Of Results & Relationships

A mum shared with me this morning that she was so disappointed with her kid's mid-year exam results :( BUT, instead of her usual response of yelling at the kid, she sat down with him to show him how his showing at the mid-year has a bearing on his final year results. She told me that her child's tears flowed and flowed and wet the school handbook (which showed how marks are computated), lol.

My friend's concerns are not uncommon among parents. We hope that our kids will be "automatic" or self-driven. That they will do their homework, revise for exams and scale great heights because they WANT to do it and not because mama and papa (ok, more mama) nag at them to do so. My fren told me she has sent her child to some well-known enrichment centres to improve his math but stopped when there was no significant improvement. She wondered if she should send her child to those motivational programmes which teach kids to set goals, to dream dreams, and to work towards realising those goals. i told her to forget about such programmes. They cost thousands of dollars and success is NEVER guaranteed. i've heard of accounts of yes, insignificant improvement after such programmes.

i certainly don't have the answer to my fren's concerns :) i myself have to deal with er, one of my boys, who is also not "automatic". My kids are intelligent i'm sure. But it doesn't translate into good results for one of them leh :) i have already spent more time to prepare him for mid-year exams (last week), but still the results of one of his papers were disappointing. The only consolation i have is that i'm not alone, lol.

The other common concern parents have is who their kids are hanging out with and their influences. The past week, i've heard of such concerns and the parents i spoke to, largely respect the need to let go and not interfere too much. Indeed, the last thing you want is to have a row with your kid over fren so and so. It would probably drive a wedge into the parent-child relationship.

Again, i have no answer to that, cos i don't have first hand experience (yet). To my frens who are troubled by this, i think one way would be to redirect your focus to those aspects of your parent-child relationship that is fun and loving and warm and yes, it is doable even with older kids (and older than old kids). There is no need to compete with your child's frens. Yours is a unique relationship :)

Ok, exams are over and school hols are coming. Let's take a break from our concerns over results and relationships. i deserve that, lol.