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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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…

Last week, me and my baby got a chance to be the finalist of “Golden Moment Award” and both of us had to do the fashion show. After the fashion show, the judges said that they would like to choose 3 pairs among 10 of us who were the best pair. While waiting, my Claire asked me to put her down and she tried to make friend with other babies.

Suddenly, I heard somebody’s crying and Claire was there with the girl who’s crying. She looked very mad at the girl. I had no idea why, but I think she tried to wave her stick and would like to play together but unfortunately the stick hit the little girl’s hand.

I asked Claire to say sorry about this, but she refused to say so. Then I decided to give an example and say sorry first to show her that we need to apologize for the wrong thing we’ve done. After a few minutes, the little girl still crying and guess what? Her mom came to me and pretended to slap my Claire. After seeing this drama, she stopped crying but I think what her mom did was not good.

What did you teach to your children? Did you teach your children to revenge? Or did you teach your children to forgive and let go? Which one is better? What would they learn if you teach them to take revenge every time there is a problem?

I think the best thing is to give explanation about the situation and try to make them understand, to forgive and to let go. Believe me, little children can learn this from you as parents. If you never teach them to forgive then how they can learn to fit in the social community?

I hope we can teach our children the value of life using daily examples anytime, anywhere. Don’t ask them to learn it from book only, it will be very difficult if you never teach them from their early years….

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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Have you seen my Childhood?
I’m searching for the world that I come from
‘Cause I’ve been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart…
No one understands me

They view it as such strange eccentricities…
‘Cause I keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me…

People say I’m not okay
‘Cause I love such elementary things…
It’s been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood
I’ve never known…

Have you seen my Childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates in adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne…

Before you judge me, try hard to love me,
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my Childhood?

People say I’m strange that way
‘Cause I love such elementary things,
It’s been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood I’ve never known…

Have you seen my Childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly…

Before you judge me, try hard to love me.
The painful youth I’ve had

Have you seen my Childhood…

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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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In this unperfect world, we always want to have the best in everything, we want to be the best in everything, but I think that is impossible. Just like other parents, we also want to have the good looking boy, we want to have the cute charming girl, but when the reality is not the same, we put on label to our children based on their appearance to express our dissatisfaction. But one thing you need to remember that this is a bullying.

“Hey you, big nose!”

“Ow, you fatty cow”

We didn’t realize that by the time we put on label like that, it will be like a destructive weapon that can explode in the future. Our children will not have a good self-confidence, they will think that other people also have the same opinion just like you, their parents.

As they grow up, they will think to themselves, “I have to change my appearance, so that my parents and other people will not make fun of me anymore. ” Well that’s the positive way, but there is a possibility that our children can take the negative way, “I’m no body, I’m overweight, I don’t have a good looking face, I’ll just stay here, at home so that no one can make fun of me. ” The worst thing is they can kill themselves to end the sorrow.

If our children take the positive way, that’s good. But if they took the negative way, it will be very difficult for them to change their way of thinking about themselves. I found some children with this kind of behavior and it is very difficult to speak with them because they always refer to what their parents said when they were young.

Michael Jackson also had this kind of problem, I think. I read in several articles that his father called him with “Big nose”. This might be funny if we do that to our children, but as I said before, we can count this as a bullying. Michael succeed to change his nose even thought it cost him thousand  of dollars, but how about other children out there who face this kind of problem and decided to end their life?

Still remembering Michael, I really want to share about this article from wikipedia.

“Michael Jackson first spoke openly about his childhood abuse in a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey. He said that during his childhood he often cried from loneliness and would sometimes start to vomit upon seeing his father.^{[10][11][12][13]} In Jackson’s other high profile interview, Living with Michael Jackson (2003), the singer covered his face with his hand and began crying when talking about his childhood abuse.^[9] Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed and that “if you didn’t do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you”.

I think most of us, as parents, want to give the best for our children, we want to see our children has a bright future, we want them to be a successful person, we want them to have a better economic condition, we want them to have a high social status so that we put a really high expectation for them, we discipline for our children in a really high level. On the other side, as a young children, they will not understand the reason of our behavior, why they need to have that kind of discipline while other kid can play, sleep, do anything they want without any fear. Why they have to receive such a discipline?

There is a missing link here.

My mom, even though she never beat me with a belt, she has a really high expectation from me. Everytime she get mad at me, she will explain the reason, she will make me understand why she need to do that and now, even though I still can remember her voice, her slap on my butt, but I can understand fully why she did that to me, only because she loves me and because she wanted me to have a bright future.

That’s the missing link…

If you want to put a discipline to your children, I think you really have to consider Michael’s case as a reminder, never abuse a child if you want to put discipline on them. If you really want to discipline them, please give some explanation about that, so that they will understand the reason and they will not put this hard feeling in their heart. Another way is to give reward not a punishment.

Everybody loves to receive reward, including your children. Why don’t you give a reward instead of punishment if you want them to do something for their future. If you still want a punishment, you might think about a “brainy punishment”  instead of slapping their face or using a belt to spank their butt.

What do you think about this?