Meditations

My son is still a child. He do things because it’s fun. He plays the ipad because it’s fun. He likes to go to school because that’s where his friends are. He does not hate reading the bible history books but neither does he find it fun to do so and does not read it on his own. To motivate him to do something, there should be a reward so that he can do something fun like playing a new game on the ipad after completing the task.

So that’s why he has a parent like me to monitor him and to guide him. That’s why I need to make sure that he reads the bible history. That’s why I need to make sure that he does his math on the practice website. That’s why I need to make sure that he does his language homework and hands it in school. That’s why he is going for chinese lessons so that he will learn how to speak chinese. That’s why he’s doing his reading in English everyday so that he will improve his vocabulary. He need to do all that not because he likes it but because he has to. It is a parent’s job to make sure that he does it. As long as he does not hate it all too much, that is ok.

I think children live in a reactionary mode. Their behavior is constantly copying what they have seen in their outside world and is constantly shaped by it. My son’s outside world consist of home, school, ipad and TV. He is constantly bombarded and shaped by what he sees in school and at home and also the games he plays on ipad and the TV programs he watches. He is influenced by his classmates, his teachers and other people in school and also by us father and mother in the family. In order to grow to maturity, he needs someone to look up to. He needs a role model.

Sadly, I am not a good role model for my son. I cannot be a person that he wants to copy. That is because if he grows up to be a person like me, he is going to be withdrawn and disengaged, which I do not want him to be. The world that I live in now is a much different world from what I experienced say 10 years ago, at least in Singapore. I am still living in the world 10 years ago in Singapore and I do not intend to change  the way I speak, the way I think as I was 10 years back in Singapore or else I will be a very different person. God has made me the way I am and I intend to live the way that I am 10 years back in Singapore probably up till I die.

Home is where the mind is trained. Maybe my son cannot copy the way that I speak or even in the way that I think. But I think I can provide some guidance along the way. I can still influence his thinking and his character even though I am not the role model. I can point to him the way to go by good old fashioned logical thinking and christian faith. It has to be expressed and  articulated and I need to consolidate these essentials probably through penning it down. He also needs to have the desire to learn logical thinking and the christian faith as well. Part of my job is to nurture that desire. The old fashioned logical thinking and the christian faith has to introduced and added to what society has molded him to be thus far.