The most difficult part of parenting for me is being a good role model to my kids. I can't do anything about the fact that my behavior is constantly being watched and internalized by these little beings. The only way to go is to be exemplary at all times. This requires some drastic character change for me because I have to say, there's many bad habits of mine that are far from exemplary; the only example it is good for is a negative one.
And then there's a wide array of things I accidentally expose my kids to which is partly my interest and mostly my indulgence.
For example, I've just discovered recently that my 3 year old daughter can recognize a Gucci bag from a mile. She says this to me, "ibu, look that lady is wearing a Gucci bag. It's pretty."
She can't read yet but these are some of the many words she can recognize: GAP, uniqlo, IKEA, Bobbi brown, Zara and of course, more suitable for her age will be McDonald's, toys r us etc.
Her favorite songs are We are Young by Fun, Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine, No one is going to love you by Band of Horses, Don't leave me by Regina Spectre, Everything at Once by Lenka. Go google and have a listen.
Honestly, it's not something I'm proud of. It just goes to show how much shopping we do and the kind of music we listen to. Yes, theres is probably nothing wrong with that. But sometimes i wonder, for a little mind who can absorb a million and one things, are these the things I want to feed her young mind with? If we had done something more meaningful often enough, she would probably have memorized those rather than these brand names.
Parenting for me is a lesson. A lesson or a reflection on my behavior. My kids have taught me far more than i think possible. They always make me realize my flaws, my bad habits, things about myself that I can work on. They are the best mirror I can ever find on the entire planet.
Just recently, when Alisha started crying and whining in the car, I lost my temper, raised my voice and pinched her after I told her repeatedly to stop but she refused to listen. My voice was loud, my tone was rude. Irfan was also in the car. He was silent coz he knew better than to cause more trouble. Moments later, Alisha bugged irfan about something. Guess what? Irfan lost his temper, pinched her and raised his voice rudely. My first instinct was to scold irfan and to tell him to speak nicely to his sister and even if she was wrong, he had no business shouting at her rudely. But I paused and realized, I'm the pot calling the kettle black.
I could have stayed calm, be firm and explain to her how to behave. I could pinch her but probably not do it out of anger like I did.
In my quest to be a better person, my kids have been the biggest help and motivation. They don't know it of course but for me, there's no motivation more powerful than knowing that I am a role model to my kids. I have no other choice but to buck up.
I have to do it real fast too coz when it comes to raising children, I often think that there's a window period for disciplining before the window closes at a certain age and they are unreachable. When that age comes, we just have to let go a little more and have faith that all the groundwork done when they were younger would be more than enough to guide their decisions.
I'm always my worst critic. If you don't already know, I tend to over think things sometimes. I should just lighten up shouldn't I? Coz after all it's quite adorable for little kids to know these brand names and pretty common too? So i should probably just laugh it off, u think? Why must i be so drama and over analyze everything right?
Haiz I don't know why either! Why must reflect on everything one? Hmm that's just the way my mind works I guess.
Anyway, on a lighter note, I'm soo happy that the holidays are here! We are not taking the plane to anywhere this time coz shahid is still a little too young. I suppose that is ok coz there's quite a number of new places in Singapore we have not been to so we will probably check them out. I'm just super glad to be spending my time with the kids.
And irfan deserves to have all this time to do whatever he wants after all the hard work he has put in throughout the year, which totally paid off coz he got band 1s for all his subjects! To be honest, we did not work for band 1s. In fact when he got his grades, he had no clue if it was good or not. He even asked me if there is band 0. Haha!!
He only knew it was good when other people started saying he had done a gd job.
He is just in p1 so I was not really interested in getting him to be so obsessed with grades. I just wanted him to learn to be more focused, to take all his tasks seriously, to persevere when things get difficult. Basically I was more interested in setting the groundwork for good study habits.
I'm happy coz at the end of the day, I can tell him "see, your 1 hour of practice every day paid off!" to me the band 1s is a message to him that everything requires effort, that it's important not to give up when things get difficult. Instead of me just nagging, he now sees for himself and hopefully will listen to me more next time!!
Ok this is getting lengthy and I'm getting sleepy now. Till another reflection, good night!:)
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