2018 PSLE Discussions & Strategies (Born in 2006)

[laughingcat]

Read this in FB. That is the life of most P6 kids. :faint:


When I showed this to my Caucasian frz, he said wow to SGP education that a 12/13 years old is able to pen such beautiful, thoughtful and powerful poem. Not an easy feat

[celeste.08399chua]

So I have a different take on this poem. I think the poet implies too, that our kids are blessed that their biggest problem, is just about doing well in some exams. Compared with what other 12yos face in this world, this is stress yes, but not life and death.


And learning how to handle stress is just one of those things that we must learn in life.

Do I sound rather harsh?

[Derek_Lee]

celeste.chua:

So I have a different take on this poem. I think the poet implies too, that our kids are blessed that their biggest problem, is just about doing well in some exams. Compared with what other 12yos face in this world, this is stress yes, but not life and death.


And learning how to handle stress is just one of those things that we must learn in life.

Do I sound rather harsh?

True in another perspective if we are to compare the left poem with the right one...

[laughingcat]

[quote]Compared with what other 12yos face in this world, this is stress yes, but not life and death.


And learning how to handle stress is just one of those things that we must learn in life.

Do I sound rather harsh?[/quote]
Not harsh. Agreed. Sometime the \"stress\" is overrated. Managing it is part and parcel of life.

[Estéema]

@ zac’s mum Thank you for sharing.


Stress is in midst of our lives. As parents, we need to help our kids navigate it, be resilient tonit or fend those toxic stress off.

[MrsKiasu]

laughingcat:

MrsKiasu:

[quote=\"ngl2010\"]I think rather than spend so much time in HCL, it is better to just take CL and spend more time on other subjects. The child may get 10 points higher than a miserable 3 points (maximum) which he/she may not be able to use it to apply for admission to SAP schools. JMHO

true and I agree..told kid before, and reply received was same same, cl and hcl :? and surviving so I thought just let it be if offered.

Guess what MKS.... I contemplated it after DC was offered HCL. But my DC's ex-school teacher advice not to proceed. Thinking about it, my DC will never go SAP school. So I have decided to drop it.[/quote]I m not sure abt the school/teacher whether encoursge or not, I m neutral..dd is the one who wants it. The way I see, like treat both as (same) Chinese papers and in terms of marks of course hcl is lower than cl. I seldom print cl/hcl past year papers for her to do since she already has tuition..dont say revising tingxie..earlier of the year esp first qtr, I still see her recording own tingxie and replay to give herself tingxie..I offered my help she says no need. After that, back to usual self haiz.

leeyl, xiao dingdang arh? likely no.. actually I m not sure what comic books..eg the Bt Merah library is small right, so once there she will go to that section and say she is so happy to see so many comic books, those with continuation/episodes type..I saw her roping in the librarian to help her find also..the 32 books loan was the 2nd batch after exam..I was quite unhappy say after this loan no more borrowing le since everytime also comic books..how to learn eg proper sentence structure right.

[MrsKiasu]

Estéema:

@ zac’s mum Thank you for sharing.


Stress is in midst of our lives. As parents, we need to help our kids navigate it, be resilient tonit or fend those toxic stress off.

Thanks for mentioning abt stress..I was talking to dd abt stress..there may be something I m taking too lightly without knowing that it may have a greater impact on kid's emotional well-being..to me I thought I was half joking whenever we discuss abt it. Keep mentioning about psle may be stressful to the kids.

[Hazelmama]

I remembered a ted talk about stress which was really cool. May be good to share another perspective on whether stress is good or bad or neither?


IMHO, parents cannot help DC if we do not learn and improve too. We should go out and learn something new too!

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend/transcript?language=en

Enjoy!

[6thisnthat9]

Thanks for sharing and caring, from many other posts.


This has been on my mind since I got to know of my friend's lost. Been comforting the mum for sometime, the long 3 years before this final point. Just wanted to reach out to even if it's just 1 kid/parent. It's not just unhealthy stress, my view, in the midst of trying to protect our kids from failure, prepare them for the adult working world to lay a path of certainty, we may forgot something more important, our kids themselves.

The seed could hv been planted unknowing in pre sec or even pre sch days, can be as potent as a bomb waiting to be set off. By who, not the parents. The value tag to a 3digit number, how it affect how a child view herself/himself during pri sch days when it is a time they are defining themselves and by right, discovery, finding out about beauty of life. They discover life is not beautiful. They discover they are lousy, not good enough, not loved, by the world around them, society. Society make up by us.

Actually, from my own observation, competition among pri kids are quite healthy and pure. They encourage and spur each other on to do better. That's where friendship can form good support. Healthy stress can be good, agree.

MOE can change ways school implement approach to striving excellence by gearing towards holistic, removing ranking, study for learning not for exam etc. But they cant change us , the society, not directly, not in 1 day or not in 1 psle.

Was warned that no many would relate or understand the intensity even if I were to share. Only the direct family knows the pain. This is not one isolated case, some of us know, the numbers are alarming and rising. One thing is for sure, don't blame the parents, they are in pain already. It's the child's own self expectations were too much to handle, i feel.

So do we just wash hands off our kids and leave them to be wild? No that's not the intention of the post, just remember to keep our expectations to ourselves, be more sensitive, and,
When times are tough, remember their innocent beautiful face when they first enter this world.

Estéema:

lee_yl:

Some geppers have high expectations of themselves. That day, DD2 saw her classmate sobbing and left the classroom within 5mins upon collecting her result.

DD2 went up to console her and tried to cheer her up. Alamak, turn up this girl’s tscore was higher than my daughter’s. :roll:

One of her super bright classmate also appeared to be suffering from depression. I believe a child who choose to end his/her is likely to suffer from some form of depression.

In hindsight, there was a possible tell-tale sign: “ I see no future”. People suffering from depression see the world as very bleak.

It’s sad when we missed our kids being overly pressurizing themselves. That’s why we hv the impt role as adults to guide our young ones to be realistic & down-to-earth and not be carried away by what society & world is doing. We need to be discerning ourselves coz I find it so easy to slip into the trap of looking out and let our eyes leave our kiddos. Somehow, kids get the vibes fr what parents are doing & we need to explain ourselves so they’re not led to their own conclusions.

I’ve shared this before in other threads, abt an ex-MP’s son who excelled but had constantly put pressure on himself & he sank into depression thinking he didn’t do well enuf to graduate in Oxford & ended his life even before his results. He did well & awarded posthumously. I’m sure it broke his parents’ hearts as it was heart-reaching for me to heat of it.

I guess u can say no one suggest or pressurize him to be top of the top performer. I won’t be surprise somewhere in his desire to please his parents, to make his parents proud pushes him. Very often, we’re not conscious when we praise or speak highly of other kids, our own may aspire to be noticed. We need to constantly affirm our own children, hug our kids more, esp after punishment for corrective actions or discipline, we need to put our love in action of love to show how we differentiate our never changing love as oppose to actions/behaviour that are not acceptable.

Sorry, don’t mean to ‘lecture’ but just sth I learnt fr a frd right after this oxford student’s demise, we might not realised our family & kids shld be of priority over our outside life (work, Social life, etc). Once we loose touch with our kids, it’s hard to reach out to them in a deep sense.

[MrsKiasu]

very thankful for such sharings! :thankyou: