Happiness, is a choice

10am, November 02, 2014, Sunday, Lift Lobby

While walking togther to Daddy's car, Renzo suddenly started whining and tearing for no reason, it could be because we were nagging him to speed up as his piano lesson starts at 1030am, and he finally got himself seated inside the car, just never stop sobbing..

Mummy: "Renzo, what's bothering you??!"
Renzo: "I don't know, I am not sure.."
Mummy: "Then can you please just stop whining??!"
Renzo: "I am trying..."
Mummy: "Renzo, in life, a lot of times we do not have a choice, I guess you might not be willing to go for your lesson but you know you just have to go for it. So why not go happily and enjoy, since you don't have a choice anyway?!"
Renzo: "Yes mummy..."
Mummy: "So have you stopped crying?"
Renzo: "Yes..."
Mummy: "Are you feeling better?"
Renzo: "Yes Mummy!"

Instead of dwelling on why he was not happy, we carried on with other topics like what we are going to do after his piano lesson. He's back to the normal cheerful boy again..

And that's it, that's the conversation with my 5 years old on a topic we discuss often recently - Happiness, is a choice! Nothing, and nobody will make you happy until you choose to be happy!

Many people, both adults and children, have difficulties dealing with emotions. So my focus this year, is not to send our 5 years old Renzo for endless enrichment classes in the name of getting him ready for primary school in another year, but to get him mentally prepared for the primary school life as an independent individual, by teaching him the virtue of disciplining himself well while appreciating his surroundings and seeing good things in others. To do that, he needs to learn to control his own emotions, which enables him to cooperate with others, to cope with frustration, and to resolve conflicts.

Children learn a lot from others and are very quick to pickup and mimic behaviors, either good or bad, that they have seen exhibited by others. So my style of emotional coaching, is always to be a good role model and practice what you preach. Besides that, I've discovered a very effective way that helps Renzo - write to him!!

So a couple of weeks ago, Daddy and I worked together with Renzo to make a mailbox for Renzo to get letters from us. The initial idea was just to encourage him to read more, and write more. We've been writing to him and we've even received 2 letters from him. Those were not love letters filled with heart shapes, those were true words of encouragement for his efforts to behave well.

Gradually, I realized when I need to play my role as Renzo's emotional coach, writing to him seems to be extremely effective. I do feel that while Renzo is reading the letters word by word, those values we want to teach him get instilled and he's trying to improve day by day in order to do us proud. Of course kid being kid, he soon forgets but taking out those letters and re-read them easily reminds him about what are the good behaviors we expect to see from him. And recently he handled 2 "bully cases" extremely well by controlling his own emotions. 

Once at the pool, he told the boy "if you keep splashing water on my face, your daddy will bring you to thinking corner!" although he could choose to yell and cry or even fight back. When the boy finally got punished by his dad, Renzo was proud to share with me that the method i taught him ~ focus on your own good behavior and not to be affected by others, is actually working!! Another time, he pulled the boy who snatched his toy car on a racing track at a toy shop, to the notice board and told him, "Can't you read? It says to bring your own car or buy one here in order to play the car on the track?! That's my car, if you want to play, ask your mummy to buy one for you!". Although eventually I needed to step in and grab that car back because the boy simply ignored my "discipline master" boy's precious advice... 

Indeed Renzo has been dealing with his Terrible-Twos-little-brother on a daily basis, and most of the time he will just give in by saying, "Rynus didi is still a baby", "it's alright", "I am not going to be bothered about him!" when being bullied by Rynus. He was just bitten by Rynus a few days back, that got him really upset and went totally out of control for a few minutes, with crying and screaming and venting his angers at his didi, but eventually he calmed down and showed me two deep bite marks on his arm, I had to absolutely agree that he had all reasons to be mad at Rynus. 

I definitely believe he's on the right track to learn self control, as parents we still have a lot to do but it's really rewarding to see our little one trying to handle upsetting situation better and better in everyday interactions!