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thebottomsupblog

@rinsider said:

Besides tuition, how do parents nowadays try to incorporate Chinese into their kids’ lives actively? Especially if you were weak in the language yourself?

My son (now Sec 3) has a millennial tutor, but he’s more of a friend/mentor, so these sessions are enjoyable. In the past, we had asked our tutor to take my son and his friends on outings, like to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall.

Apart from that, I had hired my friend’s daughter (early 20s) for a small fee, to have conversations and play games with my son.

But ultimately I think if we don’t speak the language in our daily life, it’s quite hard to improve!

thebottomsupblog

DSA Talent Areas for this year: https://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/article/dsa-talent-areas-2026

Hope to hear from more parents in the community, sharing your DSA questions, concerns, and stories!

thebottomsupblog

@rinsider We had a discussion about this last night, with some friends (also parents)!

Among our group, we have one neighbourhood sec school teacher and one allied educator.

Some points:

Girls bully as well, so what’s the punitive measures for them, and are these effective? Or we are sticking with less-effective measures for girls, due to their perceived physical vulnerability?
What teachers see on the ground: the victim may not be adequately supported, especially if they are bullied in their graduating year and leave the school after that. Gentler measures such as corrective work don’t have much effect. Getting teens to help out in school (e.g. cleaning toilets) requires plenty of time and effort from already overstretched teachers.
It’s unrealistic/unfair to expect teachers to do double-duty as therapists, coaches. Teachers are not experts in behavioural change. Perhaps every school needs a dedicated team to handle these non-academic challenges, not just a handful of counsellors?
Will school caning, the way it is currently carried out, really serve as a bullying deterrent, or is it performative?
We talked about the whistleblowing aspect as well. We know of teachers who are alerted to fights and they personally intervene. But not everyone has that relationship with their students, and that’s not a real solution.
We also talked about victims, especially male victims, who may not talk to anyone about what they’re facing.

thebottomsupblog

@rinsider Oh if it’s Grab/Gojek, and I’m the one that’s feeling lazy/tired and wants to take a ride, I’ll usually cover the cost if there’s someone else with me, and choose a drop-off point that’s good for both. I treat it as my own ride.

The conversation I was referring to in my previous post involved people who drive, who’ve been dropping their friends and fam off out of goodwill. It’s quite tricky to suddenly make a request for cost-sharing, I feel! But personally, I think it’s a fair request to make, and no one should expect to be ferried around for free.

thebottomsupblog

Missed our webinar on post-secondary pathways? Here are some conversation highlights.

I attended the session; the panellists were all very well-spoken, and they were very honest and generous in their sharing:

https://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/article/a-conversation-on-jc-poly-and-ite-pathways

thebottomsupblog

@nickl I’m from the KiasuParents team. Some replies from my parent network:

If he can push his child to go HMT, the teacher is much much better and slightly more demanding…
the chinese standard yes- not good
my boy was HMT previously but dropped already haha
the teacher is very good bcos she will contact me to update me …we work very closely
however sec 1 first half i think they doing some chinese project work

thebottomsupblog

For those who attended our KiasuParents Huddle, thank you for being a part of this conversation!

There were some questions about JC/Poly cut-off points/COPs.

Here’s an unofficial resource that many of us have found very useful, to track the shifts in these scores over the years:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14b5VLIr9W5teiOp0vCg86B6xxpFiwk8jeIzwbdJmWjU/pubhtml#

Do feel free to post your other questions here!

I’m from the KiasuParents team, and my daughter will enter NUS this year. She took the IB, and a gap year after that to weigh her options. I also have a son in Sec 3, and we’re considering the poly for him.

Happy to share, or to rope in other friends to help!

thebottomsupblog

@rinsider said:

What compelled you to get married and have babies? Rose-tinted glasses or a genuine feeling to have and grow a family?

What compelled me to get married? I would say I didn’t know any better!

On second thought, we had been dating for 7 years and I was very comfortable just existing that way. Plus being in the creative circle, most of my network was single (in 20s and 30s). But I was renting at the time, and there was increasing buzz that they would be tearing down our apartments to make way for a station. I had to get a new home, and my partner was willing to suffer with me haha!

Looking back, even though we did marriage prep (he’s Catholic), it wasn’t very useful. We held on to unhealthy communication behaviours. But in my case, parenthood was a big motivator to work on myself: brood less, set goals, take action.

I think some people may really feel lonely and socially excluded, without a partner. But long-term partnerships also require a lot of effort. We don’t assume that our kids will find partners, but I hope they will find many good friends, and enjoy mix-gender friendships. What I do tell them is to make themselves useful in the world, be problem solvers!

thebottomsupblog

@sharonkhoo said:

As far as I know, only the surviving parent becomes the guardian automatically.

Oh! I was not aware, thank you for highlighting this!

I’ll update when I have some proper processes in place, and in the meantime, we can share useful info here!

thebottomsupblog

Just to throw in another related topic. How do you feel about friends/acquaintances now asking whether you can chip in some $$ for rides, especially if they’d dropped you off out of goodwill before?

This came up in conversation recently, so it’s actually happening, especially for those who have to share rides regularly

My personal philosophy is that we should never expect anyone to do anything “for free” for us, and I would weigh the amount that’s being asked for against the cost of a Grab/Gojek ride. (It would likely be much less!) I might even think twice before accepting a ride offer now, if it’s out of the way.

I think despite our best intentions, these things can cause a lot of awkwardness. If one is requesting, then just be honest and clear about how much to chip in, and leave others to accept or reject!

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