children

Should I be worried about the iPad addiction?

Should I be worried about the iPad addiction?

Widad laid on her back and relax like she got insurmountable amount of money from somewhere, the bottle glued in her mouth while watching an iPad in one beautiful evening — it’s a mesmerizing moment and I admired the coolness of this shot above.  But the news I’ve read startled me a little.  Because my youngest one can’t hold off the iPad, even when she’s taking a poop. Should I be worried?

Young technology addicts experienced the same withdrawal symptoms as alcoholics or heroin addicts, when the devices were taken away.

Is it really that bad? I mean, heroin addicts? Maybe the doctor was a little bit exaggerated or may be he’s on weed he couldn’t think straight.

Christopher Peruzzi says that this situation cycles from the sixties, back when we — human — had the new technology then. We called it TV. He said, “Really? When you overstimulate someone with a highly addictive activity it can be habit forming? I wonder if they thought the same thing during the sixties and beyond when they left kids in front of televisions as an electronic babysitter. Sure, now they care.”

But I know and it’s a principle of life: Letting yourself doing a little too much over something might harm you. Too much watching TV, too much exercising, or too much in everything, and you might vomit rainbow.

[ Toddlers becoming so addicted to iPads they require therapy | The Telegraph ]

Thailand to draw out second phase One Tablet Per Child Project

Thailand to draw out second phase One Tablet Per Child Project

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” Nelson Mandela used to say. That’s superb and one of my neighbor nations has taken it deeply into their heart. I think I’m going to cry, though I didn’t know him but his words are awesome and arising.

To continue using technology as a leverage to make advance in youngster’s education, Thailand sets an electronic auction to make One Tablet Per Child project a reality. Guys, it’s worth 4.61 billion Thailand bath. It’s about RM 500 million if it’s round up.

Big Chinese players like Huawei, Haier, and ZTE have joined the bidding. And I’m wondering why our Malaysian government don’t take initiative like this?

[ 12 firms keen to join One Tablet bid | BangkokPost ]

Dumb Ways to Spend Money on Your Kids

We love our kids. We love them above all. We spend our hard-earned money on them so they get equal opportunity like other kids do. But we don’t have spend our bling bling money over them, like there’s no tomorrow.

Some of us may disagree with me. “Yeah, why not. If we love them, we should give everything they want. If they want expensive toys, let them have it. We spend on our kids anyway, not on our next door kids.”

What if our spending habit takes its toll on our financial stability? 

Spending on expensive, branded items is against my policy. I, as a dad of two kids, didn’t argue that we should give them all especially toys. But so far, I manage to divert from buying expensive toys from Toy R’ S.

Well, not all toys. Sometimes, I feel a sympathy over them when they make cute little frown lips and watery-eye-is-about-to-spill tears.

 It’s a battle I should say. If I lose, I buy item expensive thing at branded outlets like Mickey or Toy R us. If I win, we travel 20 kilometers from our home to shopping second hand toys at Amcorp Mall.

As our kids grow older, they may get influenced by yummy advertising shown all over the internet, TV, or radio. They started to choose brand over quality. So they can show off to their group of friends. And we, parent — as always — go for the cheap ones.

But when two interests collide with each other. There will be one side that’s always lose. In order, to save our money from getting drained, and to teach them how to separate them from becoming brand/fashion victim, we must find solution.

Teach them how to choose. The notion of “going for alternative, cheaper brand” must always in their mind.

GoBankingRate suggested that:

How to say ‘no’: For young kids, a fun way to demonstrate that cheaper brands and name brands are often similar is a blind taste test. Ask kids to identify which is the brand name and which is the generic. Even if they’re correct in identifying the products, they’ll notice how similar they are.

There’s another way how to teach them: To be a role model to them. We should not buy our item base on fashion, but base on quality. I know it’s hard to let go of an LV handbag and buy Bonia handbag instead. But for our children sake. We should do that.

5 Dumb Ways to Spend Money on Your Kids [Bankrate via GoBankingRates]

photo by: Digital Sextant

7 Signs That Make Me Love Them More

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Lars Plougmann

I have read the article and now I know signs that my children loves me not. Ok, if the signs didn’t show anything love affection upon me, I don’t mind. Just love your mom. I’m dad’ I’m not suppose to get loved by my children. I have to support financially, and your mom will support you emotinally.

Now, I want to list out, as well, 7 sign that makes me love my children more and by the way, I keep on falling in love — from awesomeness to pure insanity — with my children if they keep doing these things below:

1. Smile
Ever see my daughter smile? I bet you will fall in love too. Because it burns> my stress away everytime she smiles, especially Mondays to Fridays, when I open the front door at 6.30 pm. There she is — smiling like the beatles song.

2. Cry when im gone
Oh, please don’t cry. I feel like I want to quit my job take care of you guys all the time. But somehow, if I got RM 5.0 millions in my bank, with potential growth of 5%, hedge with the inflation rate, I will definitely quit my job. Everytime they cry I leave them at Tadika, I heart breaks and they make me to love them more.

3. Catch me when im at the door.
To see them smiling at me, layered with the running of my son and the crawling of my baby girl, are the things that makes me feel heaven when I’m back from work.

And I couldn’t ask for more.

4. They Want to show me something.
I feel excited when Amirul grabs my hand and mumbling about something he has greatly done. I really want to tell him that I want this moment to happen a hundred times, but for sure he will not understand of what I will be saying. I enjoy every second of it and I feel like my every cells dancing when I give my respond to him.

5. Ask me for a milk.
I feel like to I was assigned for a mission when Amirul ask me for a milk. It’s really get more exhilarating when the ask happened at 3 in the morning. I wouldn’t to making a bottle of milk of him. As long as he stays healthy and strong.

6. Ask me to sleep with them.
Most of the nights, Amirul keep standing beside my chair and stares blankly at the laptop screen while I’m doing my work. I feel like battle between writing vs sleep with my children, through our mind, in complete silence. And Amirul still standing beside me, listening to the tapping of my keyboard, and like a mind game — he deploy booms and missiles beneath his smile and fascinating face. I got pity on him and lost the war like the Germans.

I never win the battle with Amirul. So i stop writing and go to sleep with him and get up early at 5 a.m.

7. Kiss n hug without asking.
I guess I get appreciated by them when they kiss me without giving notice of demand to them. When my heart hurts and trying to struggle in the dark, I got kissed and hugged and my world is full of sunshine once again.

I could list down more signs that make me love them more. But lets try to keep it short and simple. If you have something in your mind — that you love what your children do and consequencely make you love them more. Please put them on comment box below.

[7 Signs That Kids Love You via BabyCenter]

Long Distance Relationship With Your Children




Photo: emrank

Tech help us for blow away our cravings of communicating with our love ones.For an instance, how we skype with mom at kampung. We really miss her, we want to skype just to see her face or what cooking she makes for dinner.

Let say if I had to get separated with my children, because of my employer required me to station outside of my local area for a long time, I definitely follow advises from Diana Mercer

She wrote:

Every few days plan to read or tell your child a favorite or familiar story over the phone (or by webcam) before bed, like Goodnight, Moon or your own favorite story from childhood. The story can be short, less than 15 minutes long. If you each have your own copy of the story, you can turn the pages together even though you aren’t in the same room. This is particularly good for a smaller child as it’s interactive.

While a long distance relationship is not as healthy as a close relationship, sometimes you have no choice if your work is transferable to any available branches. Perhaps you should seek a new job that is closer to your family. For person like me who don’t believe in long distance relationship, I will always keep looking for a new job if I ever get transfered to another branch.

[Long Distance Parenting via Huffingtonpost]

Avoid Criticizing In Front Of Children


Photo: nouQraz

Have you ever been hit by emotional disruption when your spouse has a disagreement about raising your children? Sometimes we talk to each other so much we don’t realize that we are sparring against each other’s words. We refuse to let go our ego, we belittle each other in front our kids!! So much for the couple unity. And it’s will effect our children behavior if we continue to show intolerable attitude in front of them.

Babycenter wrote:

“Present a united front to your child. Avoid criticizing your partner if he’s in the middle of responding to a situation. Plan ahead to avoid future clashes by talking through key issues when you’re both relaxed.
Agree to disagree. You’ll be able to compromise on many issues but not all. In those cases, the one who’s with the child the most should hold more sway.Stick to specifics. Limit your discussion to a narrow issue (how much TV to permit) rather than wading off into generalities (“You always undermine what I say”).”

Yes, I have weaknesses. Guess what? I have troubles in hiding my emotion when it comes to disagreement with my wife. Then, I would talk and argue and so on without realizing my kid is standing in front of me.

I hope I will change my attitude, for the sake of my children, and show some parenting unity.

Of iPad and Bicycle



Photo:esti

Tie their shoes and use a smartphone application are not realistic and comparable issues. They will learn – it’s just a matter of time – how to do tie their shoes someday. That doesn’t concern me as a parent. But unable to compete and become orangutans in the field of the most important industry: ICT, will bother me for the rest of my life.

“Software maker AVG Technologies conducted a survey amongst 2,200 women and found that 14 percent of kids aged 4 to 5 could tie their shoes-compared to 21 percent who knew how to use a smartphone or iPad application.”

Admit it, video games or advanced technologies that can wow our eyes, also make our heart beats faster, and bicycle is so over us. Back when I was a kid, me and my brother were blinded by Nintendo, Micro Genius, and [link: other pioneer gaming consoles] in the 80s. Like a wheel of bicycle, It happened as well as to our younger generations — only with more technological advanced gadgets.

“Among kids aged 2 to 5, 52 percent knew how to ride a bike, while 58 percent could play a computer game and 69 percent could operate a computer mouse. Twenty percent knew how to swim, but 25 percent could open a Web browser.”

The reason why I don’t get mad when my children choose iPad over bicycle is because they need to be well-versed in ICT by getting exposed to technologies – that’s my goal. It’s okay if they dislike bicycle. I force them to learn swimming.

[Kids prefer iPad or smartphone to a new bike via MalaysiaSun ]

Chinese Parents Are More Superior Than Western Parents

If children do not excel in education at school, there’s something wrong with their parent. Well, it looks like Chinese parenting is far more better than Western parenting if you read what Amy Chua wrote.

It is a comparison between Western and Chinese parenting. Both of them are different from ever perspective, such as, approval and disapproval, and level of expectations.

The Western parents believe by praise your children more would boost morale. Therefore, your children would learning harder. While the Chinese would smack, rotan, pinch, and punish if the children didn’t excel or meet their expectation. And their expectations are really high; A is only in their eyes. There are no other alphabets.

Both parenting styles pursue different methods and approaches; Chinese parents are strict and authoritative, as if an altitude of pressure is hanging in the air when you are inside their house. On the other hand, Western parents are more cooperative and reassurance, and they believe by doing that they would develop or maintain the children’s self esteem. Furthermore, the emotion of the children are more contained and adequate.

Chinese parents only concern what matters, such as grades and grades only. Western parents concern about everything – sports, play, grades, social life, and emotions.

“the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be “the best” students, that “academic achievement reflects successful parenting,” and that if children did not excel at school then there was “a problem” and parents “were not doing their job.””
Funny thing is
My mother did the same to me and my other siblings. Back then, she was so strict she would pinch and smack us if we were naughty and didn’t listen to her. I remember that I got bad grade in primary school and my mother scolded me and made me ashamed of myself.

At the end of that year, I got straight As in UPSR result.

I believe that
..not only Chinese mother are superior. Parents who practice authoritarian style are superior, because they boost their children self-esteem and determination by put pressure on their children head to study harder.

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