Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Is chinese language really so hard to learn ? As a kid, I have no issues with chinese till secondary school as we speak mainly Chinese and dialect at home when I was young. I only started disliking it after I got to secondary school as there’s just a lot of memorising and rote learning and it ceased to be enjoyable.  Now I am facing the same issue with the kids who don’t seem to get chinese though we do speak it at home. For instance, I have repeated the reading of the same book to Cayson for weeks but he simply cannot remember the chinese word for hippo , beaver and crocodile despite knowing the English equivalent. For crocodile, he would call it a shark in chinese 鲨鱼 which is on the next page. And he can’t recall it five minutes after I corrected him. As I repeated myself calmly for the 100th time , I reminded myself he’s really good in jigsaw puzzles for his age and he’s got very high empathy skills and hence, not being able to grasp these chinese words is really no big deal at ...

We went for curriculum updates last week for Cayson and the week before for Cayen. Bumped into the English teacher who told me that Cayen eats his lunch very well including vegetables (doesn't sound like him at all). She also mentioned that Cayen likes to test boundary. Recent case in point , teacher would ask the children to not talk in the toilet as it could be noisy for the children in the adjacent classroom. As he wasn't allowed to talk, he purposely started singing instead. Then our discussion was cut short and I wondered how the teacher responded to his singing eventually.  Nonetheless , this is one of the many instances where Cayen would not do things the conventional way. In Cantonese, I might even call him "Seng Mok" (savvy). For instance , previously , he was spotted sipping lime cordial juice on a plate -he has helped himself at the dispenser without my knowledge . One would have usually told him off but I decided to ask him why he did that. He said that he...

I read some articles before on how we should be careful about how we praise a kid. Later on, I was also introduced to the concept of a Growth Mindset at Little Executive that also covers it. "Growth mindset is about having a mindset that allows insight to emerge from failures, resilience to be built from mistake and every misstep an opportunity to be better." - little executive's website  Hence, since then , I'm very careful with my choice of words with Cayen . I do not praise outcomes or how smart he is , but will always praise his efforts instead. And with every teaching moments that arise, I will emphasize that we do something well because we have practised very hard and we never give up.  For instance, I told him about how I tried the Yin and Yang yoga today and it's really tough for me since it's my first lesson. And he asked me if the others felt the same. I said no, they were much stronger than me. However, even though if I was not good today, I will no...

Recently , Cayen has been singing his responses a lot more recently ... I.e. He would say “no..no..no..." to the tune of some children's song. I think it could be due to the fact that recently at night, I have been doing that a lot during bedtime singing ... Coming up with random lyrics...  For instance, if you use the tune of LOVE (the hi-5 version), that day after he saw some clay at Toy R Us,  I came up with this, C L A Y , I love clay and you love clay  C L A Y , I love clay and you love clay  Red clay, orange clay, yellow clay, rainbow colour clay .. I also use the Bingo song to teach him to spell Cayen - CAYEN..  One night, I tried to motivate him to brush his teeth, by applying the tune of 妹妹背着洋娃娃.. Good boy version :  Cayen 今天有刷牙 有用牙膏和 漱口 牙齿白白嘴巴香 明天不用看牙医 I also sang the bad boy rendition :  Cayen 今天没刷牙 没用牙膏没漱口 牙齿黑黑嘴巴臭 明天要去看牙医