys explained everything to me. Then, the boys realized that they had just figured out a research paper from a top tier organizational psychology journal, all by themselves. They even found it interesting! This was how I taught my own children.
By the time both went into secondary school (in IP NYGH and IB of ACS(I)), both were strong independent learners. Neither had tuition. Yet both scored in the top of their cohorts for ‘A’ levels and for IB. The Daughter scored 8 A level distinctions. The Son will be going to Cambridge. During the entire month of Home Based Learning, if you are experiencing a lot of stress working with your children during Home Based Learning, please type your issue/question in the comments below. I will troubleshoot for you and post my advice in future posts. Anonymous questions will not be answered.
0 Comments
The Chinese have a saying that states, "Wealth does not last 3 generations." The 1st generation is the high achieving generation. The 2nd generation is the wealth maintenance generation. The 3rd generation squanders it all.
For such a saying to make it into common parlance, it is clear that the problem of low achieving children born to high achieving parents, exists. In the course of coaching parents, I see this pattern all the time. There are many reasons for this, and I need to pull data to diagnose the root. However, one of the most common reasons is the following. High achieving parents teach their children incompetence. At this point, I can almost hear all these successful people scoff and roll their eyes, saying, "Nonsense! I have never taught my child incompetence. I keep telling my child to be like me. Why can't he be more like me?" You see, telling your child to be like you, is guaranteed to make the child unlike you. Families fit together like puzzle pieces. Where you have a protrusion, your child will grow cavity. Where you are competent, your child will be incompetent. Where you are fast, your child will be slow. Where you are independent, your child will be dependent. So, in order to help my children achieve (see HERE and HERE), my most useful parenting skill was to look incompetent and stupid. Another analogy I often use with parents is that of the banyan tree. If your branches are spread too wide, you block out the sun. The resulting baby banyan trees will never grow as big as you, let alone bigger. I was determined to have my babies grow bigger than me. To do so, I had to pull in my branches. Sometimes, the weight of successful parents, is enough to crush a child. As parents, we cannot be less successful than we are, but there are ways to screen out much of that success from the child's space when the child is young. During the entire month of Home Based Learning, if you are experiencing a lot of stress working with your children during Home Based Learning, please type your issue/question in the comments below. I will troubleshoot for you and post my advice in future posts. Anonymous questions will not be answered. Kids whine because parents SOMETIMES give in to them. I learnt this from my 3.5 year old son HERE.
The principle behind why a child whines is exactly the same as what motivates a gambler to keep on pulling on the lever of a jackpot machine. It is random intermittent variable reinforcement (or RIVR). When a gambler pulls on a jackpot machine, he SOMETIMES wins a few hundred dollars. Since the gambler cannot predict when he will win, he keeps on trying. Parents are human. We sometimes give in because we are TIRED. We just want the whining to stop. Supposing your child wants a Magnum ice cream badly. He asks for it. You say, "No." If he keeps asking and finally you say, "Yes," he has hit the jackpot!" You may not do this for everything he asks. Often, we are strong enough to stay committed to our, "No." However, once in a long while, we crack and say, "Yes." Parents are human too. Think about it. The gambler does not need to win big every week to keep on trying. He just needs to win big ONCE and he is hooked onto the hope of winning big. It does not matter if you are a parent with an iron will. I have seen Fathers with a will of iron, melt into putty in the face of a daughter's whine. So, even if you say "No," and mean, "No," 99 times. That ONE time you say, "Yes," will doom you (oh poor hapless parent) to a lifetime of life-sapping, frustration building, tear-hair-out whining. During the entire month of Home Based Learning, if you are experiencing a lot of stress working with your children during Home Based Learning, please type your issue/question in the comments below. I will troubleshoot for you and post my advice in future posts. Anonymous questions will not be answered. See above what is said about cloth masks. Nonetheless, I have cracked my head to get the most out of reusable cloth masks because surgical masks are needed by frontline medical professionals. I am also unsure of the quality of some of the surgical masks being touted online. I would rather have a cloth mask whose performance I know, than a surgical mask of indeterminate quality. This is because, if I know the performance of a mask, I know how to take precautions. A substandard surgical mask gives false security and puts people in real danger, because they fail to take other precautions. Research On Mask Permeability The research above, documented HERE, shows that a mask made of tea cloth screens out 67 out of 100 viral particles, from outside in. This means that if there are 100 viral particles outside your mask, you would only breathe in 33. A surgical mask would let in 25 out of 100 viral particles. An N95 mask would let in only 1. However, if you are sick, and you cough, the tea cloth mask will let through 90 out of 100 particles produced by you. If you are wearing a surgical mask and you cough, you would let loose into the air, 50 out of 100 viral particles produced by you. If you were wearing an N95 mask, you would pollute the air with 30 of 100 of the viral particles produced by you. Note To Self: The next time I see a sick person coughing into a N95 mask, I would still stay away. I would also not assume that I am safe to NOT wear a mask. In view of the results documented in the chart above, I have assigned different types of masks for different situations. 3 Layer Cloth Masks With Insert I use these masks when I go out to a hawker centre or market with NO aircon. I am counting on the high humidity and high temperatures to reduce the viral loads in the air. For greater comfort and added protection, I have an insert of wet wipes, washed, soaked in salt solution and then dried. See HERE for how salt protects against the viral particles. These inserts are changed out every 2 hrs, and thrown away. I do also wash the inserts and reuse, if my family members bring them home. I know that these masks offer the least protection, and that they SPREAD disease if not washed OFTEN. So, I don't have a sense of false security. I use them carefully. These cloth masks allow me to insert a high quality medical grade surgical mask. The cloth pocket prolongs the life of the surgical mask. This means that I end up using as few surgical masks as possible. I use these masks in air-conditioned environments with low humidity, where the Covid19 virus floats better and stays active longer. For added protection, I can also insert a wet wipe, washed and soaked in a salt solution, then dried. The point is to make 1 surgical mask last as long as possible so that there are more left over for frontline medical personnel. I know that this mask combo offers better protection than the cloth ones, but not 100%. So again, I do not have a sense of false security. I wash these often and heat sterilise religiously. I also ensure I stay away from airconditioned places as much as possible. N95 Masks I have kept these in reserve for times when we need to go to the doctor's clinic or to the hospital. I have them, but pray that I will never need to use them. Supply chains are being disrupted worldwide. Going forwards, it won't be easy to get good quality masks even if one is willing to pay. I have only a limited quantity of good surgical masks, and N95 masks. I don't want to use them indiscriminately and run out before this ends. Even though this is an N95 mask, I know that there is no such thing as 100% protection. So, again, I do not have a false sense of security. Stay home is best... as this cute song advises HERE. For more such articles...
Upper respiratory tract infections (coughs, colds and flus) are really no fun. Some of my friends bring their children to the doctor once every 2 months. Sometimes, it requires more than 1 visit to resolve the infection. When I did my calculations... - 2 children - 6 times a year - $75 per visit = at least $900 a year. I haven't even added in my own sleepless nights, spent sponging my babies to bring down fever and holding them whilst they cried and fussed. Invariably, I would catch the infections from them. Whenever a child went into kindergarten, the whole family went through anew, the baptism of infections. Many of these infections were mild for the children but extremely painful for me. If The Husband caught the infection from me, I was treated to more days of torture because The Husband is a nightmare patient. There had to be ways to stop an infection in its tracks or prevent it altogether. I developed all sorts of home remedies which worked quite well because our family can get by on seeing a doctor every 2 to 3 years only... and that is only when I get careless with my alternative precautions. Beating the Covid19 In view of the current Covid19 virus spread, it appears that the best way is to strengthen the body's immunity against pathogens. The first 4 days of the Covid19 infection is generally mild, characterised by a dry cough. If, I can beat the virus within the first 4 days, then pneumonia is unlikely to set in. Indeed, if I can beat the virus DURING the incubation period, before the onset of symptoms, that is even better! 1st Line of Defence: Part 1 My first line of defence is astragalus. In Cantonese, this herb is called "puk kay." I make an astragalus soup once a week for the whole family. This herb increases levels of lymphocytes in the blood stream. Lymphocytes are your body's soldiers. The more of these in your system, the better your immunity. - 党参 - 北芪 - 红枣 - 甘草 Pathogens operate by means of something called quorum sensing. This means that they stay benign until they achieve a certain quorum in numbers. This means that they wait till they have reproduced in enough numbers before they launch an attack on your body. Until they achieve those numbers, pathogens stay inoffensive. It makes sense to have enough soldiers to kill pathogens even before their numbers grow large enough for them to sense a quorum. 1st Line of Defence: Part 2 - Our whole family now does intermittent fasting regularly. We skip breakfast in the mornings on most days. Click HERE to see how intermittent fasting also strengthens your body's soldiers against infections. - Our whole family is now doing a low sugar diet. Except for The Son, the rest of us drink our milk tea sans sugar. Click HERE to see how sugar suppresses your immune system. - Sleep before 10 pm. See video below for how sleep between 10 pm to midnight boosts immunity. 2nd Line of Defence: Propolis or Goldenseal Nasal Spray When we travel to Europe, I make sure I stock up on propolis sprays and goldenseal tinctures. I previously blogged about goldenseal tincture HERE. Whenever I encounter a snotty student or a friend with flu/cough/cold, I will go home and spray either propolis or goldenseal up my nostrils. This kills the virus right inside the nose, even before it has a chance to reproduce. Make sure you get good quality stuff. The stuff you can get online may not be of good quality. We buy our stocks from brick and mortar European pharmacies OR reputable homeopathic shops like HERE. 3rd Line of Defence: Echinacea Tea By following my 1st and 2nd lines of defence above, we can stay pretty much healthy even when others around us, are snotty. However, once in a while, I do feel a flu coming in. If I can catch it at a very early stage, I can usually throw it off within 24 hrs if I am fast enough to take echinacea tea. Echinacea flowers, roots and leaves are potent against viruses. Echinacea works by activating lymphocytes EARLY. Echinacea mobilises the lymphocytes at an early stage of the infection, where viral numbers are low enough for the body to easily overcome. Echinacea ONLY works if you have high enough numbers of lymphocytes. Therefore, the 1st line of defence detailed above (i.e., drinking astragalus soup every week) is ULTRA important. Else, taking echinacea does not help. I grow my own echinacea and have sold the surplus to parents occasionally when their children reach PSLE. Parents who buy, say it works and buy again. My home grown stocks are low so I am not selling the flowers anymore. Please see this link - HERE. You can buy the herb online. Do NOT buy from GNC. Their capsules are ineffective. Buy the actual dried plant parts and make tea. Keep it in a thermos and sip every 15 mins. Echinacea is cleared out of the body by the kidneys super fast so you have to sip throughout the day. If I take echinacea EARLY enough and REST before I feel very ill, I can throw off a flu within 24 hrs. New Line of Defence: Cloth Mask I guess the one silver lining in the cloud of the Covid19 is that we have been able to easily and cheaply buy cloth masks. Cloth masks filter 0% of viruses BUT they do impede the large snot droplets when someone sneezes. If you are at prolonged close quarters with an infected individual, it is no protection against that type of prolonged viral load. However, if some idiot accidentally sneezes into your face, it does block that type of single sneeze viral load, just so long as you stop breathing and remove the mask to prevent breathing in the virus particles that will dry onto the cloth. My cloth masks are single use before wash. This means that I throw them into the wash the moment I get home and I put on a clean mask every time I go out, even if it means that I use 3 masks in one day. If you are going to the doctor's clinic or the hospital then please wear the N95 or a surgical mask. For wearing into malls or the wet market, when a flu is going around, a cloth mask offers some level of protection from uncivilised people who spray their snot liberally into the air. Even if their snot is not contagious, it is disgusting to breathe in someone else's snot, no? For more such articles...
|
Author
Petunia Lee, Ph.D Archives
January 2022
Categories
Find out more about our classes!
|