Yesterday I actually forced myself to sacrifice sacrificed watching tv and sat together with Kieran to do his homework. If I continue to do this daily I think I will suffer from hypertension and also will need long sighted reading glasses very soon! I already bought the biggest size ever Chinese-English dictionary but the characters are still so small! Since I don’t read a lot of Chinese Characters, I have to turn to the dictionary. It’s not as easy as using a English dictionary since I have to search for the character based on their characteristics. I guess it would be easier for someone who has a bit of Chinese education background from a proper school unlike mine which was from a karaoke screen!
And he gets distracted so easily…that really annoys me maximum as I was struggling looking for the meaning & pronunciation of the characters and he was like dreaming & wasting time doing unnecessary things.
Then this morning I did some revision on his Malay.
His first excuse…
K-there’s something wrong with my hand…look I can’t write properly…
Me-JUST WRITE!
Then…
K-what is ….? what is …..? I don’t know….
I tried to make him think by making various sentences using the word in doubt. I had to make like more than 3 senstences!!! DIe or not….tested on my not so fantastic Bahasa!!
After the relatively easy fill in the blanks exercise, there was a part where he had to make sentences given a few pictures. He just stared at the pictures and I think he went to space & never came back till I snapped him out of it.
I tried helping him by prompting him but I gave up as he just kept waiting for me to give him word by word. Then I took out the sample answer sheet and asked him to copy.
K- which one?
Die or not? He was too lazy to look for the sample answer despite the fact that it was shoved right in front of him!
Me-Answer given to you and you can’t even make the effort to look for it??
K-Copy all? Here? What about this (the first sentence we did earlier)?
Me-Yes all! Just write below la…
He again just stared into space….
Me-Hey! COPY wor…no need to think!! What are you doing????
I feel so sad, it reminds me of this story about a guy who asked to learn how to be the laziest person in the world. He went to the master’s house and called out to the Master..
Lazy-Master I’m here…
Master-Just pushed door and come in..it’s open
Lazy-Why don’t u come open it for me?
Master-You are certified…no need any more lessons!
17 responses so far ↓
dawn // April 29, 2008 at 10:52 am
Melodramatic and a space boy. Keng chau, man, this kid. haha, you reminded me of my mom when i was at Kieran’s age….yep, I drift off very easily and then kena smack on the head to bring me back to reality!!
hmm i didn’t have this problem as i don’t remember myse;f doing any homework! yikes!
sue // April 29, 2008 at 11:21 am
I think I understand your frustration. And the terrible thing is we won’t really know how to make these children turn 180 degrees into how we want them to be. Too harsh and they crack, too soft and we crack :S
kids nowadays really difficult lor…
JOHN // April 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I thought you learnt cantonese from the karaoke screen, not mandarin.
wei i sing mandarin songs oso woi!
LB // April 29, 2008 at 1:12 pm
That is a brilliant story about the laziest guy on earth.. Too bad now only you tell me…
hahaha..i thot that was an old old story? my dad told me this story like so many moons ago..
Elly // April 29, 2008 at 1:21 pm
WE r on the same boat! I really dont know what’s is right approach actually…i do snap very easily especially when i expect Mika to focus n listen!! it’s not that they dont know…just being tidak apa n dreaming!! eew…makes my blood boil and I admit…i dont have that ‘patience’!!
hey, will ask Aaron when is he free to hv dinner ok. am meeting him this weekend.
ok looking forward to meeting!
WMD // April 29, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Same here. As my boy only works on praises and affirmation, many a times, I grit my teeth..die die also try to find nice words to get him going.
wanna praise him oso no chance la..how la???
Mama BoK // April 29, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I dread the day .. my turn will come.
errr..but will let ur kid study chinese??
Shooi // April 29, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Sei lor…U know little bit of chinese oredi so stress. I donno chinese,…how ahhhhh *panic*
wah my little bit of Chinese really doesn’t help at all lerrr..
zara's mama // April 29, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I think in 3 yrs time.. I’ll just come here and copy this post to my site.
no way lerr…Zara so the clever girl!!
ehon // April 29, 2008 at 6:31 pm
LOL at zara’s mama.
Aiyo, don’t stress lar. Just think about yourself when you were his age lor. And think about what might help - a change in environment, some rewards or you know, just something different. I think kids are generally conditioned to their surroundings. so when they’re at the same place, given the same thing, and same work, they get conditioned to thinking that it’s just some stupid work, doesn’t work and they feel least motivated to do them
when i was his age there wasn’t any homework lerr..besides if there were i wud have got somebody to do it for me! kakakakkaaka
flowsnow // April 29, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Mmm……
1. I deduct that fact that he might not be understanding his work well.
2. You need to find out why and where is the problem. Copying will not help him to understand his work. He must understand the language.
3. Do more story telling sessions with him. Lots available from the chinese workbook. I do that with my kids to train them to remember the sequence and reproduce. It helps in the composition and memory retention.
4. Keep the study short and sweet. He might have a bit of attention defecit and it doesn’t help much with him not understanding what he is suppose to do esp language. You still need to go back to basic and w/o that the kid will just continue to suffer. How is his spelling? I can teach him if you want.
his spelling is very bad…cos he doesn’t read!
flowsnow // April 29, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Soli…more cheong hei…but I think it will help you not to loose your cool.
Try using tokens with him as in reward. If he does his work well, he gets a sticker. Have a board where he can paste it and if he collects x amount he can redeeem a `gift’. Maybe that includes watching TV too! If he works for it, he will try harder.
yeah i bot the stamp printer instead of stickers but it worked for a short while…
Sue // April 29, 2008 at 8:15 pm
He is tired ah….hehe..distracted probably…maybe it’s a phase…would probably grow out of it..
tired? if there’s tv or play he will definitely not be tired one…
jazzmint // April 30, 2008 at 6:59 am
give him sometime, I bet he will shine
not in the near future i’m afraid..hahaha
wen // April 30, 2008 at 9:02 am
slowly ler, spend more time doing his homework with him and he will like it since he gets ur attention and will do it.. like my son… perhaps he is not used to many homework..
come, let’s go karaoke to let out our frustrations by singing half mandarin songs..hehe
so when are we going to karaoke?? *wink wink*
Cocka Doodle // May 2, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Want to borrow my Penthouse magazines for him anot?
kelly // May 7, 2008 at 12:08 am
Ah mah arh… do u think nowadays homework is too much for kid?? Really the school is making every parents stress lah!
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