This is probably the questions posted by many parents when their children is entering school age. That happened to me seven years ago when my first child is nearing her ’school age’. At that time she was just having her first birthday.
As first time parents, I turned to literatures and online advises, as my mom who lives in the other continent still have the ‘old’ perception that a child should be playing with her friends until they are old enough to learn. While the environment prompted me to start an education program for my child since they are just a tiny dot in my tummy. Early education, gym babies, crawling class (!) you name it. Those places are easily found all around my residential area.
So, after confering with my online buddies through discussion forums, listen, discuss, debate, I decided to enrol my daughter in one of those baby classes. The most compeling reason/rationale from my online buddies (by that time, I was among the first who have children in my peers) was that enrolling a barely walking baby into a class will provide her with the necessary social skills she will need when she is at the right school age. To me (at that time) that is a good enough reason. And yep, I saw her building her social skills right there and I was so proud of her.
A year later, her baby brother come along. Now, it is different. My daughter need to learn how to cope with sibling rivalry. While her baby brother will need to learn what his sister know in order for them to play together. So, when my second child celebrate his first birthday, I enrolled him in the same pre-school as his sis. Mission accomplished? No. Far from it.
Baby brother wants to be in the same class with big sister. So, he was constantly skipping his own class and play in big sis’ class. Chaos.
I thought it will only last maximum a year. I was wrong. Now, both my kids are in primary school and I still face the same issue. If big sis wants to learn math, lil bro also want to learn math. If big sis wants to take english lesson, lil bro follows, to the point of the school club that they attend.
I do want my kids to excell in school. I do want them to earn top grades and if possible get a scholarship. And I think both my kids are okay. Big sis is doing very well, and lil bro is doing good.
So what’s the problem?
Well, both of them does not seem to need other people. They are very much content of having each other and to them other kids are just complementary. Whenever big sis has new friends, lil bro immediately befriend them too. Lil bro does not seem to need his own friend, which makes him the one little boy in a group of giggling third grade girls.
Both my kids are very special in their own way. Big sis is very much into studying. She likes to have lots of lessons and courses and seems to be bored if one of her many ‘courses’ are on holiday. She also likes sports a lot, swimming, soccer, badminton, you name it.
Lil bro is very techie. That boy is a little whiz with gadget and gizmos (well, both of them are digital natives). He can easily work out a complex cabbling systems that connects the TV, the DVD player and his beloved Nintendo Wii. Sometimes even sort a technical problem ,that his father can’t even fathom, through simple logic.
I can say that my kids are quite book smart, tech savvy, have an open mind and exposed to more things than I do when I was their age. Now, you might say that I shouldn’t have to worry to much. Well, people are difficult to satisfy.
But I want my kids to be able to survive LIFE. In this mean and vicious world, where we are forced to put up a barbed wire around our home and suspicion and danger lurking everywhere, I want them to be independent and experience things that are important part of growing up smart. Able to mingle with many people, have lots of friends and still maintain their independence, going to school with public transport, how to earn pocket money, how to deal with threat, how to stand up to a bully (not that there are bullies in their school), basically I want them to be street smart.
I know that is possible. Now, my question is anybody knows how can I make sure my kids are both book smart AND street smart?
misty Parenting baby, book smart, children, education, kids, misty maitimoe, school, stree smart, street smart