Lesson of life

One day, Renata asked me to wait for her friend’s mom to pick up at school. She said that her friend wanted to give her a gun toy that can be changed into a trendy bag (I’ve seen that toy in the toy store few weeks ago and it cost around 300.000 IDR). I really thought it was impossible for any parents to give away that kind expensive toy for free without any special occasion. But Rena was very sure that her friend will keep her promise, so I go along with her plan. After few days trying to wait, finally we met her mom and follow to her car. Her friend said that she will take it from the car. After she went into the car, the car started to go, and her friend just waving good bye.

I can see Rena is broken-hearted, she was confused with her friend and why she just left. On the other hand I was upset, I said to her “See, what did I tell you, she can not be trusted. Don’t trust her anymore”

The next day, I thought Rena will be upset and don’t want to play with her anymore. To my surprise, she did not. She forgive and act like nothing had happened before. Then she asked me, whether she can go play to her house. I immediately said “No, remember she is often not telling the truth. She probably was not ask her parents before”

Few month passed, I still remember that event, along with stories that she tell Rena like she had saw mermaid, ghost, other friends kissing each other. I began to dislike that little girl because of her lies. Guess what, Rena is still “best friend” with that girl. She did not like with her behavior and expressed it, but she did not hate or judge the person.

Ups.. I thought I am the one who supposed to teach my child about life and how to live in this life. Then, I am the one who is learning to be more wise from my child.

Discipline

This morning, I was furious about “the incident” involving my five years old daughter who was late 5 minutes from the “agreed” time, and his father. “We’ve agreed to be ready at 7.30 in the morning, or you don’t need to go to school ever. I asked for 7.30, not 7.31 or 7.35. Is that hard to do?” said father. On the other end, Rena said “Pa, I’m sorry. I want to go to school”.

At that time, I was thinking… for God sake, the child is only 5 min late. She said sorry, and she was preparing by herself. Plus, I believe we still have time to deliver her before her school begin. Just stop the argument and lets go.

His father is firmly holding his principle about “on time” habit which he and I believe to be important to be taught for our children. I admit this is just one incident among many “late incident” in the morning. So he is doing the “bad cop” role to make this habit stop.

While I was looking in the whole context. The children keep getting better in preparing themselves and getting faster too. But sometimes, they just slipped and passed the time limit. And yesterday was a tough day for Rena as she has a field trip, then extended activity after school and a Kumon session.

So, we as parent, are facing with this situation everyday, whether to hold on our discipline or just let it go (with a strong reason of course). I usually quite firm with the discipline part, but today I see the other perspective. I really don’t like to be yelled and I don’t care of what my husband intention is with that anger.

As I see in the child perspective, when the parent is angry, I don’t like it. I only focus on the anger then I angry too at his/her anger. Maybe this method can make her stop of being late or do what ever we want them to do. But the only reason is to avoid the anger or because my dad/mom said so. The child will not internalized the reason, the process and surely she/he will not do it in different situation.

Perhaps, it is better to find a better way to deliver the consequences rather than angry. Or perhaps, just do the consequence without any comment or talk. Then at different time, we can talk about it without any emotion involved.

Hmmm I know.. it’s hard to do!!! Let see if I can do it…

 

Seminar masa depan edukasi – 30 Oktober 2015- Balai Sarbini

Adam khoo, salah satu institusi pendidikan yang terkenal sebagai penyelenggara “I am gifted” camp dari Singapore, mengadakan seminar bertema “21 th century education conference”. Saya bersama kedua teman dengan bersemangat menghadiri konferensi yang dimulai sekitar jam setengah 10 ini bersama 1000 peserta lainnya.

Siang ini saya ingin berbagi mengenai beberapa yang hal yang menarik yang saya ingat  dari acara ini, semoga bisa bermanfaat untuk orang tua atau pendidik lainnya.

Prof Barbara Oakley, pengarang buku “Learning how to learn” menceritakan bahwa otak manusia pada satu saat, berada dalam satu dari dua keadaan, “fokus” dan “diffuse” (saya tidak menemukan kata yang pas dalam bahasa indonesia, bisa diartikan seperti idle, melamun, rilex, istirahat). Keduanya adalah saling menggantikan, jadi tidak mungkin kita bisa fokus sekaligus “diffuse”. Yang menarik adalah , ternyata pada saat kita  belajar atau menyelasaikan masalah, kedua jenis keadaan tersebut mempunyai peran masing-masing.

Pada saat otak kita sedang dalam keadaan fokus, otak akan mengaktifkan synapsis yang sudah terbentuk dalam otak untuk menyelesaikan suatu tugas atau permasalahan. Akan tetapi bila masalah atau tugas itu adalah seseuatu yang baru, maka ada kemungkinan pola synapsis yang sudah ada dalam otak kita tidak bisa mengerti atau menyelesaikannya.  Saat ini lah kondisi “diffuse” mengambil peran. Pada saat kita melamun, otak sebenarnya juga bekerja dan mengunjungi synapsis -synapsis lain secara acak. Kadang pada saat tersebut, kita menemukan pola synapsis yang mirip atau sama dengan masalah yang sebelumnya kita coba pecahkan, dan kita tersentak seperti memiliki ide baru.

Oleh sebab itu, kebanyakan ide inovatif biasanya timbul pada saat kita justru tidak sedang fokus memikirkan solusi atau pada saat kita sedang melamun, atau santai. Jadi sangat akurat nasihat yang mengatakan bahwa kita lebih baik mencari udara segar terlebih dahulu bila sedang “stuck” dalam memikirkan sesuatu, atau untuk memikirkannya pada saat tidur.

Berbekal pengetahuan ini, ternyata “analogy” atau “metafora” adalah alat penting dalam pengajaran. Karena cerita dalam analogi dapat merangsang synopsis yang pernah terbentuk di dalam otak kita, sehingga memudahkan kita untuk mengerti. Kini saya mengerti mengapa sering kali saya mendapat insight ketika mendengar cerita atau pengalaman orang lain.

Take it too seriously?

Raise in industry era has made me the best “follower”student. Understand the rules, practises until I master it, compete with peer, trying to get the best grade in the class. This system has made me understand lots of things, but without enthusiasm to look further, to questioning and make a better one than the one was shown. I just lost the capability to innovate, to invent something new and better. One of the skill that is crucial in my work years later.

But the worst part is that I forgot to have fun in life. I was too serious in everything I do even in daily life. I set target for myself, sometimes even higher than others. I plan everything before I start. It make me save from failure. The worst dream for a perfect “industrial” student. I am bad at handling failure. I had not had enough experiences in failure. My junior time are full success in getting good mark. It did boost my confident to solve problems that I had previously, but not the unknown ones.

Luckily, I found the best job for me, that fit my capability and interest. I made me enjoy of doing it and felt as it was not a job. It become challanging as I began to lead other collegues, I realized that leadership is not only command and control and every person is different. I remember how frustruate I was to see someone who could not do such a simple task for me. At the same time, I gave birth to my first child. It was the most precious and the most frustruate time for me.

My son presence is one of the most unstructure event my life. He was not sleep at night, he cried all the time, everything about him is shocking me a lot. As he grown, things were even messier. No matter how well I plan and anticipate, I couldn’t get on time to my office. I remember my guilt for my son and my office at the same time. 24 hours a day is just not enough.

Every child is special

I am wondering, is there any parent who trully saw his or parent as a special kid? No matter how many times I tried to change my perspective, I’m still with the majority, who concern about our child weaknesses. No matter how good a child in one thing, it is so attempting not to focus on it, and see all the “bad” that need to be fixed.

So many times I heard parents were talking about their child weaknesses. Why my child can not read as fluent as the other same age children. Why my child is so shy. Why my child is so talkactive and persuasive.

Is it really working that way?

Is there any “perfect” person who is good in every thing?

Yet, parents always try to make a perfect child. We, parent, want to make sure that we have teach them everything for their future. We don’t want them to fail, tell them everything we learned and believe that they will benefit from our lessons.

The thing is, the more you try to teach them, the less they learn. Learning is a constructive thing. It can only be undestood f it is come from them inside. Sometimes mistake is the only way understand can grow.

Maybe it is too hurt for me to see my boy fall into the fail that I know how to avoid. Rather than be a coach, who stand beside him when he need, I become a guardian angel who try to help him before something bad happen. Sometimes, a general who command him to do as I order him and give a punishment for any misbehaviour.

In the other extreme, there are parents who think their child is so “special” that it is ok to spoil them. To give everything they want, the best one. They bragging on how good their children in one field and refuse to see the weaknesses. Their children feel that they are born as a special person not because what they can do, but who they are.

Maybe those two perspectives should be used together. Our child is so unique that we should think a special way for them to learn by themselves. Perhaps, it is better for them to figure out what their weaknesses are. So that they have the reason why they should to improve it and had the motivation to try and try.

Our job is to create environment that support that learning process.

Huff what a hard task to do!

I see myself in my children

I had read a lot of parenting books. Most of them had the convincing proof that their way is the best way to raise a child. Though I found it is very hard to applied all those theories in daily life.

The more I read and the more I tried to make my parenting better, I was faced with new and more challenging problems.

I even think, is it possible that those parenting knowledge is useless? It does little or none effect to my children.

Then, a friend of mine said that it is true. she had read in one of her books that the way we live ourlife life is more Likely to affecting the child (Brene Brown). Then, why bother to learn parenting.

Some how it does not sound true. I believe good parenting does make a lot of differences in a child future. But which one is “good” parenting style?

I guess, there is no silver bullet in parenting. We are dealing with human development. It should be organic, rather than procedural. Just like gardening, the same seed, the same procedure, could grown differently. There are too many factors that involved, culture, social economy, school curicullum, no of children, parent’s education, etc.

What Brene brown said made me realized that parenting is not only a child development. It’s both parent and child development.

When fabian reach his 6, I was so surprised with the fact how similar he is with me and my husband. All those early years,turn out to be the moment he capture his entire environment and record them in his subconscious mind.

I then realized, that my son is a mirror of me. When I see a bad behaviour in him, I see it in myself. If I want him to change it, I have to change myself first.

It’s like having an assessment tool for your own personal development. If you manage to make yourself better, you can see it through your child. He/ she will replicate what you did and how you can develop yourself.

For me sometimes, by describing what I’m trying to do to my son, I remind myself to not do the same mistakes and guide my son to understand the process i’ve tried.

For example, I get upset easily when things run not as I planned. I used to explode with anger and sometimes do stupid things. This bad habit has been reduced since I learn emotion intelligence, but it’s really hard to be eliminated.

Now my son has similar attitude, he explode with anger easily. I now explaining emotional intelligence to him. It does improve his attitude. I guess I have to applied it to myself more often, so he can copy it.

I really think that raising a child is really the best way to make someone more mature.

Constructive learning- Highscope parent workshop 22 august 2013 – Medan

I just understand what it means by “constructive learning” in this session of parent workshop. Highscope believe that it is the best way to prepare the future leader. I do believe that the traditional way of learning is not enough for my children future challanges. That’s how I were raised. But I have no idea what the better way to do it either.

When I choose Highscope for Fab, it seems to offer the “personalized” education that I do believe will give opportunities for my child to find his passion. I’ve read linchpin that describe that we are no longer in “industrial era”. Sir Ken Robinson point out that finding the element will give meaning to life. Plus Rene Suhardono, the career coach in hardrock FM proposed that everyone should find their passion. It will be great if I could help my children to find their passion in their early years. They could get the 10000 hours practice that “outlier” said to master anything before they graduate university. They surely have a wonderful life ahead of them.

Along the way, I saw how my son develop. He is the kind of boy who can not stop moving. He can’t control his body. Reading and writing is the least thing he want to do, because it require him to sit down and still. I was quite stress with the fact that all other elementary schools in my area require first grade student to be able to read and write as a submission test. I guess only Highscope who believe that each child will get skill soon or later, and it is ok for 1grade to not master reading amd writing.

I am not the only parent that worry about it. I saw many parents in Highscope gave their child extra lesson after school. I really believe that reading should be fun, because it opened my mind with lots if knowledge. I want my children to love reading, so I avoid to force them to learn it with pain. I tried many ways that finally I gave up and made Fab do the english kumon. Simply because it gives exercises he need to practise. I can made it, but it make me overwhelm to create those exercises everyday.

So I thought what is Highscope trying to do? Is it being permissive with the child?

‘Instant’ is the third enemy of parenting

I still remember having a thick book that I ‘d looked for when I learn new english word. It takes times to translate even a single sentence. Now with Google and wikipedia within my mobile, I don’t think I would buy any dictionary nor encyclopedia. It takes less than 1second to get answers in google.

Instant – has kill patience. Process is become less important, and result is the main product. Process was taken over by technology. Technology will do the repeated process and do it faster than human. Finally, human does not understand and forget the beauty of process, he want a fast and good result in everything.

I remembered being asked by a father, what result I got for sending my big boy to preschool. It need times for me to answer that question. I never set any target and I just believe that the school would give better stimulus than his babysitter (since I was working at that time). For God sake, it’s not even kindergarden, and parent do expect clear result of school.

I found several reading tutors who guarantee my child will be able to master reading and writing within few weeks. How can that complex skill was mastered in such as short period? It turn out that capability to spell is different with reading in contextual. Children can read, but he can not understand what he read and he maybe hate to do it too.

Instant maybe good in industry, business, and other area, but not parenting. Why?

Fear is the second enemy of parenting -part 2 (comparing)

I dont know if it’s just me, but It’s always drive me crazy when I saw other kid at the same age with Fab, can do certain skill that Fab has not mastered yet. The worst when it come with reading and writing, the most unappealling skill for Fab. Even a 4 years old daugther of my friend has mastered it from her school activities, while I’ve tried everything for Fab until now at his 6th. Montessorri ways, flash card, labelling our things at home, mix reading with physical activities, extralesson on reading and all other ways that I can think of or read. It’s useless, I can not make reading a fun thing to be learned and I really don’t want to force him to do it because it can kill his interest for reading. He will hate reading and that is the last thing I want to be happened.

It is not happened only with reading, parents do compare their child for how he talk, behave, draw, and everything else. Maybe it is our nature to see the weakness of our child, and focus on it. So when we see other can do it, we can spot it easily and we afraid that we have done something wrong. We rarely gave compliment for other skills that he has mastered because we take it for granted.

Fear is the second enemy of parenting part1

Fear cam be in several form, the first one is Avoid any accident

Don’t run! Don’t touch that pan! Don’t play with that dirty thing! Be carefull! — Have you ever count how many times do you say those statement to your child? Suddenly, a mom has turn to be a security officer, constantly in alert condition and must have an eagle eye to look for any danger that come near. Sometime we are so paranoid with the small things.

It is a default reflect for a mom or dad to protect her/his kid by avoiding problems. However, according to brain study, what the parent do is actually prevent a learning to happen. Tony Buzan explain in his book Child Brain, that a child is learning by Trial, Event, Feedback, Check, Adjust, Check (TEFCAS). When you tell your child not to run, he actually do not learn that running might be danger. Until he felt the hurt of bruise, he actually did not learn the true consequence of running, except your scream. Maybe that’s why we often say “How many times do I have to told you not to…”, “Dont you ever learn that…. Is danger?”