The daily tug-of-war - nagging, threats, yelling, emotional blackmail, coloured by the occasional flash of musical brilliance, but marked mostly by defiance, procrastination and painfully bad playing - is exhausting.
If not for her, then certainly for me.
I sometimes wonder if she would not be better off having a year off AMEB.
But then my logical mind protests: "She'll be one year behind her peers!" "She'll lose momentum and not want to learn piano anymore!" "How will she be on track to get a music scholarship by Year 6 if she eventually decides she loves music?"
Tonight, Miss B was in a malleable mood.
So I asked her to rate her own effort as she played Minuet in G.
Each time, she gave herself a higher score than before. 6, then 7.5, then 9.75.
"How much more before you give yourself a ten?"
"Just this much more." She made her thumb and index finger into a circle.
Just for fun, I said "Why don't you try playing with your toes?"
You should have seen the gleam in her eyes, and the way her mouth tilted upwards.
She loves quirky challenges, you see.
And immediately she started playing Minuet with her right foot.
Beth learned the importance of Self-Discipline yesterday.
I had asked her to do a stocktake of her Kumon workbooks before today's lesson.
To her horror, she discovered that she still had 11 workbooks to complete!
I impressed upon her the life lesson that had been revealed by her inaction. We did a quick calculation and worked out that if she took 10 min per workbook, she could complete them all in about 2 hours.
To her credit, she buckled down and got working, though not without the occasional extended break and show of rebellion.
At 9 pm, she was down to the final two and she decided that she could and would finish them.
It was wonderful to see her make up her own mind about the matter without any parental pressure. A breakthrough in maturity indeed.
She eventually finished one and took herself off to bed, declaring she would finish the other after school today and before Kumon.
The funny thing is, things didn't exactly go as intended. She had committed to finishing her school homework, two practice sessions on the keyboard of 30 min each, bath and Chinese homework.
She managed her school homework fairly easily, except for parts of the math homework. I thought it was the perfect time to introduce her to algebra and the concept of X. Was so pleased that she showed such enthusiasm for learning something new and managed to grasp the concept right away.
Getting her to practise the keyboard was much harder.
She dawdled till after dinner before getting to it, but when she did, she managed to do so with a good attitude and to keep her temper in check, which made it easier for me too. After all, it takes two to have conflict!
She pleaded exhaustion midway through her scales so I wisely (with God-given wisdom and self-restraint) decided to let her defer the practice of the remaining scales to today.
Hopefully, she keeps up her good attitude and we'll be right on exam day (now 10 days away).
Chatted with my favourite school mum yesterday. Her daughter is Beth's best friend.
A quick discussion about play dates (which we've been trying forever to set up) led to an opportunity for me to find out if I'm the only one with a fractious 8 yo.
Turns out I'm not alone.
My friend, whose daughter is confident, well-rounded, bright and sporty and well-liked by everyone, confided that just the other day, her daughter was screaming and carrying on in the car on the way to school.
She was unhappy at having been told off by her mum, and yelled out something like, "If you keep doing this, I'm never talking to you when I grow up!"
At which point my friend said enough's enough, and told her to exit the car and make her own way to school.
I was so relieved to hear this story and so glad my friend shared it.
I have so many days where I'm gnawed with guilt, thinking: I'm not a good-enough mum. Why do I lose my temper with my kids? Where have I gone wrong? What am I missing? Why are my children so badly behaved sometimes?
But maybe this is just life.
My kids are of me but not me. They can - and do - choose whether to do good or do evil.
My job is not to micromanage but to teach them to take responsibility for their own choices and actions, to understand that with every choice comes a consequence.
Also, there will be good days and bad days in every family.
When the bad days come, I must remember to be RESILIENT and STAY SANE through it all, without compromising my morals or saying or doing something I might later regret.
When the good days come, I must remember to GIVE THANKS and BE GRATEFUL. It could be worse.
I am determined not to let the hols slip away in a flurry of inactivity this year.
So Beth and I have agreed that we will have a daily timetable with (hopefully) a balance of activities and learning opportunities that interest her and that Mummy & Daddy feel she should apply herself to.
Today is Day 1 of 53 (I'm keeping count!).
We went to the optician to get Beth fitted for her new glasses, then to the library, where we bumped into Triston, Trudy & Yvonne. Beth borrowed, inter alia, two audio books (Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban; The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe).
Tonight, we will listen to CD1 of The Lion before bedtime.
As usual, Beth dove straight into her newly borrowed books and spent too much time reading.
Coaxed her into playing Jingle Bells (RH only) and some old pieces (Lavenders Blue; Marionette Dance).
Tomorrow's activities:
Bake a cake Make a Christmas angel Figure out chords for LH of Jingle Bells Read Chinese textbook and do Chinese writing
I have had it up to here with my firstborn's messiness around the house.
In response to her suggestion that maybe we need household rules, I came up with a list of 7 which I gave her today.
Side note:
Hubby saw the list and was full of approval as he thought it came from Beth's teacher and was completely in accord with what we preach...then he found out I drafted it!
HOW TO BE SELF-DISCIPLINED AT HOME
Commandment 1: Tidy up after using things.
Reason: If you don’t put things back where they belong, no one will, and you won’t be able to find what you need when you need it.
E.g.
After doing craft work, put paints and art smock back in art box beneath whiteboard, stationery back in stationery box near the computer.
Commandment 2: Homework first
Reason: A student’s first job is to be an excellent learner. That includes doing homework.
Homework comes before your favourite TV program and computer game.
No TV during school days unless the family is watching it together and homework has been completed
Commandment 3: 30 min of Chinese and 15 min of keyboard practice a day
Reason: A little a day keeps the mental cobwebs away and helps you be more confident when it comes to Sat You will enjoy lessons more when you can understand and follow what the teacher is teaching.
Commandment 4: Get organized.
Unpack school bag when you get home. Remove lunchbox and water bottle, homework books, school notices.
Pack school bag and lay out your school uniform before you go to bed. Make sure you have everything you need: reader, homework books, library bag.
Reason: When you are well-organized, you feel good about yourself. You will never worry that you have forgotten something you were supposed to bring to school.
Commandment 5:No reading at meal times.
Reason: When you read, you forget to eat. Your food gets cold, the nutrition is lost, the food doesn’t taste as nice as when it was warm. You end up eating less than you should and not getting enough nutrients.
Commandment 6:Do as much as you can by yourself before asking for help.
Reason: If you can do it on your own, you should. You can handle simple things like brushing your teeth, getting dressed, taking a bath etc without Mummy/Daddy standing by.
Commandment 7:Be your little sister’s teacher.
Reason: Jordanne looks to you as a role model. She loves to do what you do and she learns best by copying you.
Keep doing what you’ve been doing:
Teach her her ABCs
Show her how to get dressed, how to brush her teeth and comb her hair, how to tidy up after herself
Teach her how to read and write just like you have learnt, so she will be ready for school
Tell her Bible stories, sing to her, read with her
Teach her how to behave at Sunday School, how to pray
I'm not overly fond of reading parenting books, but it looks like I'll have to hit the library soon.
I have a highly strung firstborn who won't look people in the eye or greet strangers (unless she's feeling up to it), whose emotions are completely out of control, who throws a tanty if she can't get her (music) notes right, who hates it when I attempt to enforce law-and-order over homework.
As a Singaporean brought up to respect my elders and do as I'm told, I struggle to understand what goes on inside my 7 y.o.'s mind. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too hard on her. At other times I wonder if she's missing an emotional chip.
There have been so many instances when she has just refused to say hello to a friend or friend's parent because she doesn't feel like it. It absolutely mortifies me. I am sure the unspoken question among the less generous will be: "What's wrong with your child?" or "Haven't you taught her any manners?"
I know my mum would give me a hard time if she were on the receiving end of her granddaughter's churlishness. She would say I haven't taught her well. :(
In contrast, my second-born is naturally cheery, full of smiles, and is an extrovert. She smiles nicely at strangers, chats with friends and relatives on the telephone even when she doesn't really know who she's talking to (she's two, after all) and loves to give and receive hugs.
I know I'm already displaying favoritism just by the way I describe my children. But how can I help it? One is likeable, and one is so...prickly. It's probably also a case of opposites attract. My firstborn is like me in nature: introverted, cautious, takes time to warm up to people. Over the years I've grown to be more open and curious and accepting, but there you have it. My firstborn manifests my natural self as it would be if I didn't make an effort to change. And my second-born has all the qualities I work hard to cultivate but still fall short of, just because I wasn't wired that way.
She wakes up whinging and wants me to hold her. I have my eye on the clock as I frantically try to wake Beth, who always has a lie-in till the last possible moment.
Meanwhile, J won't let me dress her or change her diaper.
When it's time to go, she won't put on her socks.
I say "No Socks No Play" and she yells back, "Noooo!"
She refuses to wear a jacket, however cold it may be.
I'm lucky if I get her to wear a second T-shirt or her cute red vest with the picture of the lion on it.
Every evening at bath time, she fights with me.
Won't go under the shower.
Won't let me soap her. She wants to do it herself, but she takes FOREVER.
Won't let me rinse off the shampoo and soap.
When my patience runs out, I grab her and plunge her under the shower (it's not as bad as it sounds) so get the lather off.
How she screams and yells and tries to flee the shower area!
The neighbours must think I abuse my kids or else that I'm hopeless incompetent at managing them.
Now I let hubby take over at bath time.
He is so much more patient and willing to humour them.
I praise J lavishly when she comes to tell me she has bathed.
The girls are continuing to push their boundaries.
CA had to send J to the corner just last week, whereupon she had a meltdown and started to wail in that pitiful way. Every morning, she resists getting dressed, and I have to come up with new and creative ways to distract her or put her in a sufficiently happy state so she will not fight me.
Beth tests me every other day too.
Can't get up in the morning. Won't go to bed on time. Has no sense of urgency. Won't put down her book for ANYTHING. Daydreams when she's supposed to do her homework or her daily ablutions. She goes to the bathroom and stares into the mirror (when she's supposed to brush her teeth etc) until I come along to see what's going on.
Whereupon I promptly explode and start to nag, threaten and do all those things that come instinctively from my own childhood experiences and which I'd promised myself never to inflict on my own children....
Emailed Beth's Yamaha teacher recently to share our observations of Beth's progress and to ask if the teacher would consider tutoring her one-to-one.
CA and I are concerned that the weekly one-hour classes are too much for Beth. After 30 mins, she loses concentration, starts yawning and getting fidgety and actually slides off her bench. Not all kids in her class are like that; some have remarkable self-discipline.
Her teacher's responses: She will observe Beth's performance in class and talk to us about it. She only accepts students for private tuition when they're at least 8 y.o. In the interim, she recommends Yamaha as the best learning format for young children.
I might switch Beth to a weekday Yamaha class next year so her Saturdays aren't so packed.
But that also means she'll have one more weekday that's crammed with after-school activity.
Of Termites And Foundations And Learning The Keyboard
Beth has a tendency to give up at the slightest whiff of hardship.
I managed to get her on the keyboard today after much cajoling and then threatening. We got through one piece, but when it was her turn to play, she began crying, saying it was too hard. (Her job was to play with both hands, with the left hand making up two-note chords.)
This left-right coordination is of course not an overnight achievement, and I had to tell her a long story about how many years it had taken Mummy to learn the piano (17 years!) and how many hours of practice Grandaunty made me put in each day (4 hours!).
We talked about the parable of the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand, and what happened when the rains came.
We talked about how a house is built from the foundation upwards, not from the roof downwards, and the importance of laying a good solid foundation.
We talked about what termites can do to timber.
At the end of all that, my voice was hoarse, but I was pleased that the message had been received with the right spirit. (Or so I thought.)
Beth promised to give it another try.
She sat down, hit the wrong notes, and promptly burst into tears.
I told her if it takes ten tries to get it right, that's what she has to do.
"I think I'll try a bit more," she sniffed.
She got it right on the next attempt.
"Good job Beth!"
"I think I'll try it section by section."
"What a clever idea! I'm proud of you for suggesting it."
