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Saturday, September 28, 2019

Dr. Pet's Ex-Students





See above. I received, with great pleasure, a note from a parent whose child was with me in 2013-2014. This child was very fragile. On the eve of too many exams, she would be rushed into hospital because she had turned blue from asthma attacks. In her PSLE year, she engaged in self-harm (cutting herself in unseen places of her body) to cope with the stress. It is because of this girl that I instituted specific processes and practices to protect my students from stress. Thanks to these processes and practices, I am happy to say that for the past 5 years there have been no cases of self-harm in the PSLE year.

Physically and emotionally, this child was fragile. However, she had a first rate brain. Her body was weak but her brain was not. We preserved her internal drive and passion for learning. She went on to do well through secondary school and now is doing very well in university. It is well worth it for parents to play the long game, and look beyond primary school achievement, into character and passion.

With my guidance, this Mommy did that in P6. Even though the results were disappointing in P6, we had laid the foundation for internal drive and an interest in learning, that has since powered this child's trajectory.

My own 2 children were losers in primary school.

The Daughter did so badly at PSLE that from Sec 1 to JC2, she felt inferior to her classmates in Nanyang Girls High School. Yet, she scored 8 A level distinctions at A levels and is now well loved at her workplace. I say "well-loved" only because I am not allowed to go into the details of her  workplace achievements.

In primary school, The Son was still building machines that did not work, whilst others were already shining at this or that Olympiad. Yet, it was he that SUTD sent to compete against MIT, Tokyo Tech, Tokyo Denki, Tsinghua, Zhejiang Unis. His team won the championship, and at that point, he was only 16 years old, competing against 20+ yr old university students. The Son went on to score 44 points at IB. Again, I am not allowed to blog about his most recent triumphs.

What I want to say to parents is this. All the achievements that you HELP your children get in primary school through being overhelpful, risks damaging...
- long term internal drive.
- long term self-concept.

The children learn 3 things:
- My parents want me to win. I really don't care that much.
- I cannot win without parent help.
- I am entitled to help.

The even worse outcome is when the children do not achieve, and do not win, even though parents push them very hard (beatings, scoldings, punishments). These children have nothing. They enter secondary school with no achievements and they also have no internal drive (the drive being utterly destroyed by parent beatings and scoldings and punishments).

No drive. No primary school achievements. Plenty of emotional pain. Surely, there is a better way to be a parent?

It is good for children to learn that they can do things without our help. Of course, this comes at a price in a society where all the other parents are helping their primary school children to win. I know because I paid the price. My children were losers because I refused to do like other parents. I refused to help them win. I refused to push them too far.

As a result, my children wanted to win. They KNEW that they had lost to children who benefited from parent help, and they did not mind to lose because they enjoyed the process.

They simply enjoyed the process of participating in their area of passion, and doing their best. 
Later on, when came a time when parents no longer were helping their teenaged children as much (because teens resist parent help and rebel), my children had already accumulated a formidable internal drive to win, and they were used to competing on their own steam and passion. This helped them surpass the overhelped kids, because these overhelped kids were still trying to find their footing now that their parents were no longer able to help as much.

Below is another child whom I believe will excel later in life, as long as his Mama does what I taught her for the next 6 years.






2 comments:

Rachel Tan said...

I'm glad your kids have found their passions, and desire to win.

I would say though, that most kids (and perhaps even adults), do not discover, or know their passions. Regardless, we need inner strength and drive to get through life.

Very few have the opportunity to be engaged in a profession of their passion.

Petunia Lee said...

@Rachel
It was clear what my son was interested in. My daughter never really had a passion. We did know she had strengths, and I encouraged the development of these strengths.