Instead of saying the usual "good job baby!", I couldn't quite bring myself to praise him as I knew they weren't his best works. As a mother I could imagine him hands under the chin, bored and lazily and mindlessly doodling on his paper, he is young but I think there's no other best time to tell him the truth. I was angry and with that I said, "what's this? these are garbage! I can't accept this!" with puppy eyes he asked "why mom?", I figured I need to explain, "because I know this is your lazy work, this is just kuris-kuris(nonsense doodles) and I'm not happy with this because I know you can do better but you're just lazy!". He was about to cry, I know I was harsh but sometimes you need to be one when you want to correct a certain attitude, "my work is not garbage mommy." tears falling, "yes it is and I want to know why you just kuris-kuris your paper? WHY?" and he answered "because I want to finish fast so I can play". See? I knew it!
This started our daily supplemental tutoring, we set aside 15 minutes to teach him how to hold the pencil, the colors to write and draw properly. I saw his tendencies to rush and I just found an opportunity to teach him a lesson that I hope and pray will be instilled in him until adulthood. A disclaimer: I am not an achiever like how I wanted him to be, but any parent would want his child to do better right?
During our lesson time I taught him that it's okay to be a little slow as long as it's your best work, now he has a mantra or a motto of "slowly but the best" while tracing or coloring to remind him not to rush. Even in the playground when he's trying to climb a monkey bar, designed for 5 yrs old, for the first time and he loses patience every time he falls, I just remind him of "slowly but the best" to help him focus. Before going to school I will continue to remind him to do good, "do you know that you are smart? be the best okay?", "yes mommy! be the best!".
To tell the truth, 3 years in parenthood and I'm still clueless of what I am doing, I'm not sure if what I did is 100% effective, imagine I have to wait for at least 15 years to see if what I'm doing now is the right thing! But I see improvements in his works, when he shows me his work from school he'd always ask, "it's not garbage mommy? is it the best?" assuring me that he gets my point and of course as a positive reinforcement I made a special wall in the house for his works.
Every morning that I'm greeted with this wall, I just keep a little prayer of "dear God, I hope I'm doing the right thing.".
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