Traditional Games for Physical Development

"Baling getah"

"Tuju Guli"

"Ayam dan Musang"
The best game of all times!!!

"Boling para"
Traditional "Bowling" games.. developing hand-eye coordination.

let us start with fun stretching!!! to the left kids!!
with the count 1..2..3..

The Overprotective Parents.

It had been more than a week since my last post about how music influence was really affecting the child development. Today, i want to share something about the overprotective parents. This topic came across my mind like 3 days ago when i was visiting one of my friends' house. While having a few sip of the drinks, there was this one little girl was playing beside me. As we started the conversation, i learnt that this girl, name Nicole is 4 years of age, and attending a nursery or kindergarten (i'm assuming this because she told me that she had a lot of friends in her school). As time goes, she seems very excited to talk and we even play together with the rubber band that she had at the moment. After a little while, she said something which had make me to write about this topic.

"Mommy didn't allow me to play with friends down there", said Nicole.

Maybe for some good reason, parents always forbidding their children to do this and that. At some point, i am agree with what they did. So many question arises i believe like how if they gonna get hurt?how if they fall to the ground and injured themselves? and worse than that, how if they'll get kidnapped by those human-trading syndicates?like what was happen to our beloved young girl, Sharline who was one missing and yet, still missing until this time. I know, looking back all this possibilities, there are reason to be protective.But, for how long we will be the guardian angel for them?

A few more example:

Sonali Sharma will not send her eight-year old son on the school bus because she has heard that the bus drivers drive rashly. Preeti Mishra does not allow her twelve-year old daughter to sleep over at her friends' houses because she feels that she is not sure if other parents will provide adequate supervision. Lynn D'Souza says she gets the jitters every time her son climbs onto the jungle gym in the park because she is convinced he will fall and hurt himself. Mukesh Mehta did not allow his daughter to go on a school picnic to the beach for fear that she may drown. ( extract from www.indiaparenting.com )

When we read through the example above, we'll know that we as parents, are possible for being over protective to our children. Being protective sometimes, can be too radical and the result from being over protective are something that we can't really imagine without thinking about the future consequences which will wholly effect the child development.

How we resolve?

I am not the right authority, or even a person who suppose to tell or yell at people about how to resolve the situation. What i'm doing here is just sharing and sharing about something that will benefit the future generations, that was the only goal , which explain why i'm doing this blog. Every parents,i believe, when their child was born, they are just so happy until they wouldn't let even a tiny pieces of dust harm the new-born baby. But let us remind ourselves about what wisdom once said, "we will never learn about anything, before we done any wrong and learn to figure it right, or fall to the ground and struggle to stand up, just to run again".

This is another article which i think, useful.

How to be less overprotecting: Establishing lines of communication

Overprotective parents should change their attitude if they want their children to grow up as independent, confident adults. If a parent suspects that he is excessively protective, fearful and inhibiting, then as a first step, he should confirm his doubt by asking the other parent for an opinion. In the case of a single parent, he can share his concerns with someone equally concerned for the child's welfare or even other parents. This will act as a reality check. While he need not adopt other people's opinions as gospel truth, the advice and information will help him make an informed decision about what is safe for his child.

The second step he should take is listen to his child. He should try to convey to his child that his caution stems from concern for the child's safety and not from a lack of trust in the child's competence. He could discuss the dangers of the activity with the child and advise him what to do in case of an emergency. He should make judgements based on an assessment of the child's overall competence and judgement.

Despite adopting these measures, there may still be several occasions where a parent may still deny his child permission to participate in anactivity. But this is a parent's prerogative and has the weight of experience and superior judgement behind it. What is safe and acceptable for one child may not be so for another. At the end of the day, parents are the best judges of what activities are acceptable for their children in terms of safety. However, the child will realize that while she may be denied this particular pleasure, there will be other activities that will be permissible. What is safe and acceptable will always be a bone of contention between parents and children, but the important thing is for parents to realize that sometimes they just need to let go.

( extract from www.indiaparenting.com )

Thank you very much for reading this!

Music in Children Development.

A few days ago, while viewing some of my brand new friends blog, i was attracted to one article that he post. Its something to do with the music subject which the Ministry of Education in Malaysia wants to reshuffle the time table by reducing the music class period. Regarding this matter, somehow, i felt a little blue for the next generations, our children today. They claim that the purpose is to gain a few extra periods for another subjects. Well, maybe that was just another excuse to gain the votes i think. Politics always play dirty tricks to the people.Well, enough said. Back to the issue here, music in child development.

Have you heard about the multiple intelligence theory?
Developed and popular by Howard Gardner, he was the rocket scientist who comes up with this theory. i don't have to re-explain the theory here because that is something to do with the Google search, and for you take some time to hit the keyboard to surf more about it, in the case you do had a high curiosity about him.um, i think his married man, tho. What i am going to say here is just some brief of the theory. The real basic concept in this theory is that each human comes with a different abilities. Maybe we cannot kick the ball as good as David Beckham, or composing a song or poem like William Shakespeare did, but we do had abilities. Multiple intelligence by Howard Gardner consist of 8 different intelligence known to human and one of it is something to do with my post today, namely, musical intelligence. Musical Intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.(extract from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm)

In early child development, its a way to reach the kids effectively. Sing along with the other kids in preschool, i bet u just don't wanna miss the fun. You can see the joy and how happy the kids mingling around doing the actions in the song.Priceless moment i can say. Without realizing it, we had contribute in promoting harmony and peace in a bigger picture. I believe that all of us, if not often, once was ever touch with a song until you can cry, or merely laugh out loud because of it. This is the hidden yet very powerful instrument in our life. You'll get to know and learn about emotions because of music.

So, to those people who decide to think that music is just another piece of score sheet, think beyond.

The importance of play in learning process.

When i first came out with the idea to start blogging, i had one aim, set deep inside my mind. I had this vision to share about how important early education to human life. It is something to do with us, as an adult, and as a parents to thousand thousands of children in the world. But let me put that aside for a while and focus to what is exactly it means with the word play, which is very significant to the children.

There are a lot of article out there, telling us how much the terms play, is very important in learning process especially for early childhood skills development. I don't need to mention about how many research and observation had been done researching closely about how play in early childhood can really affect their development, yet many people still think that play, after all is nothing bigger than the terms itself.

Basically, when children play, what we see from our naked eye, they was doing nothing other than eating or biting something unfamiliar stuff to them with their mouth. But the fact is, in that very moment, they actually building and practicing certain skills and put them into their brain, or what Vygotsky calls it, the scheme. So this is the scheme which will develop like a scaffolding, stage by stage, level by level. And remember, the whole stories was started with the word, play.

What the parents should do?
We as an adult often came out with the phrase like "no, don't play with that marker" to our children when we saw them holding a permanent marker ink on their hand. It wouldn't be so extreme to say that such words will kill the kids creativity and to be worst, killing their cognitive development. Believe me, its the truth. Knowledgeable parents will provide them a space, like a plain wall in any out-of-sight corner for them to develop their inner Picasso skills.

There are a lots more article regarding the importance of play in learning process which you can find over the internet. This is just some brief extraction from what i had learn the past few years. May it will help you and myself, in any ways, to be a better adult and parents to our children.

Merdeka: Parents and child.

After 52 years Malaysia celebrating their independence day, there are lots and tons of changes happen in that few decades. What we had experience in the past as in our childhood memories were different than what our great grandfather going through back in the years Malaysia was still call Tanah Melayu. Can u imagine how the new generations who was born after the millennium? Children, as we see today are no longer into those kind of things where flying kites, konda-kondi, batu seremban, wau, congkak, just to name a few, are the core activity most of us had as a kids. i had no intentions to blame the technology we had today but i don't believe it will help promoting positive social health for the kids. Blaming the kids?nope. we, as an adult, parents for every kids, should be someone to take responsibility when digging deeper regarding this matter. Exposing our children with too much uncontrollable media like games, television programs and gadgets are not something really bad tho, but soon it will put our culture and heritage at stake. so what we, as a parents and adult must do is, we had to learn on how to take responsibility which is come even in a very simplest stuff. Think about it. Happy 52nd Independence Day to Malaysia.

the children: leaders of tomorrow.

This is gonna be my very first post in this blog and i am very proud of it. Looking back a few years ago, in late year of 2006, to be more specific, i was having this thought to start a blog. Due to my knowledge limitation, the moment was just passed by and soon before i know it, the feeling was all gone by.The year 2009 come and i was having the thought once again after visiting some of my friends blog.Some people, i think they really enjoy putting their thoughts to be shared with others. i agree. sharing is good.But when it comes to another criteria, which is putting our own over-emotional thoughts, i kinda disbelief it will help to promote harmony in life.Considering things this far, i decide to blog out about something i really care about, not just the stereotypical over emotional talk about daily circumstances. So this is why i came up with the future generations, the children today. yup, we always love kids,no?at least for those who had one, two, three or just as many as u can imagine will say so.but i don't, i mean, not yet having kids on my own. but this is what i do.i am a preschool teacher trainee.to be true, i love kids, and that as much as i want them to grow up as a human being should be.well, i guess, that's gonna be the stuff at the moment. i am very much happy if anyone are willing to share any thoughts in any ways i can improve this blog. My name is jae. signing out.