A teacher I am not...

I would reiterate that I don't like children other than my own.. and maybe a handful of close friend's kids and my nephew. Its a wonder why I'm in the profession of that I am in handling children when I think that everyone elses kids are just bratty monsters...

My girls sure have their monster times amongst others.. where tantrums flare and things just seem to get out of hand... voices rise, things start flying around and little fair bums start wearing the marks of either my hand or the cane. It would be at times like this that it really brings out the unglam me. Where my eyes bulge out of their sockets, my blood pressure rise, my emotions run high and my hand start to smart out of all the spanking.

I try my best never to touch their faces.. only their bottoms, legs or the most their arms/hands. A spank is to remind them, not to hurt them. I don't touch their face and I don't slap their faces as I don't want to break their spirit. '

Oh but there are times where my hands fly and smack them right in the face due to outright defiance and almost a second after, I see the hurt in their eyes and my heart breaks. Discipline is indeed hard to accomplish but such a necessity. I'm glad that most of the time, my girls are still good girls.. and I can only pray that we are doing the right things in bringing them up. I must try harder not to get too worked up when these kind of situations arise.. I must try harder to be more understanding and patient.

There are other times too that set my blood pressure rising and what people lovingly term as PUKE BLOOD moments. Its when I sit down and revise homework with Lauren. I know my mother in law and sister in law can totally relate. I can only dread and hope that Eirian would pick up academics faster when she reaches the primary level.

Lauren has a way of firing up my mad fuel when homework gets done. From quite a loudly boisterous girl normally, she becomes unusually quiet and gives me a superbly GONG (meaning dumb) look whenever I ask a question. I seriously hope that she gives that face only to me and not to the teachers in school or they would be quite alarmed at her sudden DUH!

A potato suddenly forms in her throat and anything she would read sounds like the potato is stuck in her throat. All I could think of is that its a nervous reflex and a stress reaction to studying! OMG, she's only in primary one and still has like over 15 more years of school to go through... she's gotta snap out of it and thinking about it totally stresses me out.

As a parent, I'm pressurised in this hot house of a country to make my child excel. If the pressures of this country had its way, I can say good bye to my children having a "happy childhood" only to replace it with memories of a psychotic looking mother (aka me) breathing fire down your back just because you couldn't spell COOPERATE.

When I was in grade one, I don't remember needing so spell such long words and she has it EVERY MONDAY! A whole list of 10-12 LONG WORDS. Argh! I feel her frustration but she's gotta do it to keep up with her class.. and thats not all.. she has a whole list of CHINESE spelling every friday! God help my darling girl... please give her the strength to absorb to the best she can...

Now back to teaching her, my recent problem that I realise is that she's just NOT TRYING! She's afraid to get the answers wrong but not even attempting to answer a question means that its 100% going to be wrong.. = no marks = zero = fail! ARGHH!!! I've been giving her a pep talk constantly these couple of days.. TRY lauren try!! Just try.. even if its wrong, at least I know which ones you don't know?? Rather than not trying and I'm not sure if you know?! You know what I mean?!? Hahaha.. I know its sounding like a rant but I'm just frustrated.. JUST FREAKING TRY!!!!!... *fanning my face, I feel it turning purple even as I type!*

I cannot go into the teaching profession or I'll have to giro my monthly pay directly to Woodbridge for my weekly counselling sessions. Someone give me some tips to teach her how to just try.. or I might just go insane just helping her with homework. For someone like me who FAILED math, I'm actually teaching her how to do her math and I still find it unbelievable of the level that they're giving her. Whilst I believe that she's a smart girl, what the heck are the schools giving little 6-7 year old children!

For example, just when they're on the topic of ONLY ADDITION and SUBTRACTION. (Do not even attempt this question with DIVISION bc they haven't learnt that yet). How do you explain to a 6-7 year old how to solve this question? While we can easily find the answer, how do u explain it to her without having involuntary facial spasms and a mini brain attack just figuring it out?

Ie. Bear + Bear = 24
Monkey + Bear + Bear = 38

Ans: Bear = ______ and Monkey = ______.

It turns out that this is the schools "so called" higher level working sums. And the way its solved is that the child must realise that bear + bear is the same number because its the same character and this means its 2 exactly the same numbers to add up to 24. And how they realise this sum is that they play around with figures, ie, 8 + 8 = 16? wrong. 10 + 10 = 20? No no no, thats wrong.. 11 + 11 = 22? nO NO NO ... and it goes on and on till the child figures it out at 12 + 12 = 24. And she then moves on to the next part with the Monkey.. ARGH!! ... this kind of working sums take FOREVER to figure out for such a young child. Why do they subject this kind of torture on little kids like that?!?

Anyway the journey continues... there will be times where I'm ready to poke my eyes out with my pencil, reach over and shake the living daylights out of her whilst having my veins pop out of my forehead in attempt to escape my skull. I close my eyes and breathe... and open them again to see my little girl... just trying to keep up with the pressures of the world and I just sigh. My girls growing up and we're in it together.

Time for me to go back and sharpen pencils for tomorrow's journey.. kids.. can't live with them, can't live without them :) And because they are mine.. I still love them anyway.