I notice that ever since I open this new English blog, nobody dares to give feedback/comment. Perhaps, this psychology blog sounds too serious as I mostly either dumped in the psychology research or my psychology studies' writing. :) I guess there might be someone that I do not know, using Google to search certain psychology key terms and got into my website. If so, you are welcome too, but I wonder if you would give citation to my blog :).
Enough craps. Tomorrow is mother's day. If possible, I am trying my best not to duplicate information in my Chinese and this English blog. Let me copy my favorite columnist's story in Today newspaper,. I got a shock when I read it on MRT. Voice- Budget Tai Tai - Tabitha Wang, page 34, 25 Apr, 2008.
"There was a five year-old boy throwing a tantrum right in the middle of a supermarket aisle. Nothing unusual, you'd say. But what made passersby do a double take was the fact that the boy was taking it out on his father by punching him repeatedly in the crotch. It gets even stranger. The father was wincing in pain but instead telling the boy off, he merely tried to block the blows.The mother stood to one side, not saying anything. When she realised that people were giving her son strange looks, she remonstrated gently with him:" Boy, don't hit your papa in his you-know-what.""B***s," her son and heir said. I don't know whether he was trying to be anatomically-correct or plain rude. Personally, I'd plump for the latter, as the boy totally ignored his mother and continued pummeling his father. It's probably an extreme case but not an isolated one. I have seen so many Singaporean kids behaving badly in public that I have lost count."
I fully agreed with Tabitha Wang. I cannot imagine such a young kid would be so horrible, and what's more surprising, is the attitude of parents. Let me share my personal experience. In the shopping mall's toy section of Orchard, I saw one 4 year-old boy kept crying and begging his dad to buy a set of expensive toys, cost more than hundred bucks. Noticing that I was observing the scene, his dad told me that his son has more than enough toys at home. " You know la, what to do? Buy loh, hard to push him away." The father shrugged and grabbed the toy. His son stopped crying instantly. This little boy knew that this trick works well, and he is likely to use it again next round.
Tabitha Wang blames the parents. The deadly combination of declining birth rate and the fact that Singaporeans are having babies later is giving rise to a multitude of a little princess and emperors. Children are so precious that no one dares to interfere with these little treasures. The result? We 're nurturing a generation of spoilt brats.
Yeah, this is the so-called new generation of the kids. Well, we can notice the drastic change of the teenagers who were born after 1990s, compared to the older generation as 1980s or earlier. Materialistic, short-sighted, self-centered..... Each newer generation seems getting worsen, but not getting better. My dad, likes to point out that our Chinese society is no longer holding Confucianism values. Although I don't like Confucians ideas as he categorize woman as lower status, it is undeniable that some of the traditional values are good to preserved.
It is dangerous to let the kids to go all the way as they demand. They would think that they are like the sun in the central position, others have to follow and treat them nicely. As a result, they developed a childish attitude, Ego centrism. This is supposedly belongs to Jean Piaget's theory regarding cognitive development of 2-6 years old. They are unable to think from others' perspective. This attitude will create a big problem when they grow up, facing interpersonal issues in work, family or relationship. Learning to tolerate and being understanding are probably not found in their life dictionary.
Reducing quantity doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice the quality. As for me, I believe that parents are not just to produce babies without proper guidance. Parents have to take care of their children physically and mentally. At least, in future they won't bring problem to others.
"Bosses of the future might just need groin guards", this is the last sentence of the article that I quoted. It simply sounds too sad. As long as the parents do not wake up, it is indeed hard for their kids to be well-behaved by nature. I have had read enough psychology research papers discussing the parenting role and family influence on the children's personality, behaviours....and all these often correlates with a long list of headaches. It is much harder to fix the problems later on. Rome was not built in a day.
Please...Be responsible to raise your own kids!
7 years ago
