350906:

My son is in P3 attending morning session class. I sent him to Pro-Teach for Afterschool Care programme. For the last 2 months, I felt that he is really BURN OUT with the amount of Tuition and worksheets that he has to managed between his school & Pro-Teach centre. He has showed sign of \"detest\" going to Pro-Teach Centre. I am a working mum, by the time I reached home will be 7pm, I felt difficult to coach him with his work, which is why I put him up in a student care centre thinking that his school work will be taken care of. I don't have anybody to help to take care of him after school. Unfortunately, he is not too happy with this arrangement because the amount of worksheets the student care centre has given out is just too much. What should I do? I am afraid that in the long run, indirectly this will kill his interest in studying. What should I do now?


Worried Mum :?:

u r same case as me. my son also hates going to his student care (NOT Pro-Teach)... not because of the worksheets he has to do, but because he is unable to make good friends in there. the kids there have mostly been together since p1, so he is having difficulty getting accepted. the teachers there are also not too well trained themselves.

I would think a good student care service is one which:
1. help kids develop the good habit of finishing their homework before play
2. encourage kids to work and play together, and form long-lasting friendships.
3. help build good habits and characters.

I am thinking of getting my son out of that student care.

Didn't know Pro-teach is so work sheet centric. maybe it depends on the centre you go to. it would be ridiculous if they make your son bring back homework... do they?? we have to be careful of burning out our children.

Working Mum:

My P1 boy is enjoying his freedom at home in the afternoons with my dad. So much free time, he watches TV, plays computer games.... I set some homework but it is usually half done when we get home in the evenings. It is difficult to monitor the self administered work done in assessment books especially when the caregiver is the grandparent. I wish to get him hook onto a series of story books but I think for him, P1 is still to early for solid books. Frankly I am afraid that he may be \"wasting\" time and spoiling his eyes on TV and computer. But what can I do?

after 2 years of given our son \"freedom\" at home to do his own homework, we've given up and basically enlisted the help of the student care nearest to our home. we both work and when he was in the afternoon school (P1-P2), we try to get home early to help him with his homework, but it was tough. during the morning, he was pretty much left on his own, but at his age, he lacks the discipline to manage his own studies. now in P3, he is in the morning class which means by the time we get back, he will already have to sleep => no time for us to make him do his homework.

so now we park him at the student care immediately after school, where he gets to take a quick shower, have lunch, and then they will make him do his school homework, and then do further studies if time permits. so when we get home, we will just have to run through his completed homework with him just before his bedtime. let's see how this works out in the long term.

some of the kids at the student care centre have been there since P1. you might want to consider this solution seriously.

i think learning vision @ work is a huge franchise focusing on setting up childcare centres at office locations. i'm not comfortable dealing with big organizations when it comes to child care. Need a human face

i have been severely loaded since young for my insurance because of the medical history of both my parents (high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke), although I exhibit none (hopefully never ) of the conditions. but it's a great way for insurance companies to make money by blaming the parents.

for those whose first kid is going to primary 1, don't forget to capture the moments with your camera or whatever super recording devices you have. here's some of mine of my kid's first day in primary school in 2006.


http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Pq3ltIvA
My son in his first school uniform... i don't remember ever seeing it so white and clean since.

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV3WLliA
yeah... that's his kiasu mummy going up the schoolbus with him

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV3WLUdA
look at all the parents hovering in the background. kind of like the zoo.. except our own children are the exhibits. i think there are more parents than kids! will he know how to buy his own food? will he make friends? these are the typical worries of us kiasu parents. but the school has assigned older primary students (the old birds) to act as mentors for groups of the green kids, to help them find their way around, so our worries are really for naught.

Anyone else has picture or stories to tell about their children's first day in primary school?

Judy:

Engwhatt, so what does your wife think of TB? Is she going to enrol?

I may try out my son with the http://www.tonybuzan.edu.sg/index.php/courses/creative-writing-with-mind-maps/ during his March '08 holidays for $200. If I see results, then maybe we will go for the Power Learning Camp in June '08.

Judy:

Hey all KiasuParents out there....


Heard of Tony Buzan (Hope i have got the spelling right - they have a branch at Hougang Plaza)...

Anyone can provide any feedback/comment on this \"new kid on the block\"?

Wah... deja vu... my wife kept talking about Tony Buzan since early November. You guys probably have some kind of underground network distributing such info between ladies only.

Anyway... there's lots of info on Tony Buzan... even a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan which indicated that while Buzan may not categorically claim that he invented Mind Maps, he is certainly the first person who successful marketed the term commercially. He even has his own http://www.buzanworld.com/, and a mindmap that introduces himself:
http://www.buzanworld.com/img/tbmmwww.jpg\">

Here's the link to http://www.buzancenters.com/asia.html around the world, and here's the one for http://www.buzanasia.com/. The Tony Buzan Centre in Singapore has a http://www.tonybuzan.edu.sg/ too.

Personally, I have been using mindmaps myself all the time since I got the FreeMind software (which is free) some years back. No formal training, but it is really just techniques for note taking. Mind mapping software allow you to work from either direction, from high level to details, or from details upwards to the vision, and I think this is where its real strength is - to allow you to learn to see the \"Big Picture\" by understanding how to categorize and organize everything else underneath it. This is certainly a necessary trait for managers in general, so I suppose if it takes formal training to achieve this aim, it might be worthwhile to pay to just learn this technique. It is one of those things that is easy to learn but hard to master... which means that it is pointless, IMO, to spend lots of money going into advanced courses on its techniques. Just go for the basics first, see how you like it, use it for a while before you even think about going further.

dragonball:

Hey, I am considering getting a DS, but I am just afraid that my kid will get addicted to it and stop doing his homework. I have this problem right now with the XBox I have. Just keep wanting to want to play xbox game and I got problem getting him to do other things.


I rather get him to play some other more useful game. Anyone got the same problem as me? How do you handle it?

Anyone know where to get a good price for DS Lite?

Actually, this problem exists regardless of whether it is a gaming console or the child's favorite toy or activity. So you handle it just like how you control his addiction to other things. The way I do it is limit him to no more than half an hour per session, and he has to earn that half an hour by having good behavior or spending time studying, etc.

super_dad:

Lately, lots of children all wearing glasses..what do you guys think about the eye care product in the market? Saw one at Popular, supposedly helps the eye to relax...can't remember what it's called...

Yuh... there's also that funny looking eyeglass with lots of holes. I thought there were media reports disclaiming the effects.

phantom:

Those copter looks fun to get for kid, especially those tiny copter that can fly indoor. Anyone has those? How is it, how long does the battery last?

I think I would be more worried about how long the toy will last given all the falls from 3 storey heights.

Books - we should buy the kids books for Christmas.