Monday, June 28, 2010

Parent meet Teacher day

 Today is the parent-meet-teacher day at HE preschool. For the past few weeks, I have been hearing the teacher comment that HE is very quiet, to the point that the principal is suspecting if HE got speech problem.Hence, it is not surprising that today hubby hear the same comment again. According to the teacher, HE hardly speak, she is also reserved from following the action during action song time. When teacher ask everybody to raise hand to count, HE won't follow, she will either move her fingers on her lap or the most raise one hand. HE also can watch educational DVD the whole time sitting down, not following the movement. ( which is totally opposite to how she is at home-she start moving her hands and butt whenever she watch Barney's or Nursery Rhymes...)
HE also used to be able to go toilet and wear pant back, however, from second semester onwards, she need to ask teacher to wear for her ( which I also observe that she does the same at home). Teacher also mention that recently she start fighting, suddenly cry, and deep in thought. Hearing that, it sadden my heart. Teacher also explain that HE refuse to look at me and say bye-bye in the morning when I send her to school, as she is angry at me for sending her despite her plead not to come to school. It shows that HE is adjusting very hard to the new environment with the arrival of baby sister.

In the report cards, there are many comment on 'need practice', some I can't seem to agree. For example, count 1 to 3, HE can count even more than 20! Teacher explain that she need to put that as HE refuse to speak, hence she couldn't tell if she understand.
Other comment are -
Under VISUAL "working to improve and encourage her to communicae more in English"
English(NPC)"Progressively working on getting up Leanne confidence to speak openly/free;y
Math in English(NPC) "Able to coun, recognize numbers 1-5"
Bahasa Malaysia "Working to develop bettervocabulary
Themesand Humanities "More interested in Animals, My body & Story Time"
Arts "Good focus during arts & crafts lessons"
Practical Life exercises"Shows mastery in most of the PLE activities for her target age"
Sensorial"Enjoy working with preliminary sensorial materials"
Overall comment " Leanneis a not so out-spoken girl, love art, have patience towards others and likes to colour at her own pace."
Teacher also mention that HE seems to be more comfortable with mandarin speaking and would open up better when teacher speak mandarin to her. The teacher ask hubby and I preference on the language to be used. We both agree that teacher should used bilingual alternately as when appropriate.
We also feedback to the teacher that HE would recite back some of the things she learn in school. During the session, HE also speak a lot to the father when they are looking at the sticker book. The principal says she has never seen HE speak so much for the past 6 months in school!
At the end, teacher conclude that HE still need sometime for adjusting. She ask to pick up HE a bit later after school so that she can spend some one-to-one time, hopefully to open up HE.
I do hope that HE won't continue to stay introvert and start to be more out-spoken. But I think the least I can do now first is to be patience and don't push her.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I lost my temper

HE has become a tantrum thrower. She cry frequently and always do the opposite to what we ask her to. She also demands lots of things to be her own way. One the most frequent thing that she ask for is doughnuts. Everyday she ask to buy daughnuts, from morning till night. Then she is showing...I can't say its jeolousy as she is nice to her sister but she seem feeling insecure. She ask me to carry her once we arrive home, if I refuse, which I need to as HX can't walk and need to be carried, she keeps sobbing and even throw herself to the floor once we arrive at the doorstep.
Everyday, everyday she is whining and crying. She is no longer the happy girl that I adore. My angry button seems to be always on the standby mode, with a sensitive touch switch. I really lose my cool with her and even to the point of just want to release my wrath towards HE with some silly action. I can get so angry that I started to pick on her. Like today, after brushing her teeth, I pass her the cup to rinse her mouth and remind her not to drink it. However, she drink it and laugh. I got angry, ok, you like to drink, finish the whole cup! holding the cup to her mouth. She laugh and this bring my angry to higher level and I throw the water to her. She cried. As I see the floor was flooded with her stuffs, colour pensils, puzzles...I threatend to throw into rubbish bin. I did go the bin and throw something ( not her stuff though) but she thought I did and cry till screaming. I don't know what gets into me, I dun attempt to comfort, instead I keep pick her wrongs, just to release my wrath. Of course, what I did only make the situation worse and I ended feeling more guilty and frustrated.
I pray that I can be more calm. A reference say we as parent also is learning and try to manage our own temper tantrum.
'Having children forces adults to take stock of their own emotion maturity', that's right. I begin to understand why some parents are able to torture their own children as seen from the recent sad news in newspaper. Some of them probably had lost the temper too and did something regretful.
I really need to deal with my temper, very hard, very hard. God help me.