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My son is an ardent fan of trains and buses. Due to his bicultural background, his love for them is non-discriminatory. He loves shinkansen 🚅 just as much as Singapore Bus Services buses.
Ironically, even though he lives in Singapore, it has been difficult for us to find Singapore-themed public transport vehicles, maybe because the local toys industry isn’t as flourishing as its Japanese counterpart.
So, imagine his unbridled joy when we visited a shopping centre for the first time and came across this:
My son was immediately transfixed by the attractive range of buses and trains available. He took the following photos himself with my phone:
He was particularly taken in by the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train because it could rattle off the names of various MRT stations he’s familiar with.
He would have bought it then and there, if not for a well-placed snag his mom and I incorporated into his routine.
“One toy every month,” I simply said, “You can only buy this in July.”
Imagine my pride when he didn’t kick a fuss and just accepted my words as gospel. Calmly, he asked me for my phone to take the above pictures so that he could show my wife.
I’m glad that he is making strides in regard to delayed gratification.
48 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby 15h
Sounds like you guys are doing a good job. I have also found that my kids are more likely to complain or whine in situations where the expectations are unclear. If you as a parent do the hard work of laying clear boundaries (and not bending them too much) your kids are more likely to abide by them -- works better than disciplining the whining.
Also: the train is awesome. I understand your son's interest in it. My youngest would think it was the coolest thing in the world (at least for a few weeks).
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I love how you said not bend them too much because it’s just hard to enforce hard and fast rules, haha
Do both your boys (apologies if I have gotten the wrong impression) like the same things?
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24 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby 12h
I have one girl, two boys -- and they are all surprisingly different.
The boys do both like building toys the most, but my older son has recently gone down a novel-reading rabbit hole and the younger one isn't quite at that level yet. They share a room though and we homeschool, so they are quite big influences on each other.
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Ah now I see!
And they are 6, 8 and 10. I am piecing the bits of information I have gathered from your various comments.
In case your elder boy is into Dog Man, I just wanna say that Dav Pilkey has ADHD and dyslexia (and drive traffic to my blog haha)
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I hadn't taken the time to look at your blog before. I have a soft spot for blogspot. First place I did any real internet writing. Thanks for the link!
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reminds me a bit of when I was a kid and I would get dragged to Tesco with mum to do the food shopping.
The highlight was always the wwf wrestling figure section. We didn't have much spare money back then and I certainly couldn't get a figure each time, but every now and then i would get one and it was great!
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Glad to rekindle your core grocery memory from childhood. You should tell your mum too. 😆
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oh she knows, she used to hate it becuase she knew i would be going on and on about it every shop lol
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He is growing loyalty to the most important skill in life: patience. Keep up the great job!
Just as a heads-up cause parents around me tend to ignore this: make sure he is not frustrated over having to be patient and picking bad habits over this (binge eating, etc.).
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Well cautioned.
I think I need to prevent them from getting addicted to screen time
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Good catch! That's a big issue for kids these days - we are not talking about this enought - believe me. To those willing to improve anything I proposed to ask kids do chores time over a bad habit. You can even bargain with them over this - and they will also learn to value their time and also how to better negotiate in the future if you take your time and explain them what they could have said better to win the negotiation. Examples: 10 minutes of room cleaning for 10 minutes of screen time. 20 minutes of reading for 20 minutes of TV. 10 minutes of outdoor activities for 10 minutes of gaming on the phone/laptop, etc. And so on. Adapt everything to what you want to correct/improve at them.
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That’s a great idea.
I don’t believe in paying kids money to do household chores since they should pull in their fair share as members of the family. But I can live with giving them more screen time if they get more household chores done. Will try it out!
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48 sats \ 1 reply \ @398ja 13h
How nice! Moments like those make us proud. These are the kind of reassurances that we as parents seek, which is to know that we've accomplish our job, and they'll be fine when they become independent. 🫂
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You took the words right out of my mouth
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