The One About Growing Up and Bullying

In the past year, I changed schools for Claire, because I no longer had faith in her old school as a healthy and safe learning environment. Part of the reason was that she was being physically bullied and her class teacher simply couldn't care less despite me personally marching up to her and letting her know about the bullying taking place.

Naturally I also scolded Claire and told her she had to learn to stand up for herself when she is bullied.

In this new school, she has had a couple of unpleasant encounters, which she related to me this week. As a mother, I couldn't help but feel heartpain that my little girl was treated unpleasantly, but yet I know that I cannot protect her forever, and, well, she had better start to deal with this herself.

Encounter 1
Claire related how her teacher had given her class back their artwork for the year. However, she had only three pieces of art as opposed to her classmates' six pieces of art, because she had only transferred to the school in July. She then revealed that she felt very unhappy. After a little probing I realised that a large part of her unhappiness was because a classmate, G, had laughed at her because she had less art pieces than the rest of the class. (Erm, like, seriously?? That is worth laughing over???)
Me: Did you say anything to G?
Claire: No.
Me: But do you think it was correct of G to laugh at you?
Claire: No.
Me: It wasn't nice, right?
Claire: Yes.
Me: So next time if she does it to you again you tell her that that was not nice of her, ok?
Claire: Ok. Mummy, I don't feel sad anymore. Because it was not nice of G.


Encounter 2
Today Claire told me that A and D had laughed at her and said she was I's boyfriend (for some reason, they found it very funny to say boyfriend instead of girlfriend - yes, they did it on purpose).
Me: Then what did you do?
Claire: I told them that that was not funny.
Me: And it wasn't nice of them also right?
Claire: Yes.
Me: So there's no need to be sad right? Because you didn't do anything wrong.
Claire: Yes. (after a hug) Ok mummy, I know already. I'm not sad.

Although they are still young, I feel that they should learn to be sensitive to others' feelings. If no one stops them, by the time they enter proper school, that's where your school bullying starts. I can trace my own insecurities to way back in primary school, when a boy laughed at me and called me ugly. To this day, I remember it and it both stings and stinks, still. As a result of that one comment made, I had an inferiority complex and placed an overimportance on looks all throughout my life, even now, when deep down I know it is not the be all and end all. 

I'm tired

I'm so tired. I just need somewhere quiet to rest and be me for a while.

English woes

Claire can read pretty well, but after 15 months of English enrichment, I'm resigned to the fact that Claire reads by sight and will prob remain that way. I don't mind that much, but it means a lot more work for me coz she cannot employ both phonics and sight reading methods, so she will need a lot more exposure to materials and closer supervision.

To give her and her teacher some credit, she does try, but I know her first instinct is to read by sight, and she just stumbles badly whenever she sees new words. I hope she will improve as time goes by, otherwise I worry that she will suffer with spelling because she has to memorize everything. =(

And her grammar is nothing short of appalling, because she is so used to speaking in singlish. Ah, long process to change that.

Teaching Chinese

So it's back to the drawing board with Claire's Chinese progress again, after the husband vetoed the idea of Chinese enrichment.

I have to admit that the idea of Chinese enrichment was a bit extra on my part, as I don't consider Claire's Chinese to be that bad. At the very least, I am very sure she is not a potato, though the increasing amount of English she uses worries me a little. However, she does get daily exposure to the language, so it is not that bad. Also, for some very weird and unfathomable reason she has a slight Cantonese accent - considering that she has NO exposure to Cantonese, that is indeed very strange.

But recently, with the change in school environment and probably natural development, Claire's spoken Chinese has taken a bit of a beating. From an almost totally Chinese class, she has switched to a school with an international population who mainly use English as a common communication tool, and she is at the age where she is communicating more with her friends, so I guess it is inevitable. She forgets simple terms and resorts to mixing English in to make herself understood. Oh well.

I haven't been the most hardworking at her Chinese either, though I have two different sets of Chinese readers, plus miscellaneous Chinese storybooks. I suppose I could have been a little more disciplined and more regular at Chinese, sob sob.

Anyway I don't think it's too late, for now I will try to work out a regular schedule to rotate English and Chinese. Unfortunately even with the amount of English exposure she has her English is still appalling, but that is for another post. =( But the bottom line is that I don't think I can stop supervising her English.

Must say that I'm a little ashamed of myself for letting her Chinese fall to shreds. =(

Good thing is, she likes the latest set of Chinese storybooks I bought her, so she's willing to listen to the stories.