School's Out!

Finally school is out! Today is the last day of school term and school holidays have officially started. Am totally not looking forward to the holidays as most of us at home are down sick with bad strain of flu. The latest victim is poor little Min as he got it from me when I uncontrollably sneezed endless times when I was nursing him last Sat...Tues he started a bit of running nose and I was praying that he will not catch the bad bug and get away with just a little running nose, but unfortunately, the bad flu bug caught him yesterday and he couldn't even sleep in peace last night with his nose severely blocked and phelgmy throat. I brought him to see Dr Low this morning and fortunately he just needs the regular flu medicine and not antibiotics yet. Crossing fingers that he'll recover soon to his bubbly self!

Hao's birthday falls in the June holidays and each year before school's out, I'll prepare party packs for him to bring to class and distribute. Did the same this year and he happily brought it to school for his friends, but when he came back in the evening, he was all sad and quiet...not the bubbly little boy who would always be excited about last day of school. I asked him what happened and he reluctantly told me that he cried in school as he had a row with his friend. What happened was his friend asked him when was his birthday and he told the friend that his birthday falls on 6th June 2oo2. Well, his friend called him a little liar as year 2002 had past and Hao replied that it was the day he was born to us as a baby and that was his birth date. His friend continued to label him a liar and Hao was so upset that he asked him why he treated everybody like dirt. Surprisingly this little friend replied him "Yes I like to treat you like a piece of shit!"!!! That hurt Hao and he started crying and walked away.

I was totally stunned by how his friend treated him and surprised at the words that little kids use nowadays, which is obviously beyond their age. At home, we forbid the kids to even use words like stupid or ugly or shut up, and everytime the kids mouth such words, they know they will be punished and be asked to apologise to their siblings. However, from my daily conversation and chat with Hao, I realised that a lot of his friends are using words that they obviously learn from adults at home or maybe inappropriate tv shows and are mouthing them to their friends in an outrageously rude way. I think this is a bad phenomenon and we should really think about how and what we are teaching our kids, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Many a times we let loose of ourselves and start scolding and swearing into the phone or even daily conversation with our family members without realising that our kids are there listening to our conversation and picking up words and expressions that are not appropriate for their age. Although one might argue that sooner of later the kids will pick it up somewhere along the road, but I would rather they do that later than now as they are still young and need to enjoy the carefree world than exposed to such things..