Narratives@najahnasseri.org

When I was about 10, I entered a Vocabulary Bee. It’s a competition where words are given by a panel and you are asked what it means. I went quite far in the school district and at the finals, I lost because I couldn’t distinguish between “distinguish” and “extinguish”. A voice in my head told me the right answer, but the spotlight pushed me to go against my better judgement. And so it began, a string of events that pushed me to go against that little voice. Ha ha.

But back to vocabulary. Since then, I haven’t witnessed any vocabulary bees. All I’ve seen so far are spelling bees. Poor ones at that.

Vocabulary, as I have recently discovered during my 1-month stint as Adam’s reading drill sargeant last December, is very important in helping a child learn how to read. My earlier conventional assumption was that reading leads to vocabulary, when, like all things you learn when you take the time to remove your assumptions and start from scratch, it was the other way around. Sort of.

Adam read better when I equipped him with new words. He had the confidence to guess longer words within the right context and hence, wasn’t so stumped when the phonics method took a bit longer to figure out.

So it delighted me to no end to discover how well Idris has been doing with his vocabulary. Just the other day, when I asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was ‘looking for something unusual’. Revisiting old movies (old by a 4 year-old’s standards) led me to discover other words that he knew the meaning of – like when he narrated the starting bit of Transformers 1: “Look Ibu, the cube has just become a meteor” – as the cube entered the earth’s atmosphere.

At 3, Fische took him to an aquarium in Langkawi. He pointed out the anemone and the various fish moving about around it. He has pointed out the names of a few dinosaurs and am watching out to see if he uses the word ‘evaporate’ in the right context some time soon.

As parents, the natural reaction (I think it’s natural because so many parents do it), is to dumb down what we say to kids. I say, don’t dumb down the vocabulary, just make your explanations simpler. When Idris doesn’t understand a what a word means, he just asks what it is. And that increases his vocabulary, even before he learns how to read.

Reference for younger children: A Language Boosting Game for Hannan

I ended up sleepless the other night because the last thing I watched was a TED talk by renown secularist, Sam Harris. I won’t go into details about the actual talk itself because I disagree with his opinions with regards to Islam, but there was a mental process that stuck with me.

He basically touched on morality and that the spectrum of right and wrong based on moral values shouldn’t as ambiguous as it currently is. He posits that there are and should be some basic rights and wrongs with regard to morality as it is related to the well-being of humanity as a whole.

Okay, so that’s something for another day. But it did get me thinking along the same line of logic, albeit for parenting and child development.

A friend lamented recently that her ambition to further her studies in the area of Montessori education met with some resistance from family members. It seems that for a Master’s holder, the job of raising other people’s kids is somewhat ‘beneath’ her. Plus it was assumed that anyone with a little common sense is seen to be qualified to raise kids and therefore, she need not spend the time, effort and money for a whole diploma program.

This wasn’t the first time I had heard of this. After I left my career to stay at home full time with the kids, I kept on getting questions about what I was “going to do with my life”. Then when I finally decided to equip myself with what Fische and I saw as the prerequisite knowledge for me to do what I wanted to do with my life at_that_point_in_time, it took a while to convince those around me that a course in early childhood was worthy of my time. People kept on looking for economical markers – like how much I could potentially make as a teacher, as a kindergarten principal or as a kindergarten operator, to justify the expense and the time. I was like a broken tape recorder whenever I explained to people that it’s for MY kids and whatever comes next will be determined after I figure out what I want to do with our kids. Fische saw the value of the course from the beginning – he’d pick me up from my weekly lectures, and we’d chat about what I learned that day and how we can apply it at home.

A few days ago, I chatted with Idris’ principal and she shared with me her experience when brainstorming about the venture – her hugely successful kindy/childcare. Their research suggested that the choice mothers make (it seemed mothers have more of a say in these things) when it comes to school was, for the most part, impulsive. Many base their choice on convenience, cost, how long they’d be free of their children, and what other people have to say about the school’s results, as well as their own childhood experiences.

The thing about preschool is other than the 3Rs, the foundation it lays for a child’s future will not be obvious until much further into the future. The course of a child’s development is something humanity has only begun to understand in recent time. Yet the discipline to do with early childhood has become a recognised science of sorts – there are good practices and bad practices and while we don’t know the full extent of our childcare practices today, we know a lot more than our grandparents did a decade ago (and in some respect, a lot less).

So it pains me to see, time and time again, people (parents/teachers/caregivers alike) resort to unsubstantiated logic to justify their opinions on how children should be raised. I’m not saying that all traditional methods are flawed – not surprisingly, those methods that are in tune with the mother’s instincts are often later proven to be beneficial. It is the flawed logic that came between the parents’ instincts that later on proved to be destructive – the campaign to promote formula milk a few decades ago came to mind, which lead to more babies being fed through bottles, which were propped up for convenience, resulting in choking hazards, and the lack of physical contact when being fed has been found to have psychological implications to the child later in life (trust issues with adults).

As a society, some flawed logic in child development gets propagated through the usual argument: “My parents did this to me (fill_in_the_blanks), but I turned out fine.” This could range from scare tactics to get you to sleep/eat/pray/study, to diet, to schooling choices, and a host of other aspects of a child’s life. Just because you turned out ‘OK’ (a very subjective measurement of personal development in itself), does not mean that it’s alright for a parent to use a lighter (or a host of other threats, the more common in our society being the sight of a cane) to scare a child into finishing his meal. Do we even question ourselves when we resort to these things?

The more important thing isn’t to make a list of what to do and what not to do. The recipe book is still being written on many things, so even between revisions of the “What to Expect” series, you’ll find some differences that can freak out a caring parent or two. But it is important to be mindful that parenting is not as subjective as we make it out to be. There are some established rights and wrongs. The balance between good hygiene and the need to develop a child’s immune system is one area where parents already know to seek professional advice. In terms of a child’s psychological development, there is a host of knowledge out there to start with, if only we would ask the right questions, and if only we weren’t too confident that we are OK.

From Baby Centre:

7 Signs that your child loves you

1. Your newborn stares into your eyes — he’s actually working hard to memorize your face. He doesn’t understand anything else about the world, but he knows you’re important.

2. Your baby thinks about you even when you’re not around. Between 8 and 12 months old, he’ll start to scrunch his face and look around when you leave the room — and he’ll smile when you return.

3. Your toddler throws wicked tantrums. Nope, those screaming fits don’t mean he’s stopped loving you. He wouldn’t be so hurt and angry if he didn’t trust you so deeply.

4. Your toddler runs to you for comfort when he falls down or feels sad. Kids this age may not truly understand the meaning of “I love you,” but their actions speak louder than words.

5. Your preschooler gives you a flower picked from the garden, a finger-painted heart, a sparkly rock, or another gift.

6. Your preschooler wants your approval. He’ll start to be more cooperative around the house, and he’ll look for chances to impress. “Look at me!” will become a catchphrase.

7. Your grade-schooler trusts you with secrets, like his first crush or his most embarrassing moment. You’re his confidante, even if he shies away from your hugs in public.

After many months of having to stay at arms length of Idris, I’m happy to say that we’ve managed to be close without me having to worry about him kicking my watermelon belly. We’ve resumed our daily ‘lessons’ on Starfall.com and thanks to Naz, started looking at Headsprout. After Fische and I finally managed to commit to a Sunday morning with Kak Noraini from Education Technologies, we finally figured out how to effectively use ‘Walter’ (an iPod-looking device that reads out ET’s books), and now have opened a whole new world of fun facts like dinosaurs and car parts to Idris. I’m ever so relieved that the book set we bought had a little section on dirt and germs, which helped me explain to him why baths are not the stuff of nightmares.

Learning aside, we bonded over the baby after he realised that there is a little being inside my belly that he needs to be careful around. He sometimes puts one of his ‘Cars’ characters on my protruding belly button, telling me that he wants to share it with Baby Hannan (the name we’ve settled on for now). At night, when he’s tossing and turning in his sleep, he often looks for my belly and settles down after he pats Baby Hannan a few times.

After getting our helper, we noticed that Idris became more clingy and regressed slightly after the milestones he achieved upon joining school. We realised that we were unwittingly palming off quite a bit of our ‘essential duties’ to her, perhaps adding to the confusion on what’s happening to both his parents after his Ibu started withdrawing from her usual routine. After a few weeks of this, we started being more mindful of the tasks we delegated to her, and the stuff we did ourselves. Things like getting food for him seemed harmless enough, but things like washing and bathing him was something he preferred for us to do. Once we settled on this routine, he was much happier and pretty much back to his old self – which was the little boy who would insist on trying to do things for himself (“I try it, I try it”) and who is sweet enough to pick a flower for his Ibu at the Gelang Patah R&R and share his pretend ice cream with his Ayah…

Last night, I had a dream that Fische and I were at the bottom of an avalanche at a friend’s house. Idris and these friends were stuck in a house at the top of the avalanche. While everyone was safe, we were separated and had no way to get to each other. All I could think about in my dream was how much I missed him and what I would give to be able to hold him again.

My lecturer, who has a degree in psychology, would have a lot of things to say about my subconscious right now. It’s pretty obvious that at 33 weeks into my pregnancy, the ‘horizon’ is getting nearer. Yesterday, my sister Najwa gave birth to a healthy 3kg baby boy. I know Idris will be as happy as his cousins were when they first met their new sibling, but I can’t help but to wonder how this ‘avalanche’ will affect our relationship.

Here’s to hoping for a smooth next couple of weeks, a smooth delivery and a smooth everything else… Or at least the presence of mind to smoothen things out.

This week, our lecturer asked us to create our dream school. My partner and I came up with this. Sure, it needs about 3 acres against a gorgeous mountainous backdrop, but last I checked, there’s so many plots of palm oil land for sale in rural Johor…

I’ve been to a few corporate team-building exercises where they try to get adults to learn to work together harmoniously. Suffice to say that a few days of ‘enlightenment’ is very unlikely to result in any real, long-term behavioural change, which is why most exercises end up being a paid vacation rather than something truly transformational.

Obviously, conflict resolution is a real problem in many organisations and society in general. So I was surprised when I chanced upon this little Montessori nugget while doing my weekly reading for class.

Conflict resolution is an important part of the child’s education. Montessori classrooms use different techniques to facilitate communication and conflict resolution in the classroom.

The Peace Table

Children need to learn conflict resolution if they are going to make it as adults. They need to be removed from the situation, find neutral territory, and try to talk it out. The Peace Table is the perfect place to do this.

The Peace Table is a set of small child-sized table and two chairs that is set in a quiet part of the classroom. In the middle of the table should be a Peace Flower.

When one child is upset with another, he should invite the other child to the Peace Table. The child who does the inviting begins the conversation, holding the Peace Flower. He tells the other child how she hurt his feelings and why she was invited to the Peace Table. Then he must pass it to her so that she can respond. The children keep passing the flower back and forth, speaking respectfully to each other, until their conflict is resolved. Only the child holding the Peace Flower may speak. When the situation is resolved, they can hold the flower together and say, “We declare peace.”

I can’t help but think, oh how the world would be a better place if people started taking preschool education seriously…