And those who DO make decisions, do MAKE MISTAKES. But they MAKE decisions. And they know what they want in life.

Being decisive is also not being impulsive. The difference is that the former encompasses careful consideration while the latter does not.

Our children are growing all the time. Gradually, life challenges require them to make more and more decisions as they grow. I would like to think that most adults do pretty fine, but sadly some actually never grow up, still depending on their aged parents to help make decisions.

One major reason is due to the “well-intentioned parents” syndrome, where parents like us subconsciously shield our children from making decisions in every aspects of their lives, denying them the opportunity to sharpen themselves.

My encouragement to all parents is this, forget about the consequences of wrong decisions. Let our children make wrong decisions while they are young, so that they won’t grow up frozen, not knowing how to be decisive when it matters.

This began when my wife gently told him about an ex-colleague’s death, and that she needed to go to the wake. From that moment onwards, he would repeatedly say he did not want to go to heaven. Sometimes in the car, he would turn all quiet, and then burst into tears. My wife tried may ways to explain to him gently, but none seemed to comfort him.

Thankfully we found a very good resource in a bible-based book called “Someone I Love Died” by Christine Harder Tangvald. It mentioned that once a child grasps the concept of death, it becomes one of their greatest fear in life. How true!

The book then helped break down the fears and answer questions a typical child may ask in a gentle and comforting way. From the experience, we as parents also learnt not to “run away” with “fuzzy-wuzzy” answers that children in this new generation could easily see through.

I wouldn’t say we have found a quick-fix solution, but my son is happier these days, having found out about things like “our soul gets to heaven faster than when we clap our hands”. Of course he still feels sad when he realised that we parents are likely to leave him first. But we rejoice that there will be reconciliation in heaven!

Those days, we simply prayed while he lie on his bed and closed his eyes. As he grew older, he started praying in bits and pieces on his own. He also requested that we pray for this issue and that.   One funny request I recall was to pray that he won’t grow up! (Of course footywife and I never said “AMEN” to that!)

Of late, we just need to start the prayer off with, “Dear Lord…”, and he would continue the rest of the prayers from there.

Few nights ago at bedtime, as per routine, I said, “Let’s pray.”

Guess what? He said matter-of-factly, “No need. I told GOD GOD {sic} last night that whatever I have prayed before, He would remember and I do not need to ever pray them again.”

Now I have dealt with “Blanket Approvals” in the corporate world before, but this is my first spiritual enlightenment about BLANKET PRAYERS!

And so happily she went one weekend.

When she came back, my son (who was not used to NOT seeing her for hours at a stretch) said,

” You don’t look familiar.” LOL!

My son was doing some coloring at the dining table and I was sitting beside watching him. Footywife and myself had noticed that over the past few months, his coloring skills had improved tremendously, especially in the area where he was supposed to “color within the line”. We were always lavishing praises on him for coloring well.

However in this instance, he seems to have lost a bit of confidence and did not seem to be in the mood to color well. He said, “I can’t do it”, referring to coloring within the lines.

In my enthusiam to encourage him, I said, “Com’mon, don’t give up”.

He immediately caught on the new phrase and said, “I want to give up“, and instantly stopped.

I just thought, “Fantastic… I had just provided that little bit of catalyst to promote despondence.” Hopefully it doesn’t create a lasting impact on him, but he had certainly learned a new phrase.

I just wished I had watched what I said.

One of the topic they touched on was money management.

It was recounted that my sister-in-law was trying to teach Jeanette how to count her money and get her change back after paying for  food during recess breaks. To which Jeanette confidently replied, “no need Mama, it is very easy!”

My sister-in-law was probably pleasantly surprised until she continued,”…. just let them count and return you the money!“

Any better advice?!

Then one day, when we were walking down a shopping street in sunny Singapore, a Caucasian boy with a pair of beautiful green eyes walked past us. The next moment was the killer.

Never in my wildest dream could I have seen this coming…. my son screamed out, “Papa, that boy is color blind!”

I did not know where to hide my face.

PS: By the way, do you know that while color blindness may be seen as a disability, some studies have shown that certain of these individuals could actually penetrate color camouflages better

He absolutely adores the character and has been asking my wife for her. No, not the toy Ming Ming. Nor the books on Ming Ming, but “I want Ming Ming“!

It seems like there are times when he cannot tell the difference between an animated characters and real characters. I have even shown him how the program was made (thanks to youtube) but he still wants his Ming Ming.

Worse, there was once he asked me to be Ming Ming! (Well I must admit I like to animate characters to him myself, holding a toy etc, and making it talk to him)

Well I hope the infatuation goes away soon….or else I have to be Ming Ming in the coming days…

Quite some time ago my little son came back from school and told me (while pointing to his chest) “Mama, Ms XXX’s chest is like the backside, got a hole”.

I nearly fell off my chair.

“Oh” I said.  “Did you tell Ms XXX that?”

“No” he replied.

The next day I went to school and stole a glance at Ms XXX.  Couldn’t exactly see the cleavage but the bosom does look ample.  My little son must have caught a glimpse of “stuff not meant for his young eyes” when Ms XXX bent down in class.

We were basically searching for items that start with the letters that were assigned for the given week.

Our little son has caught on a little of this “game” and started suggesting things that starts with the assigned letters. Of course he doesn’t know how to spell words yet. But the way he (and I suppose other kids as well) is learning is interesting and sometimes …cute.

An example is this declaration one day…”I know papa, scissors start with “C”!” (Get it? “C”sers)

We have a long way to go..:)