From Kindergarten to Primary School

Your 7 year old with white crisp shirt, dark blue pant and white school shoes just step into a classroom with you tagging behind. When he saw the other children, sitting on their assigned desk, you can see through his eyes the sense of uncertainty on what he should do on the first day of school. Some of the children in the classroom shrieking for their parents who is outside the class peering through the window, some of them sitting chatting happily with their friends and some sitting quietly unsure of what are they doing there blankly looking into space.

As my son is the only child in the family, I can’t help but focusing all my time and energy on him. I was terrified of how his first day of school going to be. I went through the exact feeling, of leaving him to the hands of somebody else, when he was in the kindergarten but going to a primary school is much more different. A 7 year old has much more responsibility these days and much more issues.

Enrolling my child to a Chinese-medium school is of me and husband’s choice although his kindergarten teacher advise me to enrol him to a national school since we are non-mandarin speaker.

Oh how terrified I was. All sort of thoughts goes through my head. Can he catch up with the academic system of the Chinese-medium school which is exam-oriented? In the first few months in the Chinese-medium school I found that that they used corporal punishment (using ‘rotan’) on their students. Oh my God, what did I put my son into?

Then, I would be also wondering would there be any moment that he might be bullied by his friends. Does he knows what bullying means? Since he’s the only son I might be thinking that I raised him to be such a soft-hearted. My son has the problem of expressing himself since kindergarten. He’s unable to express whether he’s happy or sad, well, I can see it in his face whether he’s happy or not, but he can’t put in into words. But before long, I realised that my son grew right before my eyes. I would asked him how were his day, what did he do at school, what did he learn, what did he ate during lunch and very soon it become a habit until he would tell me everything.

Once he told me one of his friends asked for his pocket money and he gave them willingly thinking it’s was okay to hand over his own pocket money. Okay, he’s opening up to me. That’s a start.

There were all sort of issues going through in his first year of primary school and I would be worried to death at home thinking was he doing okay at school. Well, they were friends who would asked his pocket money, one boy even poured glue inside his pencil case, another girl would cut his eraser into small pieces and another would break his ruler. All these things he would say it to me right after I fetch him from school in separate occasions. All I can do was complained to the teacher and asked them to do something about the other children. Then I found out that he wasn’t the only children who has that pesky friend who would be doing mean things to you. The other children also experience the same.

As times goes by, I learnt that, children will be children. They sometimes doesn’t know what they were doing. Yes, pouring glue to your friend pencil case is not okay but these children sometimes copy or see someone doing it and before long they start to do it to somebody else. And they could sometimes be just curious.

But what we can do as adults is guide them and show them what is correct and what is wrong. What should you do in that situation. They may confide to you in matter that they may even feel confuse. Yeah, they sure going to be sad or angry if they had a fight with their friends, or ashamed because the teacher just scold them in front of the class. But hey, it’s the process of living. Good or bad they have to learn it by their way.

When he goes to his second year of primary school, my son has become of what I could say independent for an 8 year old. He’s able to converse in mandarin. Able to tell to his teacher whenever he had a problem with his friends. Able to remember the homework the teacher’s given. The used of ‘rotan’ in his school is only when they didn’t do their homework. So at home he is motivated to finish his homework in time.

He has several best friend and I would always see them hang out during lunch time or after school. Then I found out that my boy is actually a happy go lucky person. He doesn’t give in to grudges as we adults sometimes does. Someone would be doing mean things to him today and tomorrow I would see him chatting happily with that child. All this small accomplishment of him growing up makes me proud as parent.

 

Here are some parenting tips I think we should all learn.

-        Your child is in the process of learning. Let them learn by themselves you can only supervise.

-        Ask him how was his day. What did he do at school, what did he learn, what did he ate during lunch and very soon it become a habit until he starts to open up.

-        Check his homework but make a habit that he should take out his own homework himself. At 7 years old teacher will mark pages from book as the homework for that day.

-        I used to pack his lunch in the morning but I also want my son to learn how to buy at the school canteen. So I alternate the days where I would pack his lunch or let him have a couple of ringgit just enough to buy a bun and a drink.

-        Exam can be stressful even for a 7 years old. Have you seen the exam sheet those children have these days? Don’t pressure him, exam is not an overall performance check.

Today’s education system is so much different that I had 30 years ago. I just can’t believe that today’s 7 years old are expected to know how to read instead of me when I was of the same age who just started to learn how to hold a pencil! So take things slow and don’t expect too much for your child. Let them grow up and learn. Don’t forget to spend quality time with them too.