Spending time with family builds character
Letter from Ms See Thor Wai Fung
My father, who has since passed on, worked long hours to support my large and extended family. Yet his core character values were very clear: love, honesty, humility, hard work, integrity and respect.
None of these values was taught formally or preached to us. My siblings and I internalised them as part of routine life: cleaning the house, running errands, going on family outings.
Values were learnt through the hum of our daily activities -- doing housework, at play and during holidays.
For us, weekends were almost exclusively family time.
My father would recount to us the hardships during the Japanese Occupation, even as he treated us to movies and McDonald's meals.
The key to character-building is time: Time to consistently teach and live the values we want our children to have.
Character is not built on demand, within a semester or a term break. It begins after a child is born and continues into adulthood.
Parents sow the seeds of character while schools nourish their growth.
Children need to spend time with their parents. So it alarms me when school activities hog my teenage children's weekends. They are at the beck and call of their sports masters and project leaders, even during school holidays.
To excel, my children must attend track competitions on weekends. Training sessions and committee meetings eat into their school holidays.
While I accept that students face intense pressure at school, it has become virtually impossible to plan any extended family activity without the looming anxiety over missed training sessions or meetings during school holidays.
The Education Ministry should impose these two golden rules:
* No school activities to be held on weekends, apart from Saturday mornings; and
* Impose a blackout on school activities for at least two to three weeks during the long school holidays.
Family bonding hit by weekend schoolwork
Letter from Dr Sandra Tan
The government introduced the five-day work week in 2004 to improve work-life balance and provide a more relaxed environment for parent-child bonding on weekends.
Schools followed suit, with some cancelling supplementary classes and co-curricular activities on Saturdays to allow families to spend time together.
Eight years later, this has not translated into more families with school-going children visiting beaches, parks or other places of leisure on weekends.
Instead, what resulted was a boom in the number of tuition centres and, ironically, an increasing reliance on live-in maids despite the five-day work week.
During weekends, it is not uncommon to find parents busy ferrying their children from one tuition class to another.
Even invitations to social gatherings such as birthday parties are sometimes declined because of tight tuition schedules.
My husband and I chose not to enrol our children for tuition classes. Even so, they spend many hours on weekends completing homework assignments, and they no longer look forward to weekends or school holidays.
We do not have a maid as we believe in training our children to do their share of chores. But this is a struggle because of their school workload on weekends.
Time aside from academic pursuits is needed for families to bond and for children to grow in other areas.
Families in the United States and Australia do not have live-in maids or face this tuition frenzy. Though their children may not be as good in their studies as their Singapore peers at an early age, many still go on to qualify for Ivy League universities.
Something must be done to stem this academic overload, starting with schools, so parents have time to teach their children values.
This is important if we want to build stronger families and have the next generation grow up to become caring and compassionate adults, and not self-centred people.
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It so happens that a real test of values and integrity was captured in a TODAY story, "A pile of cash on the highway: Would you grab it or leave it?" (26 March, page 26). I found Mrs Stephany Harris' response, below, interesting:
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120326-0000024/A-pile-of-cash-on-the-highway--Would-you-grab-it-or-leave-it?
HAGERSTOWN (Maryland) -- Some drivers on a Maryland highway faced a tough choice on Friday when two plastic bags containing about US$5,700 (S$7,190) in notes and coins fell from an unlatched door on an armoured truck and spilled onto the Interstate 270, about 55km north-west of Washington DC.
The police said the motorists grabbed almost all of it. Others kept driving.
Attorney Heather Kelly, who was driving to her office when she passed through the surreal scene, said she saw about 30 cars pulled over on the roadside and people frantically collecting fistfuls of dollars in what looked like a "snow globe of cash".
So, faced with such a moral dilemma, what would you?
People the Associated Press spoke to following the incident gave some interesting answers, offering a glimpse into the minds of Americans trying to juggle doing the right thing and getting by in a tough economy.
Chicago billing clerk Stephany Harris, 53, admitted that she would "put as much money in my pockets (as I could) and run", but not before making sure the armoured car drivers were not hurt if there was an accident.
But, Mrs Harris said she would not take a single dollar if her children were with her.
"I wouldn't want them to get the message that grabbing money that is not yours is the right thing to do," she said.
Former lawyer and prosecutor Jeff Bora, also of Chicago, said he would call the police and stay on the scene to make sure none of the money was stolen. Even if he could get away with it, the 30-year-old said he would not be able to live with the guilt of stealing.
The truck belonged to Garda World Security Services Corp, a Montreal-based security and cash logistics company, spokesman Joe Gavaghan said. He said they are cooperating with state police investigators to find out what happened.
Maryland State Police urged people to return the money to the agency's barracks in Rockville, with no questions asked and no charges filed. As of Friday afternoon, no one had. -- AP
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Meanwhile, "kiasu" Singapore parents may take comfort (if that's the appropriate sentiment!) in being not alone in such behaviour, ie, making sure their kids do not lose out. Here's the TODAY story...
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120326-0000136/Aggressive-helicopter-parents-force-cancellation-of-Easter-egg-hunt
Aggressive "helicopter" parents force cancellation of Easter egg hunt
Attorney Heather Kelly, who was driving to her office when she passed through the surreal scene, said she saw about 30 cars pulled over on the roadside and people frantically collecting fistfuls of dollars in what looked like a "snow globe of cash".
So, faced with such a moral dilemma, what would you?
People the Associated Press spoke to following the incident gave some interesting answers, offering a glimpse into the minds of Americans trying to juggle doing the right thing and getting by in a tough economy.
Chicago billing clerk Stephany Harris, 53, admitted that she would "put as much money in my pockets (as I could) and run", but not before making sure the armoured car drivers were not hurt if there was an accident.
But, Mrs Harris said she would not take a single dollar if her children were with her.
"I wouldn't want them to get the message that grabbing money that is not yours is the right thing to do," she said.
Former lawyer and prosecutor Jeff Bora, also of Chicago, said he would call the police and stay on the scene to make sure none of the money was stolen. Even if he could get away with it, the 30-year-old said he would not be able to live with the guilt of stealing.
The truck belonged to Garda World Security Services Corp, a Montreal-based security and cash logistics company, spokesman Joe Gavaghan said. He said they are cooperating with state police investigators to find out what happened.
Maryland State Police urged people to return the money to the agency's barracks in Rockville, with no questions asked and no charges filed. As of Friday afternoon, no one had. -- AP
--------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, "kiasu" Singapore parents may take comfort (if that's the appropriate sentiment!) in being not alone in such behaviour, ie, making sure their kids do not lose out. Here's the TODAY story...
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120326-0000136/Aggressive-helicopter-parents-force-cancellation-of-Easter-egg-hunt
Aggressive "helicopter" parents force cancellation of Easter egg hunt
COLORADO SPRINGS - Organisers of an annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children have cancelled this year's event, citing the behaviour of aggressive parents who swarmed into the tiny park last year, determined that their kids get an egg.
That hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of egg-less tots and their own parents. Too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs.
Organisers say the event has outgrown its original intent of being a neighbourhood event.
Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called "helicopter parents" -- those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children's lives from sports and school to, increasingly, work, to ensure that they don't fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.
"They couldn't resist getting over the rope to help their kids," said Ron Alsop, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of "The Trophy Kids Grow Up", which examines the "millennial children" generation.
"That's the perfect metaphor for millennial children. They (parents) can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes."
Alsop and others say the parenting phenomenon began in earnest when Baby Boomers who decorated their cars with "Baby on Board" signs in the 1980s began having children. It has prompted at least two New York companies to establish "take your parent to work day" for new recruits as parents remain involved even after their children become adults. -- AP
That hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of egg-less tots and their own parents. Too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs.
Organisers say the event has outgrown its original intent of being a neighbourhood event.
Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called "helicopter parents" -- those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children's lives from sports and school to, increasingly, work, to ensure that they don't fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.
"They couldn't resist getting over the rope to help their kids," said Ron Alsop, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of "The Trophy Kids Grow Up", which examines the "millennial children" generation.
"That's the perfect metaphor for millennial children. They (parents) can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes."
Alsop and others say the parenting phenomenon began in earnest when Baby Boomers who decorated their cars with "Baby on Board" signs in the 1980s began having children. It has prompted at least two New York companies to establish "take your parent to work day" for new recruits as parents remain involved even after their children become adults. -- AP
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