My Child's Education

IT SEEMS quite early to think about this but I have been giving thoughts about what I want my children to grow up to be like.

Since keeping these thoughts inside my head will only slow down my processor speed, I shall relieve myself of them here.

Like most traditional man, I would prefer to have a son, but I guess it doesn't really matter if it's a girl or a boy in this era.

I'll get married when I am successful, so, that would mean that I'll be financially independent. I'll have time and money to do anything I want without having to work regularly.

With so much time and money to spare, the only thing natural to do after getting married would be to reproduce.

Say, both my wife and I are perfectly normal in the sense that we are both fertile, and she is healthy to give birth and manages to give birth to a healthy baby. And we have a child, what next?

I suppose the up bringing of the child has to be agreed upon between myself and my wife before we even plan to make one.

But these are some of the things that I wish could happen to my child.

First off, I'll use myself as a role model to teach my child. The ways of how to be a winner.

Some of the sayings that I currently remember are:

Courage is not one without fear, but the ability to overcome fear.

There is no right or wrong in making a decision, only the willlingness to accept the consequences.

Be responsible for your own actions and never blaming others.

Always give yourself the chance to make a choice, and stick with the choice until you have bear the consequences.

Make mistakes, but learn from them; and always admit if it is your fault.

Etc...

List goes on but I suppose these are lessons that can only be taught by leading through examples.

That's for character building. Next for life skills.

Everyone has their own strength and weaknesses. Whether one's strength can be nurtured, it is still under debate. But no matter what the case is, I believe in letting my children make choices for themselves. I want to instill in them the responsibility of making choices and sticking with it.

I don't think that a child's fickle-mindedness is an issue here, the important thing I want to enforce in them is that, if they chose to do something, finish it. It is one important factor that I consider myself lacking. Thus, I want to make sure my children doesn't have the flaw of giving up half way through a task.

What interests a person is subjective, so the life skills that my child would be interested to learn would be up to them. Giving them the opportunity to try out each and every skill they can ever imagine is the best thing I can provide for them.

All they need to do is to choose those that really interests them and I'll make sure they see it through to completion.

Academic education

An article that I read in the newspaper today, which was the original source of my inspiration for this post, coincided with my resentment of sending my children to government schools.

When I look back, the only useful education I received stopped at primary 6. The rest was just crap stuff that aims to program you into hard working duplicating machines.

Reading and writing are definitely important. But the application of these skills are not really amplified in the system. I'm sure there are private schools out there which studied the best methods of teaching a child how to read and write and use them.

I want my child to be able to hold himself or herself infront of a crowd. Be confident and have a healthy level of self-esteem. To me, it is just a fear that one has overcome some point in life, so why not do it young?

Socialising skills seems to be naturally imbued in some of us, but there are cases of anti-socials in every hierarchy of society I advance into. Making friends wasn't really a problem for me, but I wouldn't say that I am the best person to teach my child about it.

For this area, I think the best solution is to allow my child to experience it personally and to develope his/her own brand of friend making skills. All I can do is to provide guidance from books written by Dale Carnegie.

Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient

Both of them are covered in the academic and socialising education that I can provide for my child. It is my hope to nurture a child that scores high for both areas. Under generous praising and encouragement, I believe it wouldn't be a difficult goal to accomplish.

Financial Intelligence

It is my personal belief that the subject of money has no age limits. My first encounter with money was at 7, when I received my first pocket money for school.

My mother gave me a piggy bank, its a greenish-blue tin box with hello kitty pictures on it(wtf?), I later won a teddy bear piggy bank which I still have it now. I was encouraged not to spend all my money and put all the left over into the box.

But there's a place of evil in my school called the bookshop.

On display are all the colourful little playthings that are so tempting to splurge your money on.

I was a victim to those baits at times. My understanding of money at that time was that, it was a very powerful thing that can make me "happy".

I'm sure it still is for many people. But I don't see money that way now.

Yes it is neccessary to satisfy my needs and desires sometimes with money. And yes, I'm currently working for it (some people my age are still receiving it, you know who you are...), but I've learnt about the much greater power that money possess.

Money can grow if I put it at the right place.

The very knowledge that money can be grown, instead of having to slog for it motivated me to think twice whenever I'm about to satisfy my desires.

Instead of giving my money to others so that they can enjoy it, why not put it to grow so that I have more of it to enjoy later.

It is not being stingy or money faced.

It is being mindful of where you spend your money. It is the awareness that your money can do even greater things than to grant you your temporary pleasures. It can give you eternal pleasure.

And that, Financial Education is the most important lesson I wish to impart onto my children.

It is something that is lacking in schools, probably existent but inadequent. Unless one of my goals for my book company is accomplished, I'll home school my children on this subject.

That's what I have in mind for my children. I don't believe in punishments. I'm more of a reward and encouragement person. Instead of telling you what not to do, I'll rather tell you what you can do.

My relationship with my own father wasn't too close. That is probably due to his personality. But I still respect him for some of the things he did for me. He wasn't a punisher and the lessons that he teaches which makes sense are those that he actually do.

Well, I have a post about the type of girl I'm looking for, I have a post about the child I wish to raise, I guess the next posts I might touch on would be how I want to carry out my wedding and how I want to die. Haha.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

If you plan too much, your plan will fail.

If you don't plan, you will fail.

A set back is not a failure.

You fail only when you give up.