Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Mumblings - Parent Teacher Meeting (PTM)

At our PTM today, Athena was the only child there. But I didn't tell her why I brought her along. I would have loved to leave her at home with helper and mei-mei, but my helper can't cope with 2 kids all by herself. So, the only best thing is to bring the one who is older and more independent. Brought along her colouring book to keep her occupied.


THINGS THAT WE CAN DO
1) Every child is different, find your method in coaching your child
2) The logical thing to do is never to admit to your child that you don't know anything; somehow the child will lose the respect for you. (Deep in my heart, I'm
wondering how I should try to learn the violin to show her that I can also play, so that I can revise it with her)

3) Never to force your child to play, music should be enjoyed. * shall emphasise this later in my case *
4) When coaching child, sit down with him/her. Never leave them alone, they'll be making the mistakes and no one is correcting them.
5) Majority of the parents never learn music themselves, so they have to learn some things in class as well - don't depend too much on your child when he/she could be asking for your coaching.

Peggy briefly told the parents what she observed of each child. And told us ways to coach the child. I'm shock that most parents do not spend time to coach their children (yet their children are good and very receptive to the lessons) only a small number are working mothers; the rests of us are SAHM who can afford to find time to coach our children. Yet again, I'm shock that mosts of them aren't doing much as what I do. Well, probably because my second child is still small so I can afford the time to channel most attention to Athena at the moment. Yah... wait till Aricia is older, I might start closing one eye to everything.
When she spoke of Athena, she said she knew I expected the best from her (that's because I told her after she kept praising Athena at the end of her class). My method? I bring out the cane.. and when I shared with the other parents that's my method, someone said "but Peggy said never to punish child..." I agree with Peggy but unfortunately my child falls in this category where she needs 'ying' not 'nuan' - me to be tough with her. So cane is the best thing and she received her ultimum from me in Peggy's Little Notes class, so now Athena knows I mean business when she don't play properly.I know it's a bad thing and fortunately she hasn't lost interest in music. Of course before you start accusing me for being a barbaric mother who goes insane and abuse her children. No.. I'm not. I do reward my girl too. As it is, after every music revision I give her stickers in her music book. And on her wall, we have a small chart for her music lesson on Wednesday and sometimes I do give it to her on our revision days. The chart will have little boxes where she'll stick her stickers and we work towards something that she wants. Eg. Crayola markers; books; more stickers; fries and what we're working towards now? - her easel. I should be able to buy it for her the following week.

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