We always feel a bit uncomfortable when our friends ask Steev “so what books are you reading now?” and Steev would just shrug the question off with an inaudible mumble under his breath, an answer I always hope our friends won’t hear .

Truth is we’ve been trying to get him to read without much success, or so we thought. Steev and Raine were both early readers. Before age 3, they were able to read simple Peter & Jane books and were progressing nicely up the number series and onto Enid Blyton books.

Skye started late because I was so busy with the two older ones and she always being the ‘baby’, I didn’t realize she was already 3 and still couldn’t read a word!

Today, Raine and Skye are my two bookworms always reading, always hungry for more books. Steev, on the other hand, has probably read all of two books in his entire school life.

I only realized recently that we’ve probably wrongly accused him of not reading when all this while, he’s been soaking up technical and technology articles on the internet. Okay lah, bad mommy thought he was only playing games!

Today I read in The Star that many of our schoolkids read only two books a year! It’s a shame, too many distractions competing for their attention these days. The trick is to start them young and consistently build on their interest from there (how to get kids to start reading?).

I did it the hard way but it really doesn’t have to be that hard. Funetics actually has a phonics-based Early Reading Program that’s not only a great place to start but also lots of fun for both parent and child.

It also makes a valued Christmas gift, or anytime gift, for friends with kids. It contains 81 lessons from early letter recognition to preschool concepts to reading and writing.

Like I always say, each child is different and this kit contains lots of interesting games and activities to suit your child’s learning style and allows you to pace the lessons according to your schedule and his/hers.

The printed version comes with a free audio CD of the program. You can try out 3 lessons for free. Shipping is available worldwide and it’s free for those living in the US.

Many working parents don’t have time to figure out how to get their kids interested in books and a guided program like Funetics is just the thing to get started.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed for more hip parenting posts. Oh and do leave me a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The latest hero in our family is *drum roll please* DH!

Yesterday he saved a two-year-old girl from choking on a piece of soft candy.

He was hanging around the reception area of his office (well, apparently he does work sometimes ) and noticed this little kid gagging and rocking her head backwards in distress!

DH alerted her mom who was sitting there looking pretty and totally unaware that her kid was choking! Her mom panicked and burst into tears. Well, I don’t blame her, it would’ve scared the daylights out of any mom!

Quick as a flash, DH picked up the little girl, tucked her under his arm and started racing to the nearest clinic with his staff and the mom running close behind.

Since the girl was so small, it was almost impossible to grip her under her diaphragm from behind which is what experts recommend. The candy, being soft and sticky, would’ve been much harder to dislodge. That was DH’s biggest worry.

As he ran, he tilted the little girl upside down in the hopes the candy would come loose and fall out. I think it worked. The candy dislodged itself and the girl started crying for her mom. Definitely a good sign because she couldn’t make a sound before!

Poor kid must’ve been wondering why she was going on a marathon race tucked like a baseball under this man’s arm . By the time they got to the clinic, the candy was already out and the girl was crying from the sheer sight of the doctor (must not have been a very good-looking doctor)!

His job not yet done, DH darted across the street to buy an ice-cream to cheer up the kid whose life he’s possibly saved. And yes, it’s all in a day’s work for our superhero (when he works, he really works, ok? )!  We’re so-oo proud of him!

So moms, be very careful about giving your toddlers soft, sticky candy like Sugus or gummy bears. Our ex-pediatrician also warned us about giving kids whole grapes and rambutans. These are common choking hazards so either avoid them or cut them down to small pieces.

Every so often, a mommy blogger would raise questions about whether to send her kids to a Chinese school or a national school. On many occasions, it’s been pretty obvious they’ve already set their minds on Chinese schools but they just need to hear it from other parents to reaffirm their own decisions.

Just before Steev, my eldest, started primary school, I too was under a tiny amount of muted pressure from well-meaning family and friends to send him to a Chinese school.

I say tiny and muted because DH and I are notoriously known, on both sides of our families, to be rebels - with a cause, or so we’d like to think . We’ve left deep and lasting impressions in our family scrapbooks for not walking the walk and not conforming to the norms.

But just to satisfy ourselves that we’d considered all available options before coming to a decision (I didn’t want this to come back and haunt me later), I went to a Chinese school nearby to visit with the principal and check things out for myself.

Her first question was ‘does he have two years of Chinese kindergarten background to start him off? If not, he’ll have big problems catching up with our curriculum’.

Well, my answer was no. So I reckon her comment pretty much answered what would logically have been my next question. My biggest concern, though, was not with Steev catching up. It was with other, bigger issues.

First off, because DH and I are both English-educated, it’d be mission impossible for us to guide them. That would mean having to subject Steev to a merry-go-round of tuition (where oftentimes the tutor is not teaching but doing the children’s homework for them. I’ve seen this with my own eyes). So where’s there time for the poor child to have a childhood if they’re being shuttled endlessly from one tuition class to the next?

Then there’s that insane mountain of homework. Friends were telling us their children were frequently up past 1 or 2 a.m. plogging away at ‘homework they just can’t finish’. And which would inadvertently end up with their mothers finishing it up for them so that they could all get some sleep.

So what’s the point in that? Homework is meant to reinforce learning, to gauge a child’s level of understanding and to enable them to put into practice what they’ve learnt. If Mom’s doing the homework, what possible benefit could there be for the child? None, so far as I can see.

Then there was the issue of discipline. We don’t believe in beating our kids, so there’s no reason at all for us to even think about sending our kids to school for someone else to beat them for us . At any rate, I just can’t see forgetting to bring to do their homework once or twice as any major indiscipline, or scoring below 85% in an exam as something that warrants beating.

Skye, my youngest daughter, is a kindergarten dropout for this very reason. Skye was slapped by a Chinese school teacher when she and some of the other kids weren’t synchronized in their dance routine for the school concert. I pulled Skye out of school that very day after telling the principal off !!

Beating or caning is never the answer. It only teaches children that hitting’s okay. Violence begets violence. So what are we really teaching our kids here?

A highly-controlled highly-regimented environment with little free time for anything other than homework and tuition would stifle a child’s sense of creativity and expression.

Worse, it might even kill their interest in learning and that would be tragic. It would be like stuffing them into a cookie cutter, only to have them come out the other end all in one shape, stiff and unbending.

Not every child is cut out for these highly-stressful environments, and many don’t do well and lose their self-esteem and self-confidence. Six years is a long time to a kid. So where’s the fun in learning? Where’s the fun of discovery? They lose interest in learning.

Well, when all is said and done, I’m pretty sure DH and I have made the right decision with our kids. If we’re wrong, well, they can always pick up Chinese anytime and still have a childhood to tell their kids about.

Put simply, you can never get your childhood back but you can always pick up a language, or two or three even. But then, that’s just us .

I can’t believe they’ve already started selling mooncakes and lanterns, and the Mid-Autumn (or Mooncake or Lantern) Festival isn’t until, what, mid-September ?

I asked my teens which lantern they want me to buy them and my girls turned their noses up at me and laughed it off. I’ve only bought lanterns once or twice in all the years that I’ve had kids.

They were never very keen on lanterns. Steev completely snubbed them. He didn’t care for lanterns or mooncakes. Like me !

The girls at least walked around the neighborhood with their lanterns for maybe one or two years. I remember the candles kept going off and I was having a heck of a time trying to light the candles on a windy night. Then the mosquitoes started making a feast of us and that was it!

But of course, I would try and make a thing about buying mooncakes, just to keep the tradition alive a little bit lah!

I read on CNN yesterday about how kids as young as 6 years of age are being made to walk on their hands in China, all as part of their early training for future Olympics.

Watching the video of that poor little girl crying as she was put through rigorous, almost abusive acrobatic routines turned my heart to stone. The tears streaming from her eyes made me cry inside.

Her father says she doesn’t like the training (are you kiddin’ me?) but that they’re putting her through the grueling routines in the hopes she will be good enough to be in the Olympics, so she’ll have a brighter future? Gah! Yeah but at what cost to her mentally and physically?

I don’t care how much fame, fortune or glory they hope to get out if pushing their little girl that hard, but what they’re doing is inhumane.

We walked past a Tumbletots advertisement the other day and it reminded me of the time when Steev was a wee toddler. Like all eager new parents, we were so excited about his new-found mobility that we thought, hey, why not sign him up with Tumbletots, it would be so cute and he can discover and develop even more mobility skills!!

We couldn’t wait to get started. They gathered the kids to sit in a circle. When the song and dance began, everyone clapped and sang as the kids stood in front of their parent in the circle and wiggled to the music.

Steev stood there for a minute. Unwiggling! Then he started toddling out of the circle. I pulled him back gently. All the other kids were still in their spots, wiggling their cute little bottoms. All except Steev who couldn’t wait to get away!

It was kinda distracting for the other kids and the teacher was starting to give me wierd looks. Something to the effect of ‘hello, can you control your kid please?’. But frankly, no matter how many times I pulled him back, he still tried to break out of that circle!

Finally after I was done singing, we moved to the play structures. Whew! I happily handed Steev over to DH. If DH thought he could do better, well, !

At the play structures, the parents lifted the kids one by one to the structures and ran alongside to cheer them on. Steev was clearly uninterested but because he didn’t want to fall off the structure, he did just one round and couldn’t wait to get off.

He didn’t cry or yell or anything. The poor thing! He just quietly insisted he was happier to be out of this whole bit of nonsense.

Actually a child’s likes and dislikes begins to show quite early in life. I asked him about it after we saw the signboard the other day. He vaguely remembers climbing those structures, and laughs.

Says my almost-17 going on 25 year old, “Aiyoh, Mom, why you all waste your money? Those things are so bo-rring and so childish!”.

Got a Tumbletot or whatever-active-play story to share?

I often see my neighbor’s kids playing outside their house. Yes, on the road outside. Sometimes it’s badminton, sometimes it’s football, sometimes they’re just cycling around.

My kids, on the other hand, were only allowed as far as the garden when they were that age (around 6-10). Even then, they were hardly ever outside except occasionally to cycle or jump rope or kick a ball around.

When they were toddlers, we’d go to the park sometimes if the evenings weren’t too blazing hot. But I never let my kids out on the road to play. With all the warnings and reminders, my kids know they must never venture past that invisible rope just beyond our gate.

It’s a necessary precaution, I feel. You just never know when a vehicle is going to turn the corner and come speeding down the road. And then, who can you blame? The irresponsible driver or yourself?

Do you let your kids play on the road?

I was passing by a signboard for Tumbletots the other day and it immediately brought to mind the funny experience we had signing Steev up for it. Our friends signed up their daughter, also aged around 18 months at the time.

Of course, at the time, being first-time parents, we were excited about the prospect of introducing our kids to a new set of motor skills, shared play and social skills. Each week, we looked forward to bringing our kids there.

Within a month, it became quite clear that while our friend’s daughter was enjoying herself and having a ball with the singing, dancing and climbing activities, Steev wasn’t the least bit interested. In fact, I ended up doing all the activities while Steev sat there and amused himself with watching us make fools of ourselves!

Okay, so that’s it! We decided to call it quits and left our friends and their daughter to enjoy themselves. Clearly not all programs are suited to all kids and it’s hard to tell unless you try it out.

Our friend’s daughter enjoyed it tremendously and they couldn’t understand why Steev wasn’t interested at all. Each child is different and even at a very young age, many already exhibit their preferences.

We all know how quickly kids tend to outgrow their clothes and their clothes don’t come cheap these days. Here are some ways you can save money and reduce spending on kiddy clothes.

Hand-me-downs from older kids (siblings, cousins, friends) are a good way to save. Some folks throw out clothes their kids can no longer wear. I think that’s a waste. So long as the clothes are still in good condition, they’re still good for wearing around the house.

Buy clothes that are one or two sizes bigger so your child can wear them for a longer time. If you buy the exact size, your child will soon outgrow them.

Take advantage of sales and buy them in a bigger size. T-shirts and shorts don’t go out of fashion and can be kept to be worn later.

It seems even kids know about Online Learning these days. A teacher friend of mine had a young student tell her that he’d rather be home playing computer games.

But you need an education, she replied. The ten-year-old replied that he can educate himself through online learning at home, dividing his time between that and his computer games.

This really cracks me up. Of course, he’s too young for that but it is true that Capella University does offer courses that make getting a degree at your own pace possible.

There’s no shortage of courses to choose from as they now offer over 100 undergraduate and graduate courses. That little boy will have to wait a while but pretty soon he too will be able to benefit from the flexibility of online learning .

This blog post is based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.