Renzo is going to Pre-Nursery 2 next year

It's been almost 9 months since Renzo started going to Childcare on April 01, 2011. It was a fruitful 9 months for this little boy although we do not know much about his life in school, since he is not able to tell us much about what's going on daily at this moment. But we definitely noticed some changes in him, such as being able to feed himself, wear his clothes and shoes, sing a lot more songs in both Chinese and English and talk in full sentences, etc.

A few weeks ago, we had a "meet parents session" with his Teacher Helen from his Pre-Nursery 1 class. It's about 20 minutes talk and at the end of the session, we were given a CD which contains some highlights of Renzo's school life in powerpoint format. Teacher Helen is a super friendly, caring and sweet lady and we could easily tell how much passion and love she has towards the kids in the center, and we are truly grateful to have her as Renzo's first teacher. She gave lots of positive feedback about Renzo, telling us that our little boy is always willing to follow instructions, never bullies other classmates, has a very pleasant personality, loves singing and dancing, sleeps well and eats well, and never throws tantrums in school at all. She also commented that we parents seem to have taught Renzo a lot at home, as he knows his alphabet and numbers well, could recognize a lot of items like shapes and colors while reading his books, and being one of the most talkative kids who's able to converse in full sentence, in both Chinese and English. Well we have to definitely thank Teacher Helen as being Renzo's Chinese teacher, she had definitely motivated and encouraged Renzo to speak more often in Chinese.

Both Win and I were super proud when Teacher Helen mentioned that Renzo is very focused and patient when he is doing something. If he is reading a book, he can really sit down there and read page by page for a long time and not be distracted by other kids who are playing around. If he is playing a puzzle or block game, he always makes sure he completes the last piece of his puzzle or build up something with the blocks, so he could show the end result to the teachers happily.

The only "concern" she has to share with us is that, Renzo is still not feeling comfortable with large group of people. And she said it could be due to the fact that Renzo is the only child, and in the past he was not exposed to many strangers while he was cared by our maid alone.

Time really flies and after Christmas, Renzo will be promoted to the next level - Pre-Nursery 2 class and the good thing is, he will still be able to see his Teacher Helen during breakfast or morning assembly session. We hope maybe some of these lovely kids from Renzo's Pre-Nursery 1 class, could become his life time good friend in the future!!

Our different parenting style..

For our friends who know us well, most of you must think that Mummy Chan is the strict one who disciplines Renzo with frequent spanks and time-outs, whereas Daddy Chan must be the one who either handles him with loads of love and patience (just like how he treats Mummy Chan), or simply does not care too much.. Well, you are totally wrong then.

This is the conversation happened before Renzo went to bed last night:

Renzo: "Daddy, I want train train!!"
Daddy Chan: "No Renzo, it's bedtime, you need to sleep!"
Renzo: "Train Train, Renzo want to play train!!"
Daddy Chan: "No Renzo, it's too late, cry also no use, no train for Renzo!!"

Renzo: "Mummy!!!"
Mummy Chan: "Yes Renzo baby, don't cry, tell mummy what do you want?"
Renzo: "I want train train!"
Mummy Chan: "Okay no problem mummy get for you~"

Daddy Chan: Side Note: I have to admit, there was a bit of miscommunication because when Renzo was talking to Win, I was watching my cantonese show with my earpieces on, if I knew that Win has already rejected Renzo's request, I should have just let him handle our boy with zero interference, as we both agreed that consistency is important when comes to disciplining Renzo. But you get the idea about how Renzo's request will be attended if he were to come to me directly at first.

Win believes that spanking is absolutely okay as long as it is used sparingly and not abusively. And I believe that each child develops at their own level and each stage of development has its appropriate behaviors. So to Daddy Chan, throwing tantrums at "terrible two" stage is normal; but to me it is normal AND acceptable. And to Daddy Chan, if Renzo misbehaves, there needs to be some reinforcement in place to let him understand what he can and cannot do; but to me, I rather maximize his opportunities to play and explore in his own way, but minimize his chances to misbehave and get into trouble, so we don't even need to deal with the consequence. For example when Renzo wants to snatch Daddy's laptop, Win will tell him it's not the right thing to do as it is not a toy for him to play with, but usually I will rather that we don't even use it in front of Renzo if we know certain things like a movie or game on the laptop might catches Renzo's attention. So can you see the difference now?

We've exchanged ideas with other parents but it's never easy to find the most effective parenting style. And now we both are patiently waiting for Renzo to grow up a little, at least wait till he turns 3 years old.
Daddy Chan thinks that's an appropriate age to enforce some punishment for Renzo to learn self-control, and the difference between right from wrong.
Mummy Chan thinks that's an appropriate age for Renzo to understand the connection between actions and consequences and he might pick up good behaviours automatically.
Haha not bad, at least we do share some thoughts in common finally..