We need a professional

It's been three months since Keane has started Primary school. He finally stopped calling his dad from school everyday since March. We went to school for a Parent Teacher Meeting in March. We went to school with a sense of foreboding.

Keane is very different from Xavier and all the teachers from their pre-school realized this very quickly. They subsequently learn about Keane's behaviour and generally when you are in pre-school teachers tend to be more tolerant. I guess it is because the kids are still very young and developing. We were very proud that Keane made a lot of development throughout his pre-school days. He changed from a toddler who would run out of class on his own to a kid who is an active participant in class. His tantrum throwing version of bawling and rolling on the floor became a more subdued trembling of lips and occasional silent tears. This transformation took place over 4 years. But he is still not the same as a lot of the other children.

So we went to see Keane's form teacher first. We had an initial overview of his Math work, which is better than average but not among the top in class. The teacher believed that, with more effort, Keane can do well. The teacher then tried to broach the topic of his behaviour subtly by asking some questions. Then a professional counselor came to join us. We had an open discussion about Keane's behaviour so that the counselor can understand him better.

We shared our own observations of Keane. Keane loves to participate and if he is not selected, he is sorely disappointed. And he is unable to conceal his disappointment. He also expresses his emotions through actions rather than words. The teacher had a few incidents where Keane gave her a shock. He walked out of the classroom because he was unhappy, he banged his books very loudly on the table. In fact, Keane is not able to conceal his emotions most of the time. I told the counselor that Keane has not been very good at expressing his emotions through words, hence the dramatic actions. He called me Mummy only when he was three. He developed his speech slower than Xavier and Ryan. In fact I was planning to bring him to a professional if he continues to show difficulty or unwillingness to talk in complete sentences or express his thoughts. The counselor seemed grateful that we were open to the discussion and that we recognized we had to do more investigation. He didn't make a conclusion about Keane as he felt it normally takes at least 6 months to profile a child, even for a professional. Apparently he has been observing Keane during recess and whenever he could to try to establish a profile. He even noticed the difference between Xavier and Keane, which was pretty evident.

Admittedly we were a bit worried after that discussion but we expected something like that. So we went to see the Chinese teacher and English teacher to get more feedback. The Chinese teacher said that Keane has "anger management" issues but he gives Keane a "cooling down" corner whenever Keane shows signs of being upset. After his cooling down session, Keane is fine. Surprisingly, he said that Keane has made a lot of behavioural improvement over 3 months. He just encouraged us to speak to him using Mandarin more often. Our hearts were not so heavy after that. Next was the English teacher. Hubby was worried because English teacher texted him about Keane throwing away his homework before.

After a long wait, we were finally able to meet the English teacher. She said that Keane has made tremendous improvement over the last 3 months and in fact she was very proud of him! He is able to keep quiet during class when the teacher is not around by reading his story book. He is also good at recital and comes up with ideas. The only thing he had to work on was to be able to write his thoughts. He could verbalise his ideas to the teacher but came up with only half a sentence on paper. The English teacher said that children need to be understood and coaxed. Keane refused to go to the parade square for assembly but the English teacher never gave up trying to coax him. He now goes to the parade square instead of sitting on a bench outside the general office in the morning. He used to boycott mass exercise but the English teacher made it a point to do the exercises with him and now he participates with enthusiasm. The English teacher asked us to let him know that he can always look for her if he needs someone to talk to or to get guidance from. Kudos to Mrs Goh!

After meeting the 3 different teachers, we came to a conclusion that the form teacher was not experienced enough. She has probably not come across as many types of children as the other 2. And she came across as being scared and worried about not being able to handle Keane.

It is expected of a child who has not been tainted with false pretences and lies, even white ones, to demonstrate what adults label as "appropriate behaviour". I'm sure all of us have come across a child who said, "Eeee, Daddy farted!" or "Mummy, I need to go bang-sai (poop)" in a crowded lift or department store. The most important is that we do not expect all children to grow up to be the same. I would hate for my kids to be depressed because they have to do and say what the adults expect them to. They would lose themselves in the process.

Of course, Keane is not perfect. He is what I call a sore loser. He gets upset when he doesn't win at games. We are continuously reminding him that he will not win all the time and he has to accept that. But we encourage him to keep trying and not give up. We do this through playing XBox games. Every time he yells or grumbles about not winning the javelin throw or long jump, we tell him that he has to practice to get better. We threaten to cut off the games if he continues to be a sore loser.

That being said, I would still bring him to see a doctor to evaluate whether he needs further help with verbalising his thoughts. In the meantime, we have gotten used to him calling us Dad and Mum instead of Daddy and Mummy like the other 2. We're guessing it's either through reading Horrid Henry or watching too much TV. It's very funny because it is so ang-mo (Caucasian) to us. Not that Daddy and Mummy isn't....everything is a matter of perception, understanding and acceptance.

Where oh where is that silver lining

I heard an extremely sad story today. A friend's baby passed away at about 5 months' of age. That is a very traumatic thing to happen to a parent. Losing your child at any age or under any circumstance must be extremely trying for any parent.

There is nothing that I can say to make the healing process any less painful than it is. It is during such times when it is best not to say too much and just share the pain through silence. I mean it is already such a painful time, it seems redundant to say "I know how you feel", "You must be strong". I guess all of us try to help by expressing our thoughts. I think it is also how we comfort ourselves.

When life dishes out a tribulation, it is never easy to always see the silver lining behind the dark cloud. But the silver lining is there. It just takes time to manifest itself in ways we can understand. Why do I believe that? Because I believe that God is merciful. I do not think that He would make us suffer for his enjoyment. I do not believe that He puts us through trials and tribulations for no reason. I believe that He truly wants us to learn.

I encouraged this friend to find a religion he can follow. A religion will be able to carry you when nothing else can. When the going is tough, when things beyond our comprehension happen, when we are totally lost and in despair. I want to share this poem which came into my life many years ago when I first found God. I don't know who wrote it and according to Wikipedia, the author is disputed so I am not giving credit to anyone except God for this.

FOOTPRINTS

One night I had a dream...

I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord, and
across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand;
one belonged to me, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before us,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.

I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow You,
You would walk with me all the way;
But I have noticed that during the
most troublesome times in my life,
There is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why in times when I
needed You the most, You should leave me.

The Lord replied, "My precious, precious
child. I love you, and I would never,
never leave you during your times of
trial and suffering.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.

Don't despair, for that silver lining is there.......just let your heart go and you will find it.

Primary 1 woes and joys

Keane started Primary 1 by missing the first 3 days of school due to a fever. He had a challenging first week and the second week didn't prove to be any easier so far.

During the first week, he had a buddy to bring him around during recess for 3 days. He bought his own food and played soccer with his buddy. After the buddy was relieved of his duty, Keane started to go for lunch by himself. He was amazingly independent and was able to use the public phone by following the instructions next to the phone. He called his dad and made small talk. This was the start of what we think will be an ongoing habit. He calls his dad everyday during recess and has even started to call him before school starts.

You would think the phone calls are a good sign of father and son bonding. I don't disagree but there is always a BUT. The flip side is that he uses random coins when he makes these calls so a call can cost 10 cents, 20 cents or 50 cents, depending on the coin he picks and not the length of time he spent on the phone. He came back without a penny today. He started the day with $2.60. His lunch cost $0.70. You do the math.

He also lost his water bottle today. He lost it once last week, as reported during his recess phone call to his dad, but found it and brought it home on the same day. We are waiting to see if he can find it again tomorrow. In case you think I did not perform my motherly duty, I did label almost single piece of his belongings.

On the first day he attended school, he came home and told us that he slept in class!!! The only comfort with that was he woke up by himself. I hope the teacher didn't notice! I'm honestly not sure if he really fell asleep, dozed off or was simply daydreaming.

Yesterday his teacher reported that he threw away his worksheets in class. We guessed it was because he made some errors and he didn't want to do more homework. He forgot to bring his workbook home today and was not able to do his homework.

He also had an issue with sitting at the parade square before flag raising. He would sulk and sit on a bench away from the parade square. During a rainy day, he refused to go to the hall for assembly until his teacher brought him up.
These little things are the least of my concerns. When I asked him if he had any friends in school and he said no. He has been eating his lunch by himself. I asked if he liked his friends in class and he said no. I asked if his friends in class were nice to him and he said no. After some probing he said that one of the girls in his class insisted on opening his book despite his protests. I have no idea why the girl was trying to open his book. With Keane, she could have been trying to do something perfectly legitimate which he cannot explain clearly.

Keane doesn't need to be Mr Popular in class but I hope that he will find a friend soon. All we ask is for our son to be able to find one loyal friend. We are asking Xavier to spend time with him during recess so that he will not be so lonely.

I am worried that Keane has the stereo typical middle child syndrome. I am very close to bringing him to a psychiatrist. I hope that I will be proven wrong very quickly. Wish me luck!!!

Another new year

Another new year has dawned upon us......the end of the world didn't happen. Perhaps it was because Psy didn't obtain that magical 1,000,000,000 hits before 20-12-2012. Perhaps it was because the Mayans made a slight error in their calculations. Whatever it is, we are now in 2013. What does the new year herald for us?

Towards the end of 2012, a lot of people I knew commented that time passed so quickly and the end of the year came upon us like a tsunami. It seems that as the years went by, time flew faster and we are running out of time to do all the things we wanted. Is it just because we are getting older? I have a theory why time passes so quickly as the years go by. I blame it on man and its by product technology. Let me explain.

Many many years ago, communication was probably restricted to verbal channels. If you had a message for someone, you had to see that person face to face. It might have taken a couple of days to visit a relative from the next village to say hello. With the invention of paper, it might have taken a couple of hours to write a message on paper and have someone deliver it for you. With the invention of the telephone, instantaneous, provided your relative was at home. With the invention of the mobile phone, it is instantaneous, provided your relative answered the phone. Hey, with SMS, who cares? Just text the hello across!

You save the few minutes previously taken up with going to the printer to collect your printout, walking to the fax machine, punching in a few numbers, waiting for the fax transmission to be completed and going back to your desk, by using email. And the response may come back in a matter of seconds, depending on the typing speed of the opposite party and the Internet speed he/she has access to.

With the reduced amount of time we need to conduct such activities, we can actually squeeze more in a day. With more activities, time would seem shorter. But does it do us any good?

When I used to write letters to my friends, although they were few and far in between, I would spend time to compose the letter carefully to make sure that my message is delivered properly. Nowadays with email, I spend less time with my draft. With SMS or Whatsapp, it is not even complete sentences! My written language has definitely deteriorated. I do not use any more flowery descriptive sentences. My writing is allegedly more concise. I cannot even write a poem anymore. I have lost my rhyme!

I have decided not to make new year resolutions since many years ago. I am not a resolution keeper. In fact, resolutions backfire on me more often than not. Say if I want to lose weight, I will end up eating more. How about making backward resolutions I hear you say. Nah, I tend to keep those. It's selective resolution keeping. So I just do what I want to do when I feel like it. I live for the moment. Not very good in the general scheme of things but very convenient!

Here's wishing one and all a fantastic 2013 with good health and happiness!

SMRT.....So Many Ridiculous Traits

Recently the SMRT made the headlines for the wrong reasons.....again. How many things can go wrong in a company? Apparently many by the standards set by this one.

The recent fiasco was when 102 foreign SMRT bus drivers refused to turn up for work on 26 November 2012. These foreign workers were PRC workers. They were unhappy about their salaries and living conditions. Apparently they were unhappy about the increments they were given in comparison to their fellow foreign workers from Malaysia. There were also complains about cramp living conditions provided by SMRT. Bed bugs was also another example of poor living conditions given to journalists.

At the end of the day, the strike was illegal and 5 PRC workers were charged in court. Another 29 were repatriated. This is Singapore....where you have to give 2 weeks' notice if you want to organize a strike. I guess none of these PRC workers were given this information during their orientation.

I wonder if SMRT has a hot line for employees to call if they have grievances. I wonder if they practise an open door policy. I also wonder if any of the PRC workers actually submitted a formal complain to voice their unhappiness.

Apparently the strike affected the bus service provided by SMRT. They had to call in relief drivers from other public and private bus operators as well as deploy their trainers. It is amazing how many things can go wrong for a company. First it was the train delays and now employee relations. I wonder if it will truly be third time lucky for SMRT.

It is never easy to manage employee relations. But that should not stop employers from continuing to try. Employers can never take employee relations for granted. That being said, managing employee relations involve more than just having an open door policy, having a grievance hot line. Employers must always be proactive. Talk to your employees, not just listen, for they sometimes don't speak.

Many Asians are non-confrontational. Voicing unhappiness may be deemed as being confrontational, not giving face, being disrespectful, etc. Many just choose to leave the company if they decide they cannot continue to accept the company culture which they do not approve of. They would not go up to their boss to tell them that they are unhappy and demand a change. They would choose a more subtle manner to express their displeasure or to avoid confrontation. Obviously this does not apply to some Chinese.

If you want to know what's truly going on in the minds of your employees, you need to do more than just wait for feedback. Ask questions. Make observations. Walk the floor (or in the case of SMRT the buses, trains, terminals and stations). More importantly you have to make your employee feel that they belong to the company. Granted that the company is huge and it is very difficult to organize any sort of event where all the employees can be together (who will drive the buses and operate the trains?)......I'm sure that there can be things the company can do. Corporations have to stop thinking about how every dollar spent on employees will contribute to the bottom line directly. There are many intangible benefits of spending money to improve employee relations. Of course that does not mean that every whim and fancy of every employee can be met. Balance is the key.

The funny thing is that I saw 2 more incidents being reported after the SMRT strike. 2 PRC workers alleged climbed construction cranes to protest over a wage dispute with their employer on 6 December. On 7 December, a China worker arrived at a construction work site and refused to leave until the police were called because he was unhappy about a site re-assignment. What do the reports of these incidents mean? Are PRC workers causing more trouble in Singapore? Or is the media trying to subtly lessen the impact of the SMRT strike on SMRT's reputation?

A visit to the zoo

We went to the Singapore Zoo today. I had planned to bring the boys to view the pandas Kai Kai and Jia Jia. I didn't realize that today was the first day the pandas were making their first appearance to the general public. Vincent anticipated a huge crowd and chided me for getting the boys all hyped up.

So I made sure we all got up bright and early and left home at about 7.45am. The zoo opens at 8.30am. I kept praying that we will be able to view the pandas. I would have hated to disappoint the boys. Well, it turned out to be a needless worry. There was no throng at the ticket booth when we arrived. In fact, it was like any other weekday, despite it being a school holiday.

Ticket sales was pretty well organized. There was a separate booth where you could purchase the add-on ticket to view the pandas only. This caters to visitors who were friends of the zoo and those who had bought regular tickets online. Panda tickets are only available at the zoo ticketing booth. We could choose the time slot and it was quite a breeze to get to the pandas. I seriously don't know which one was Kai Kai and which was Jia Jia but here are both of them......

 

 Guess which is Jia Jia and which is Kai Kai??







I think the boys were more excited about feeding the giraffes than viewing Jia Jia and Kai Kai.

Giraffe taking a loooooong piss....

Xavier feeding the giraffes

Ryan's turn at feeding



Keane having a go at feeding

 
 
The giraffe feeding was the highlight of the day....







Each feed calls for a S$5 contribution to the zoo and an opportunity to come up close and personal with these long tongued creatures.....



Here are some interesting photos to share......

Arowana feeding

Check out the scales on this diamond back rattlesnake

Lovely stripes on a zebra



Strange phallic shaped fruit

The best part of the visit was at the end.........need I say more?







I look forward to another trip to the zoo with the boys.

A rude awakening

I attended the ST Global and Local Economic Outlook forum last week. Three of us were invited by Standard Chartered Bank as guests. Professor Tommy Koh was a keynote speaker. I have always admired Prof Koh from a distance. My respect for him grew during his speech and subsequently during the question and answer session. Prof Koh is a self professed optimist. He comes across as a person who has seen so much in life that he no longer worries about what people think of him when he speaks his mind. Of course it helps a lot that he is a very sensible person. However, not all will agree with his optimism.

What struck me the most was the answer he gave to a question about the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration that was recently signed and the widening income gap in the region. I do not remember the question but I remember what Prof Koh said. He said that we still have a long way to go in this direction but we must be aware that a milestone was achieved considering that the signing of such a declaration was virtually impossible 5 years ago. What he said further about the widening income gap struck me very hard. He said that there are about 105,000 millionaires in Singapore (I think it was 105,000) but 30% of our school children go to school without pocket money. I never realized the number was so startling. Something that a lot of us take for granted is something 30% of our school children go without. Prof Koh told the ST journalists that they should stop publishing how many rich people there are and focus on how many poor people there are at home.

I took part in a company organized volunteer event a couple of weeks ago. Vincent, Xavier and I helped YWCA to deliver food packages to some low income families. It was a grim reminder that there are families who live on less than S$1500 per month or less than S$450 per capita. Many of us, myself included, can easily spend S$450 on a meal or in a day while it can take someone else one or two weeks to earn that kind of money. I went to a family with about 4 or 5 children. I was unable to reach the mother on her mobile earlier and it was awakening when she said simply that her prepaid card ran out of money. I think a lot of people I come into contact with never have such an issue. Her children were delighted when they spied the goodies in the bag we brought them.

I used to think that I was being very charitable when I gave my domestic helper stuff which we didn't want to send home to Philippines - old clothes, unused toys, excess appliances/utensils, shoes, etc. Now I feel ashamed that I didn't do more to help the needy in my own home. A lot of Singaporeans, at least myself, take a lot of things for granted. I know that there are poor people and always think that Singapore is an affluent country where only a small minority fall into the needy category. How far from reality was I. Having a job can mean a world of difference to 2 different people. A person like myself who has a well paying job probably take what I have for granted, thinking about the next gadget I can buy or the next meal I can enjoy. A person who has a job cleaning tables in a hawker center not only has to worry whether his take home salary is sufficient to pay the next bills, he probably wonders if his family can survive till the next pay comes in.

I had a chat with a lady who cleaned tables at the food court in Causeway Point yesterday. She asked what kind of flat we stayed in, i.e. how many rooms. I said 5-room flat. She said, "Wa, stress ah. With 3 children and 5-room. I don't want. I stay in a 3-room enough already. I have no children, 3-room easier and less stress." I was quite embarrassed because I feel no stress at all. We have fully paid up for our flat. Our children have more than enough everyday. I think the lady realized we were not stressed after she saw what we ordered for our children. I didn't realize that eating at the food court can be so expensive until this year. A plate of rice with one fish and two vegetable dishes cost us $7. Rice with two meat dishes and one vegetable dish cost $6.50. Goodness! Frankly, we have started to eat at hawker center or coffee shops more often because I finally woke up to the fact that dining is really getting more expensive. Yes, I admit I was overly sheltered previously due to my own undoing. I tried to eat at restaurants with the kids because restaurants are cleaner and less crowded, confined and hence less likely to lose the kids when they run off. Yes, I am atas. But I'm trying to take a different look at things now.

This month has been quite an awakening experience for me. I am not going to declare that I'm going to give up what I have to give back to society or something dramatically lofty. I shall just endeavour to do more than give money in the name of charity and take less things for granted.