I was lurking around some mummies forum in Singapore and I chanced upon this thread, with someone initiating a picnic outing.
Picnic sounds interesting
I love meeting other Stay At Home Mum
Mal can play and I can gossip
What better way to spend the day !
So I went in to find out more …
To my surprise, what started off as a brainstorming session for picnic ideas was soon transformed into a ‘what does your kid do in a typical week’ session.
Very soon, this spiraled into a full blown discussion on enrichment programs for children.
What age did your child start ?
Where did you send your child to ?
Which is better ?
Is this enough ?
…
I found out that for a typical 5 year old girl in Singapore, this is her schedule for a week
- KI – daily
- Kumon – 3 times a week
- Arts – once a week
- Mandarin Speech & Drama – once a week
- Chinese Dance – once a week
- Story time at library – once a week
- Swimming – once a week
Very soon, the person who started the thread on picnic was forgotten
I guess a child has better things to do than to be running around wild in the sweltering heat of sunny Singapore.
So I am curious
How many enrichment programs does your child (age 1-6) attends each week ?
Are you curious too ?
(Note : I set up a nuffnang poll at my sidebar for this and there is no way for me to skip the 3 default questions set up by them. So do bear with them! )
Ok, you know me pretty well I think. I’m not an academic-focused purpose, so enrichment programs for my 2 boys (3 & 5) which falls perfectly into the age group you are interested in, is = ZERO!
many parents like my 2nd SIL is very concerned about this aspect. so her only child had abacus, swimming, phonics, hanyu pinyin… blah blah blah when she was only 4!!!!
well, she is top 5 in her Primary 2 class now, and she credit it to all of those enrichment classes…
Oh Well…
so for your poll, I didn’t participate, cos for my boys, its zero, for my niece, ooooohhh… I lost count! *laugh*
Rachel : hey Angeline, that sounds like a huge difference! I salute to u for not succumbing to peer pressure, in this case, parental pressure!
I let Xuan go for piano lesson once a week on Sunday… is that an enrichment? So that’s one enrichment for my dd
Rachel : hey tin, maybe we should define it as…so long as kids enjoy…then is not call enrichment. But I think learning piano can be stressful, I remember I used to get all stress up every Sunday because I did not practise my piece enough! and the teacher is FIERCE! But the irony is, I really enjoy music…I think sometimes the way they teach does affect our interest.
hahaha..i think whoever that person is must be a typical kaisu singaporean!!
My girl only attend 2 days of enrichment (Chinese & Maths/english) + music class 45mins. O..of course + their CCA now.
Rachel : Hey blessed mum, I think u r the most qualified to tell us about this ‘band’ thing in Primary 2. Is it true ?
I am one of those moms that answered 0 to your poll. I think kids should be given more time for play and less work in their childhood. Even If K wants to attend enrichment once he gets older, it has to be something that he chooses himself. My job is to present him with the options.
Rachel : hey Rachel thanks for your input. Agree that our job is really to expose them to as many things as possible. I don’t mind swimming or even dancing if he is interested but I can’t imagine him telling me that he will enjoy sitting down an hour practising his ABC or working on Maths even though he does have an interest in numbers.
… scary isn’t it how a little child’s life is SO filled with activities? And we’re talking about 5 year old kids here.
Anya’s turning 5yo next month. She’s in Kindy now.
She attends Chinese Enrichment after school, 1 hour, once a week. this is part of the school’s programme, and so if there’s no school, there’s no chinese enrichment too.
And she has ballet, 45mins, once a week …
The other day I was chatting with a few moms, and one mom (who has one kid in Primary 2, and a 5yo) told me how her kids are so full of activities every week they don’t have time to ‘play’, and it’s because ‘they NEED to’ attend those classes and enrichments in order to ‘do well’ in school.
They have different ‘bands’ (not too sure about this, I think it starts from Primary 2?) and so if your kid doesn’t do well in Primary 1, she’ll go to the ‘less-intelligent’ band in Primary 2 …
(not to forget, the children also are sent to attend classes like Violin, swimming, gymnastics, piano etc too)
PS: My 2yo 5mth son attends Zero
Is Anya doing full day kindy ?
Rachel : Hey leonny, I am surprised to hear about the bands thing. It reminds me of the streaming system we used to have. It really drives me crazy just looking at the schedule lined up for these kids. Btw Malcolm is 2 mths younger than Anya. He is April baby
confession. ME guilty.
music to instill discipline n tune her lalaness.
dance because she absolutely LOVES to dance.
art because gorgor is there, so it was more of a convenience and a good way to get rid of both for an hr plus of peace and sanity.
but none are academic enrichment, so do they count?
Rachel : hahah Kole, I was about to say, non of them academic ! so U R SAFE ! just kidding, I think so long as Rae enjoys it, should be ok..
HI Rachel
You will be surprised!! I have friends who are indeed diligently signing up and sending their children to all kinds of programs.Weekdays and weekends are packed with classes from academic programs to sports to music and drama. They drill the children to do worksheets (which they call activity books) from a young age and claim that the kids love to spend hours on these worksheets and will cry for more. I really don’t know….My GP told me he feels that parents this era are spending too much too soon and that they may struggle or even not be able to sustain their children’s later education which is truly the more important one. I can’t agree with him more.
Rachel : Hi Karen, thanks for sharing. Yes I am surprised to hear that the child will cry for MORE! I think we will never know, maybe the parents themselves don’t even know too. But I do know that my boy will surely CRY if I ask him to sit and do worksheets!
Hi Rachel,
Ya it’s shocking (and sad) to see how these kids are doing so much so soon. Makes me wonder if they do have time to just be a ‘child’ living out a normal ‘childhood’.
Anyway, Anya is a March04 baby … so then she’s just a month older than Mal ya?
And oh, hers is a 3-hour kindy btw.
Rachel : It does make me feel sad too. Then I try to reason to myself that all parents do want the best for their children even though the approach may be very different.. There may be some who will frown at my parenting style. Hmmm…
love this post of yours that I can’t help but to comment and commend your parenting style… kids should be allowed to be kids and given the time to explore, play and discover…that’s how they are motivated to learn more cos it’s innate… but when being hothouse and pushed into such a scheduled routine, they’ll soon burnout and lose interest in learning… that is in fact very sad and when that happens the damage might have been severely made to reverse… but kudos to your exposing Mal to so much experiences that we can’t have here in S’pore… I wish my kids have that kind of opportunities too *wink*
Rachel : hey pauline, thanks for sharing your thoughts. u r doing great with your 2 kiddos. Always a joy to read about all the activities u’ve done with them.
Hi Aifang
I have, on several occasions, brought up the idea of sending Amelia (3 this year) for weekend enrichment classes, to my hubby. Guess it’s pressure, looking at friends around us doing that and commenting how it helped their kids developed. My hubby resisted, and i thank him for that. Instead, he preferred that we expose the girls (not forgetting Amberly-18mths) to different experiences and let them learn from there. So for now, Amelia is only attending pre-nursery for 3 hours on weekdays and happily going “gai gai” on weekends with daddy, mummy and meimei.
Rachel : Hey ailing, thanks for sharing! I understand the pressure part, it can be quite scary. Sometimes we just need a little reassurance. I bet your girls look forward to all those gaigai time