Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Yesterday was a very rough day for us. In the day , the teacher sent us a picture that Cayen bit a girl and the bite  looked bad. However, the bite didn't exactly look like it's a fresh bite. Also, we understood that the girl had barged towards him. Usually we would have been very apologetic and assumed that Cayen was at fault. However, an incident witnessed in late afternoon changed our perspective. When we arrived to pick Cayen, it was early so we observed him from outside. Then we saw a bunch of guys hitting him with paper and pencils. Teacher looked up briefly and looked down again. The hitting continued . And after a while , when we were about to intervene, teacher shouted for the boys to stop.  Then at home when we were washing Cayen's hair, we saw some glue in his hair. When asked, he said his classmates always put glue in his hair. This was the second time he had said it . The last time he said it, we didn't think too much about it because it might have been acc...

At home, Cayen is still oblivious to baby. While he is not eager to play with baby, he is quite possessive when friends visit the baby.  In the last one week, I have tried to get him to rock baby when baby cries , or tickle the baby's cheek to get him to drink milk and he has been quite cooperative which I took as a good sign . Unfortunately in school, his misbehaviour continues. Last week, he would push friends because he "didn't like them". And today, he just bit a friend as he was trying to block his friend. When asked why he bit, he told the teacher again that he "didn't like him".  Again, I think this downturn in behaviour is caused by the addition of a new family member.  Actually, I had earlier ordered some books from Amazon on managing his emotions etc and was quite cheesed that they were delayed for ten days and I couldn't use the stories earlier to try to teach the concepts to him in a more palatable fashion, especially since the incidents ...

I asked about his progress from both the English and Chinese teachers these few days. Both commented that he's a lot well behaved recently ..  However , the English teacher did share that he hit a girl today. When asked why, Cayen replied that it's because she took Ryan's (his good friend) toys . But when teacher asked Ryan if it's true, Ryan said it's okie because there's still many toys around. So I told him , "See Ryan loves to share and doesn't mind it, so you don't have to stand up for him. And it's wrong of you to hit people no matter what , just tell the teacher next time.."  Well, I guess the redeeming factor out of this is that he would stand up for people he care about.  Posing with Rainbow (when he's good and cooperative in his morning routine, I let him do it)

After I came home, I did a role play with him again ... So I asked him to act out all the scenarios that I would narrate.  Me: You were trying to cross but three boys are blocking you. What do you do? C: find another way ? Me: that's correct but is there some other way ? C: say "excuse me?" Me: what if they never hear you ? C: "excuse me!"(he said louder)  Me: what if they still don't let you cross ?  C: then I crawl over ?? (Then he tried to crawl between my legs!)  Me: ok, let's try again. What must you say ? C: excuse me.  Me: What do you want?  C: Can you give me some space? Me: why do you want some space? C: I want to cross.  Me: ok, let me make some space for you ...... Me: today you are looking at your friend's painting on the wall. Why did you tear it down? C: because it's not nice. Me: (I pointed to the magnet toy he just built) I don't like it , it's not nice. Can I tear it down? ...

Recently there are few updates. I tried not to bother teacher for updates since they should be quite busy dealing with so many parents.  Today, we saw a simple picture update of him playing music with his classmate. But when Ah Pa asked teacher if he has behaved in school .. We got an unexpected response.  "Just after music class when we went for toilet break. 3 K1 students with their teacher came yo our class because the 3 boys complained to their teacher that Cayen pushed them. When I asked Cayen if he really pushed them, he said yes. He said, "because they are blocking my way." I asked him to apologise and give each one a gentle hug. He followed. I also talked to him that he must use words rather than hands. I'm surprised he is not intimidated with the K1 boys. They are quite bigger than him. I told him, he is lucky that they didn't push you back. He seemed to be listening. But again, strike 2, he tore down his friend's craft displayed on the board. I saw ...

After a respite .. We heard some news yesterday again.  "Hi Mummy, Cayen hit his friend with a toy this afternoon. There's no mark but she complained it's painful. I have talked to him about this. Lately, the boys are into pretend fighting like catching the bad guys. So they like to build guns with blocks and unifix cubes and pretend to be fighting, they can be rowdy too. I'm trying to break that kind of game in class. Cayen has a piece of triangular puzzle and he used to poke his classmate on the side. He was only playing by himself and he was just standing on the side when he did this." We don't expose him to guns at home and somehow he picked it up somewhere .. Boys! Always in to guns and fast cars ..  But on the brighter note, he has sustained his drinking of milk out of a cup  for the last three weeks. Recently, it's been quite fast and fuss free as I introduced a game where I pour in some pieces of cornflakes into the cup and he's supposed to dri...

We were just chilling out last Friday evening for some quick desserts, trying to celebrate the small success of slightly better behaviour from Cayen over the past few days.  However, before my lava cake even arrived, we got a message from teacher again .. This time , we got not one but three pieces of bad news ...  "Dear parents, fyi... the afternoon teachers told me Cayen pulled out the stuffings of our cushions at the reading corner.  He took a scissor with him and he almost cut a friend's leg with a scissor. Lucky, friend was not hurt.  Also, this morning he asked me he wanted to go toilet to wash his hands. So I let him go but I reminded him not to play with water in the sink. He said yes and he looked sincere so I let him go without following him because he seemed to be behaving well lately. So maybe I can trust him this time.  Later, his classmate came all wet and told me Cayen did that to him. I went to check in the toilet and the floor is all wet wi...

What started splendidly unfortunately didn't end so well. Got a note from the teacher in the afternoon that Cayen has been bitten on the leg by a classmate. Root cause? During music class, as the class was asked to sit down facing the glass mirror, Cayen refused to sit. One of his classmates whom he was not so close to shuffled up near to him.  He , as usual, don't like unfamiliar people to be too near him (he feels his personal space is invaded) so he went and push him. So in retaliation he bit Cayen.  When teacher told me, she was quite apologetic. But I told her it's ok because when he push people, he needs to know that there's consequences. In fact, please quarantine him.  Teacher explains that he knows pushing is Wrong and he will apologise.,and they will use encouragement to change his behaviour ie using stickers to incentivise. During class, we will ask him to speak more and ask more questions. Sometimes they will sit on the small chair to cool down. Now he has a...

I didn't hear from the teacher much in the last one week. I guessed it's because she has taken leave as her own kid is starting preschool but silently I had hoped it's because Cayen has been behaving better. Well, before my silent congratulation to myself, I got this message today...  Teacher:  Hi Mummy, just letting you know that Cayen cried this morning after lunch because I reprimanded him from throwing things in the dustbin. He threw our number cards in the bin without us knowing. He also likes to mess and mix up things like toys and teaching aids in class (even taking out things on display board or peeling things off the wall). So things will either messed up or go missing in the class and he would tell us where he placed them (behind the board, at the back of the bookshelf, or in any other wrong places). The worst part is the bin. 😓 We will be lucky to retrieve the items if we caught him. But unfortunate if Aunty has already cleared the bin. Since he is very smart an...

Today I had a morning call so I tried to get him to school earlier. Little did I know that by being 15minutes early , he arrived to see none of his regular teachers around. So he had no choice but to sit with the teacher taking attendance alongside the other early kids. I wonder if he's able to sit still for the entire duration till his teachers arrive.  As his English teacher has been on leave,  we haven't been getting regular watsapp updates . This has resulted in perhaps a false sense of security that all was  well.  Then, today, another picture arrived, showing that he was up to no good again.  The irony is that I have always been preaching for him to save water, water electricity and to save paper . And he, for one, is extremely into the concept of reducing, recycling and reusing.  Nonetheless, for some reason, when it comes to toilet roll, he's like our cats, who simply can't resist playing with it! 

He slept at 8pm on Sunday (as he didn't nap that day) so he woke up really refreshed on Monday morning, which I'm placing my bets that it's going to be a relatively better day until the teacher messaged again. "Hi parents, I would like to inform you that Cayen was bitten by Alexander. They were fighting over a toy coz it's pack up time and Cayen doesn't want to keep the toy. Alex tried to get the toy from him so Cayen scratched Alex and he responded with a bite. Sorry, it happened too fast. Already talked to both of them that they cannot hurt or bite their friends. They have to use words or get help from their teachers . " For some reason, I felt a little relieved. At least the one that got bitten is not his classmates or teachers. And I hope he also learned that violence begets violence , and doesn't solve problems at all. And that if he can also get hurt if he starts the fight first.  Wanted to counsel him at night but he started to run a fever by la...

Fri morning, he had a nightmare so he was up screaming at 6am plus. Unfortunately, I had to go to office earlier so I couldn't do my usual routine. And he had cried loudly when he heard we left the house.  By end of day, we got a picture from school. It showed his classmates all staring at him because he refused to share his toys.  Apparently , Chinese teacher tried to counsel  him to no avail, so she had to ask them to move to another corner to play. At night, we came home to counsel him. We asked him why he did that, and wasn't he afraid to be surrounded by so many other kids?  Cayen replied, "我围着其他小朋友...不是其他小朋友围着我"  Anyway, not sure what came over him again since he was happily playing with everyone for the last few days .. Not sure if the lack of sufficient sleep affects his behaviour that day but lots of work still needed on his sharing skills..

Cayen has been very naughty in school of late. Yesterday, when the class went to the toilet, he sneakily stayed behind when they all returned to the classroom. When they found him, he was playing with water.  Today, the issue was bigger. There was some paints and stuff in the classroom. So he hid in one corner and squeezed all the tubes of paints onto  the floor and all over himself. When the teachers found him, they also found a big mess of blue all over. Think they had to scrub a lot to get all the stains off. Cayen's uniform was completely soiled too.  I think he was asked to stand in a naughty corner for doing all these. Apparently , his chinese teacher was so crossed with his bad behaviour , she told him she will ignore him. Upon hearing, he burst into tears, crying so uncontrollably that the principal had asked the teacher why she let him cry till it's so bad. The teacher said that he needed to know that he has done wrong, I tend to agree. Cayen te...