Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Our six year old girl found a roll of gold-coloured ribbon the other day.

And she told me, ‘Mommy, I’m going to make something for you, and I’m sure you’ll like it!’

Then off she went to another room.

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She came back some 10 minutes later.

With this.

I like.

I really like.

Here’s a thought I’d like to share with you today.

[Inspired by the book I’m currently reading: ‘Training Hearts, Teaching Minds’, by Starr Meade]

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Ever wondered what would happen if something is NOT used according to the original purpose?

Like for example, what would happen if we wanted to whiten up our teeth using white shoe polish?

And, what would happen if we placed some marshmallows into the toaster?

Obviously, it all wouldn’t ‘work’.

Just like how toasters are originally meant for bread, shoe polish is originally designed for shoes.

Basically this principle applies to everything in life, doesn’t it?

THINGS (and I mean, everything) will achieve and produce their BEST results IF they’re used according to their original purpose.

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BUT, there’s one big problem.

Many people today are simply not sure of their life’s purpose.

Some people think they live to earn as much as money as possible, or to be famous.

And the reality is, we have seen too many real-life examples of people (even the very famous and wealthy) who in the end said … they felt ’empty’.

Satisfaction that’s derived from fame and wealth, unfortunately (and realistically), doesn’t last ‘forever’.

It’ll run dry after a while, and they’ll be back, searching for things that can ‘fully satisfy’ them.

Here comes the part that many of us fail to see.

We are created beings, with physical AND spiritual needs.

Our physical needs may be satisfied with all sorts of things like, food, money, fame, and etc.

But spiritually (ie. our soul’s needs), … we can only be satisfied when we return to our Creator.

Because our Creator created us with a purpose.

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You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11

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The Westminster Shorter Catechism clearly wrote that ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever’.

God has a purpose when HE created us.

God wants us to know him and to enjoy him, and His presence.

And when we do exactly THAT, as written in Psalm 16:11, we’ll find the fullness of joy and pleasures.

We’ll feel satisfied.

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Now the thing is, for us to KNOW about anything, we need to spend time WITH it.

It’s like, a universal rule.

We wouldn’t have known how sweet the scent of a flower is until we stop, pay attention to it, take a deep breath and smell it.

We wouldn’t have enjoyed the sweetness of an apple, until we actually bite into it and find out for ourselves the sweetness of it.

In the same way, we wouldn’t be able to understand nor enjoy God’s presence, wonderful works, and great love for us, if we hadn’t spared any time to discover Him for ourselves.

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And so with this, I’d like to invite you all to spend some time next week to discover more about life, its purpose, and especially about what God has done that makes our life meaningful and full of purpose.

Here’s more info about the event:

GOOD FRIDAY – Gospel Rally

Date: Friday, 2 April 2010

Venue: Bartley Christian Church, 4 How Sun Drive (Click HERE for location map)

Speaker: Rev. Stephen Tong

Time:

4.30pm (In Indonesian Language)

7.30pm (In Mandarin, translated to English)

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There’ll be a Sunday School service for kids (3yo – 10yo) at the 4.30pm Indonesian service.

And I’ll personally be involved in the Puppet Show Ministry at 4.30pm too! Really hope to see your little ones there!

Anyway, if you CAN make it (and I really hope many of you can), you can always drop me an email too to let me know!

Come to the 7.30pm one next Friday if you understand either Mandarin or English (or both!)

And of course, come to the Indonesian one at 4.30pm, if you know Bahasa Indonesia.

Look forward to seeing many of you there!

So FINALLY, I’m on Twitter!

I’m still SO new at this, but I’m really excited that I now have ONE MORE WAY of connecting with people, AND readers!

Anyway, come and follow me!

www.twitter.com/oureverydaythgs

And oh, click HERE to add me on Facebook as well.

Let’s connect!

Yes we now have PRAWNS.

In our fish tank.

Tiny little ones.

And the kids and I LOVE to just lie on the floor with our faces real close to the tank.

Just watching them.

Seeing things we’ve never seen before.

Their see-through bodies.

Tiny legs.

And the ‘baby prawns’ (and eggs!) wiggling in their Mommy’s tummy.

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We are all VERY amazed at how God had created such tiny creatures.

Yep.

Learning about the animal world CAN be so much fun (and REAL) when it’s there right in front of your very eyes!

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[See if you can notice. THAT mommy prawn is VERY pregnant!]

We celebrated Wilson’s birthday last week! *YAY*

And his parents were here in Singapore too for a few days. So that was nice.

And mmm, guess what!

I decided to make a birthday cake for him this year!

Yup, another steamed, two-layered cake with fresh cream all over and in between!

[Really, after that experience of making Anya’s birthday cake, I think I’m hooked! Haha]

I chose to go for a ‘Tennis-themed’ cake. Something that he’s passionate about.

But errr … as you can see, the tennis racket ended up looking wonky though.

And the tennis balls, errrr … they all didn’t quite look like the tennis balls I imagined them to be *smile*

Oh well.

Anyway. It was another rewarding experience for me.

And to see everyone enjoying the birthday cake together, … it was priceless.

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To Daddy and Dear Hubby,
We all love you!

We all know how important and encouraging it is to utter positive words towards others.

Especially towards little ones.

Now the question is, HOW have we been uttering our ‘words of encouragement’?

Like for example, when a two-year-old drinks without spilling, or a three-year-old brushes his own teeth, or when a five-year-old tidies up her toys after play … what do we say to them?

Do we tend to say,

“Good Job, Alex!”

“Well done, Sarah!”

“That’s great, Jack!”

“SO good of you! Thanks!”

…

I don’t know about you, but I do have a tendency to respond in such ways.

Immediate, positive and brief response.

Recently though I thought about my parenting approaches to such situations, and I felt a slight change is needed. For the better.

Here’s a thought.

When we say the above phrases to little ones (ie. without further explanations from time to time), we tend to focus on just ‘the child’ being ‘good’, but NOT on the positive IMPACT that results from the child’s action.

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Let me explain using two examples:

Example 1: Anya helped and carried our ‘to-be-washed clothes’ to the laundry.

Instead of just saying, ‘Good job, Anya!’, she would better understand WHY what she just did was good IF I briefly explained the impact of what she has just done, ie. ‘Thanks for helping, Anya. Now the bathroom looks tidier and cleaner after you took the dirty laundry out’

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Example 2: Vai proactively shared some of his cookies with his school friends.

Instead of just saying, ‘That’s good, Vai!’, it’d be a better approach if I added an extra sentence to let him know how others are affected by his action, like, ‘Oh, that’s nice of you to share, Vai! Look, your friend looked so happy when you offered and shared your biscuits with him!’

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With the second approach, the focus is LESS on the child (being just good, … or bad), but MORE on the IMPACT that results from the child’s action.

Realistically, this approach may not always be applicable EVERY TIME, and we may still say things like, ‘Oh, that’s nice!’ or ‘It’s great that you’ve tried. Keep it up!’.

Which if you ask me, is totally fine, of course.

In the end, I think what’s most important is our realisation that WHAT we say to our little ones matter.

And, HOW we say them matter too.

When we engage them in a little conversation about what makes a family function smoothly, or how other people are affected by what we have done (or failed to do), these little ones gradually learn to realise how their actions, each and every single one, always have an impact on others.

And I truly believe that when we (consistently and frequently) verbally encourage our children in this way, it will gradually help them grow towards becoming more thoughtful people.

Today is the LAST day of the kids’ one week school holiday.

And I thought we really should go out and about together, while we still could.

We planned to go to a park, BUT, as we left home … it drizzled. A little bit.

[It’s been raining every single day here in Singapore recently]

And so I asked the kids, ‘Mmmmm … do you want to go for … a SWIM, instead?’

They both IMMEDIATELY went, ‘YES! YAY! YAAAYYYYY!’

Haha.

So we rushed back home and prepared ourselves for some water fun.

And here are some of today’s shots.

[Vai’ and his ‘gravity defying’ act]

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Photography is SO much more fun when you have kids AND water together, I reckon.

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Extra notes:

If you’re thinking of taking photos of kids while having water fun, here’re some ideas.

Try getting them to :
> make big splashes
> fill a container (eg. a plastic glass) with water, and ‘throw’ the water upwards
> jump into the water from the side of the pool
> do a big jump together while they’re already in the water (like what Anya and Vai did)

Really. It’s fun to experiment with such ‘action’ shots!

Have fun!

Ever since I had my Canon PowerShot S90, Anya has sort of ‘inherited’ my Canon Ixus 850 IS.

She’d ask me about its features, experiment on the timer and macro settings, and just earlier today, she checked out its ‘menu’ and figured out how to view her shots as a ‘slideshow’.

And this was what I caught her doing earlier this morning.

Pressing the shutter ‘half-way’ first, and taking a shot of herself and Vai the ‘extended arm self portrait’ way! Hehe.

And I just could not NOT take a shot of this moment.

It’s nice to see her learning and picking up photography in her own fun way.

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Anyway, here’re some old blog posts on these two kids and THEIR photography moments:

> Anya behind the lens at 3 years and 4 months old

> Anya experimenting on ‘light trails’ at 3 years and 10 months old

> Vai and his ‘photography works’ at 2 years and one month old

>  Vai and his first ‘wedding photography’ at 2 years and four months old

Ah, aren’t we all grateful for today’s digital photography?

*smile*