Social development milestones

It wasn't too long ago that we were worried about H's social skills. He seemed to like playing on his own and never spoke much about his friends from school. Of late, he seemed to have blossomed socially. He voluntarily tells us about what he did in school, about his friends, etc. He even has best friends now whom he speaks about. I guess we were just overly paranoid. Children's social interactions develop in stages, and I found this article by Joan Almon extremely enlightening.

I quote from her article The Vital Role of Play in Early Childhood Education:

"The way children engage in social play with others changes over the years. The one year old tends to play alone, while social play of two year-olds is generally called parallel play for young children play side by side without fully interacting with each other. I would characterize the play of three and four year olds as playmate play. The children enjoy playing with each other (with occasional squabbles as part of the play experience), but generally they are not deeply invested in each other. They enjoy playing together when they are in nursery school, but tend to forget about each other when they are apart. An exception to this, in my experience, occurs among children whose families are friends or who carpool together. In such situations, life thrusts the children together outside the usual play times, and playmates become more like family members who play an important, abiding role in a child’s life. Normally, however, children of this age happily play with their playmates in school and forget about them for the rest of the day.

 

The social play of five and six year olds is different. The doors to deeper social relationships are opening for them. They form friendships and talk about their friends at home. They think about their friends when they are apart. They may want to call them on the phone or visit in their homes."

 

H is turning 5 so I guess he's starting to display the social characteristics of a 5 year old. It's rather sad that we have to pull him out of school at the end of this semester now that he has formed firm friendship in school. He actually wanted to stay in his current school but that's another story altogether.

 

 

Our new aquarium

Over the weekend, hubs took the kids to the pet shop to get them fishes as pets. I think daddy was more excited than the kids. While he was busy looking through the different aquariums, pumps, etc, the kids only wanted to use the net to scoop up the fish. What is more fun then netting the fish right, who cares about what aquarium we're buying.

We finally got all the required accessories home and got the aquarium all set up. H was pretty proud of the aquarium as he helped decorated it. Now it was time to get the fishes (we didn't get them from the same shop). We got 6 guppies, 4 swordtail fish and a mudsucker (the kids named it Lulee). Apparently these are hardy fishes but they don't come cheap. I thought guppies are longkang fish no? They cost RM5 each, I kid you not, what a rip off!

After putting all the fishes into the aquarium, daddy started giving rules to the kids. Alamak, so many rules!  

#1: Cannot put your hands into the fish tank or the fish will die
#2: Cannot put dirty things into the fish tank or the fish will die
#3: Cannot give the fish too much food or ... etc etc.

But the kids were so excited they nodded anyway and repeated the rules to daddy.

The next morning though, kakak found all the 4 swordtail fish on the floor dead. They must have jumped out of the tank, and 1 guppy dead in the tank. So much for them being hardy, and there goes RM25. I guess we'll have to go to the pet shop again this weekend to get more fish ;-)

This is what Hubs found out from his research before we bought our aquarium:

1. The bigger the aquarium the easier it is to keep the fishes alive as more water means less drastic change in water temperature
2. For beginners, you should choose hardy fishes like guppies or swordtail fish. Also, not all fishes can be put together in the same tank, so better check with the pet shop staff
3. There's a minimum space requirement for the fish (depending on their size) so although our tank can hold 10 gallons of water, the maximum number of guppies we can have is about 16-20

chatterbox L

My baby girl is certainly not a baby when it comes to talking. She can easily out talk a 4 year old, and has no problem holding conversations with adults. These days, she's even full of excuses...

1. Accusing her brother
Aunty Ann was telling us to keep the tissue box out of L's reach as she's fond up pulling tissues out of the box. L overheard Aunty and said, "Yah, better put it high up on the shelf else kor-kor will play with the tissue!"

2. Feigning ignorance
I told L numerous times not to bite her bottle teat else she'll have to use the cup. Teats are expensive and I'm not about to replace them every time she bites a hole in them. While drinking from her milk bottle she suddenly cried out, "Someone bit a hole on my tit-tit!"
Me: I wonder who did!
L: It wasn't me, someone did!

3. Faking urgency
Poppy was taking a nap and L wanted Poppy to get up and play. After several failed attempts to wake Poppy, she shouted, "I need to go shee-shee!". Poppy jumped up immediately to take her to the toilet. L: I know how to wake Poppy up now!"

More about school choices

I've never considered myself someone indecisive, but when it comes to H's education, I've somehow become overly indecisive. Sometime I wonder if we should even discuss schooling options with others, cos I find that the more you discuss, the more confused you get.

I just received a notice from a waldorf-inspired preschool that they have an opening for H this coming May. Just when I have come to terms with his current school (despite some of its shortcomings, I think I've accepted the fact that there's no perfect school and that it's really not that bad), I'm now faced with another decisional point - let H continue in his current school, or take him out at the end of this semester.

Hubs is clearly more decisive than me. I guess it's also because he's not as involved in H's progress in school and the discussions I have with other parents. What he knows is mainly from what I told him, so clearly it can be a little extreme since my point of view, depending on what transpired prior to me pouring it out to him, is on either end of the scale. For example, I told Hubs I had issue with the lack of play in H's current school. Since the kids are only 5, over-emphasis on academics via classroom-based instructions will drain their enthusiasm for learning. Also, I felt that at this age, more focus should be given on the social emotional development aspects which is something H is lacking... blah blah blah... Hubs reaction was simple, "Yup agreed, we should take him out and put him in that play-based school you mentioned!"

There's really no right or wrong answer to what is best for the development of your 5-year old. I guess it really depends on the child as every child is different. H is somewhat anti-social. More than once I witnessed how he simply ignore his friends when they were striking up a conversation with him. I sometimes wonder how other kids can be so natural with socialising but my H just prefers to be on his own. For example, once I walked H to his classroom since we were early. When his friends saw him, they happily called out to him (one even started talking to him about something he did yesterday), but he just remained aloof and went about doing his own stuff. We've also been to a few birthday parties of his classmates. He would always want to go saying that he wanted to see his friends, but at the party, he would not join in the games, nor would he crowd around the birthday child (like most kids would do) when singing the birthday song and cutting the birthday cake.

Developing H's social emotional skill is hence very important to us. We've seen many bright young people who can't excel at work due to low EQ. For kids, the best way to learn how to socialise, manage conflicts, resolve problems, regulate own emotions is through interaction and playing with others. In his current school, there isn't much opportunity to do so. After much probing (you really need to ask very specific questions to get specific answers), I found out that H's school is overly rigid in enforcing 'discipline'. Yes, granted you can't have a noisy classroom during lesson time, but they should not be told to keep quiet all the time. Already there aren't play time incorporated in the daily schedule, so shouldn't kids be allowed to chit chat while queuing up to go to the canteen during break time, or in between lessons? How else will these 5-year olds (ok maybe most of them have no issue but H definitely has) learn how to interact with others?

don't be a hermit crab

Grandma Poppy wanted to follow us out last Saturday but as usual Grandpa Kongky wanted to stay home. On the way out, I told the kids Poppy may not come with us cos Kongky doesn't like to go out, he likes to stay at home...

H: Why?
L:  Maybe Kongky is an old man. <I'm not sure why she associates old man with wanting to stay at home... hahaha>
H: Maybe he's a hermit crab!

We dropped by Poppy's house on the way out...

H told Kongky: Don't be a hermit crab Kongky!

And just in case Kongky didn't understand him...

H: A hermit crab is someone who doesn't like to go out and likes to stay at home.

Kids!!! And so, both Poppy and Kongky went out with us :-)