Do you know bonsai, a small tree that lives in a small pot? I think most of you know this kind of tree.

In Japanese words, bonsai means an ordinary talents. The opposite of bonsai is tensai, which means many talents, genius.

Nowadays, I saw that children about 1-4 years old could not do simple jobs around the house that is actually easy because without knowing it, parents make their children into a bonsai. Parents always do all things for their children, thinking that “children could not do it”, or “it takes time if they do it by themselves”, or “if I allow them to do it, they will mess up and I have to clean up the rest.”

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Do you ever think about travelling with your honey without leaving your baby? Well I got the same idea as well but don’t have the courage to do that until one day, I went to airport and met many foreigners travelling with their baby! They carrying a big backpack, luggage and their baby on the stroller.

Oh my God.. I miss my journey with my baby…

Then, I thought to myself, how come they dare to travel with their baby while I’m not? I worried about how to breastfeed my baby, how to feed her, how about the food, will it be ok, will she eat the food, will she be healthy to enjoy the holiday, and many other questions popped up in my mind. I started to discuss this thing with my husband and he want to try, otherwise we don’t know the result, right?… Well, this is a good start, so I tried to make a new step in my life, going for a holiday to Bali to celebrate our 6th anniversary…My baby was 15 month years old at that time.

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I was so upset when my little Claire peed on the floor instead of in the toilet, but what else can I do? I couldn’t do anything for the things just happened but to clean it. For several times, I advised her to tell me if she wants to pee but still, everything doesn’t always work according to my plan. Or probably there were times when Claire spilt the milk on the floor because she was too focus on the DVD lesson I gave her while drinking milk.

So here I come with an idea, instead of being angry, I gave her a brainy punishment and teaching chores at the same time. Every time she peed on the floor or spilt the milk, I gave her tissue to wipe the floor. After finished wiping it, I asked her to throw away the wet tissue in the garbage box. If she peed on the floor, I also asked her to wash her own underwear. The main thing is not the result since she was only 2 years old, but what can she learn from it?

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Recently I saw many children became “handicapped”. Well, to make it simple, I’m going to give an example.

1. When children were facing a difficulties, instead of trying, they will ask their mom or dad to do it for them, saying, “I can’t do it. It’s too difficult for me….”

2. When they tried it and fail, they will cry and give up.

3. Before they face difficulties, there are many parents or maidservant who became a helper for them so that children never face difficulties at all, saying that they couldn’t help to see their children facing a difficulties.

If these conditions keep on going, children will lack confident because they never face difficulties at all. So what are you going to do to prevent these condition? Are you going to let it flow? I think it is better to change the condition!

1. Let your child know that at some point, they too can do it themselves. Give them a motivation that they can do it.

2. If your children tried and couldn’t do it, help them until they can continue it themselves.

3. Ask your maidservant to let go and help them only when they really really needed it. Otherwise, let them try it themselves.

If you do it, I believe that your children will find out that they can do it themselves and next time they would like to try it themselves. In that way, they will be more confident in everything they do…

Do you know that most of our children are smart and intelligent by birth! Probably some of you will not believe it, but if the process went in a normal way, our children are smart. But again, some of you will continue saying that you children are not that smart compared with other children.

Is that their fault? No! It’s our fault as parents, since God gave us the same brain, but all we have to do is to give good nutrition so that the free brain we got can develop in a good way. Other important thing is STIMULATION. Without stimulation, they did not get an opportunity to develop their brain functions in a normal manner.

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I was so shocked to hear the news. At that time, I was about to go to South Jakarta and my Japanese friend said, “There was a bomb in a hotel in Jakarta!” I said, “What? I didn’t know about that. How did you know that?” ”There was a news on my phone.” 

Suddenly my phone ringing. It was my mom calling, she asked me to be more careful on the road because of the bomb.

When I got back home, I saw a terrible news about a man who was about to have his third baby coming on that day. His wife asked him not to go to work and accompany her to the hospital, but that man decided to go to work and unfortunately, he was on the wrong place in the wrong time…. That was the end of his day forever. He couldn’t see his third baby coming, he couldn’t accompany his wife and children growing up,…. (That’s why you have to listen to your wife at some point!)

Well,… I know it’s difficult to raise 2 children and a baby as a single parent. How to introduce dad’s figure without him alive? Should we lie to our children that their dad went somewhere and will be back soon? Should we cover the real story and make a new story about their dad?

It will be very difficult to make them understand at the first time, but I think it is better to tell them the fact that their dad is gone and you guys will meet again one day. Explain to them and make them understand, do not lie about this. If you start with a lie, you will keep on doing it over and over again and it will hurt more at the end when children find out that their dad is gone.

After that, you can show some pictures or video about dad, probably on his birthday. You can ask your children to pray together for daddy, draw some picture and hang it on the wall. In this way, you can make children appreciate their dad even though their dad is not around anymore. I think that is the best way… What do you think?

Toilet training is really important for our baby, but we found out that toilet training is really difficult to do. Not because our baby didn’t want to, but because we’re tired to clean up after they peed on the floor or on the bed (mostly on the bed, since it will leave a sign, it will make our bed wet and sometimes smells bad! We have to change the bed sheet as well)

“Oh my…. I just clean up the floor, why you didn’t tell me if you want to pee?”

Moreover, we have to change the pants over and over again, leaving a bunch of dirty clothes and dirty bed sheet at the end of the day. Trust me, I’m so tired to do the laundry when I started toilet training since Claire can pee 4-5 times on the floor or on the bed, or everywhere. I decided to use diapers again for several months.

Then I read something on the news that sometimes, diapers contain a dangerous material that will cause a disease for baby’s vital area. I have no idea wether it’s true or not, since I got different opinion from different doctor. I decided not to use diapers anymore and use it only for sleeping time.

Then I found something that made Claire want to tell me if she wants to pee. I asked her to wipe the floor if she peed on the floor without telling me. After several times of doing it, Claire can make it! She told me in advance! Quite working, don’t you think so? I know that it seems ro mean, but I gave her the explanation that she has to tell me if she wants to pee. If she didn’t tell me, that what will happen. So she understand and accept it ( she cried sometimes… )

So in the morning till afternoon, it’s not a big problem, but when sleeping, I tried several times not using diaper, but Claire always pee on the bed.

The solution: take her around 12 am to the toilet, she peed and I save the day! Up to now, she never peed on the bed while sleeping. She can manage to pee in the morning!

So, take courage. I know it’s tiring, but it will be a great advanture with your little one!

Some parents raised their hands when they where asked, “Who said that drawing is not important for children?” Well, what is your answer? Did you plan to raise your hand as well?

Probably some of you will think the same and force our children to learn math and science instead of drawing or playing  music, but the truth is drawing and playing music is really important for children’s right brain stimulation.

To be clever, children MUST have a balance brain, not only left brain, but also right brain. Left brain fungtioned  to control the scientific, analitical, rational and logical thing such as reading, language, math, etc, while right brain fungtioned to control about everything related to art, flexibilty and creativity. If we stimulate left brain more than right brain, children will be less creative in problem solving thing, but if we stimulate right brain more than left brain, it will be difficult to put dicipline on them and they will be more flexible in everything. That’s why we have to stimulate both brain.

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