Last week, I saw a beautiful program about recycling… about how our paper will stay the same when you throw it away on the ground for 30 years. It is something that is surprising because we, people, tend to think that it’s ok to throw away paper to the ground, but when an American researcher is doing a research about this, the result is really different… it stayed the same!

Can you imagine, our world can be a mountain of garbage if we don’t do anything,…. So there is one thing we can do,… stop throwing our books away…

If you have books that you want to throw away, please send it to me at Jl. Mangga Dua Raya No 8, Gedung WTC Mangga Dua Lt UG blok D /57, Jakarta 14430…. Your book can be a treasure for those who can not afford to go to school. We are going to collect books from all over places and going to make a library in a poor area, a place where children really need education but could not afford the tuition fee….

By doing this, I believe we’re doing a good thing for the environment, while on the other side, we help the educational level of children in the poor area. Education is children’s right and we’re trying to help as long as we can….

We’re looking for your books….. don’t throw them away, please….

One way to introduce your child to a new experiment is by becoming an active parents.

My little baby loves to dance and she couldn’t stop dancing when she hears music. She always asks us to watch her performance at home and we have to keep on watching until she finished her performance. After that, my mom said, “Why don’t you ask some Event Organizers to give time for Claire do a performance when they have an event at the mall?”

I thought to my self, well that’s a great idea! I can introduce her to the real world of entertainment and she can gain a self confindence inside of her.

After a long hour of searching, at last I found an event. Actually that is a children event, there are many competitions from morning till afternoon. I asked the EO weather they can give at least 5 minutes for Claire to perform her dance. I said that they will have so much space from one competition to another competition. If Claire can dance within that period, it would be a great mutualism. They don’t have to hire a performer and Claire can show her talent.

The EO asked me to send her a video of Claire dancing. So, I took my handphone and asked Claire to dance. I sent the video right away and got her response immediately.

“Wow, Claire is so cute when dancing. Ok, I’ll give you time to perform her dance. See you on Saturday,” said the EO through the phone.

I leap for joy after the phone…. So you can see her performance at the video…

Start to be more active…

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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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…

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….

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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Parents usually want to have a brilliant children but the question is how? To increase children’s intelligences, there are 3 things that are important to remember:

1. Genetics: we could not do anything with it… we can call it a blessing

2. Environment: including

• Nutrition: exclusive breast milk for 6 months and other nutritious food after 6 months of breast milk. The formation of organs and body will not wait for the food, so if the baby is not eating properly, the brain development also will slow down, so giving proper and nutritious food for your baby is a must.
• Stimulation: there are many parents said to me that it is useless to read, to play, to teach baby since they couldn’t understand. For your information, baby’s brain is like a sponge, it’s ready to absorb much information from us, parents. When we give them information, it looks like they don’t understand, but actually, they save the information in their brain and they will use it later when whey grown up.
• Psychological: baby’s brain can develop in a better way if they live in a loving family, where they can be loved, can be hugged, can be kissed without any conditions.

3. Balance brain, left and right brain can work in a balance way.

 With that in mind, I think we can increase our baby’s multiple intelligences.

Baby’s brain is like a sponge, it will absorb everything, every information you gave them and here is the proof of it.

Claire can finish 80 pieces of puzzle within 9 minutes 53 secs!

At first I couldn’t believe that she can do the puzzle but we practice almost every day and within 5 days, she can do it for the first time for 15 minutes. And from that time on, she showed a great improvement with her record is 9 minutes 23 secs. So this is a great example that if you stimulate your baby, she will absorb every thing and she will store the data in her brain, use it again when she needs it.

Step by step to introduce puzzle to baby:

1. Introduce her with 2-3 pieces of puzzle for the first time.
2. Show her how to put the puzzle in the right place so that her brain will make connection. By the time you repeat, she will understand how to put the puzzle in the right place.
3. Learn about color is a great step to do.
4. After she can differentiate color, ask her which part has the same with the color she holds at that time. When she learn about color, she can have a great improvement for doing the puzzle.
5. After that you can use the 6 pieces, then increase the number to 9 pieces, 12 pieces, and so on.
6. After several times of doing it, I believe your baby will be much brainy than ever!

Give a try and tell me how it works for you!

To see Claire doing it, click here.

In order to learn something, we don’t have to use books all the time. Of course books can give us information, but there is another way to learn something by stimulating our senses.