I have a SAHM neighbour who lives directly opposite my unit on the same level. She also has 2 kids who are born in the same year as Ying Ying and Pum Pum*. We started chatting frequently this year because her son's drop-off time in the afternoon happened to be almost the same as Ying Ying's. Previously, it was just exchanging polite smiles and hi-bye. Now I see her almost 5x a week and we can have about 5-10mins of chatting before the school buses arrive. There are a few topics to talk about since our kids were of the same age and I found myself enjoying the chat (especially since there is no other adult to communicate with at home, apart from hubby).
Today, I was surprised to learn that her son has started bathing and drying himself this year. We so happened to talk about this because she was lamenting about having to cope with the washing-up of 2 kids before bedtime all by herself because her hubby is currently stationed overseas for work.
Needless to say, I was most impressed:
1) This supermom is able to handle 2 kids all by herself for THREE weeks without any domestic helper or PT help. OK, even though she goes to her mother's place for dinner every night... I mean, I am not sure I can even do single parenting even for ONE day.
2) Her son's ability to bathe and dry himself. Though I have read about older children at childcare being asked to bathe themselves, I have not come across children who really do that - erm, maybe I do not know or ask enough children in the first place? Who knows, maybe ALL her classmates bathe themselves at home! Up till now, we still have to bathe Ying Ying since she showed no interest in doing it by herself. All she did during bathtime was to stand or squat like a statue. Whenever we tried to encourage her to wash herself, she only made some weak attempts which seemed to me more like touching instead of washing herself. We were convinced she was not 'ready' to self-bathe yet.
BUT after hearing about her son's recent achievement, I decided it's time for Ying Ying learn to bathe herself too. So when we reached home, I announced she has to bathe herself from now onwards. Her reaction was a mixture of surprise and excitement, at the thought of this newly given 'freedom'. To faciliate this transition, I adjusted the showerhead height for her, stood outside the shower cubicle, gave explicit instructions (like how much shampoo/soap to press out) and even demo on how she should be washing herself properly. To my amazement, she was able to self-bathe given clear instructions! (Note to self: must buy more medium-sized towels cos the adult-sized towels are too big for her to handle.) Though she still needs supervision, I am hopeful she will be able to bathe on her own very soon! Yeah!!
This reminds me of an incident last year - I was bathing the girls at an open shower washroom at the Sentosa beach when I noticed this girl nearby, about 12-13 years old. She was sulking because there was 'no one' to bathe her - her mum and domestic helper were busy bathing her younger siblings. So she stormed out of the toilet. Shortly after, she returned and the domestic helper who had finished bathing one of the younger kid by then, started to help her unhook her bra and bathe her. I couldn't believe my eyes that a girl of her age, still needed assistance in bathing. I told hubby about it once we were outside and I swore our girls should never be allowed to turn out like that.
I think, as parents, sometimes we have to be somewhat 'heartless' in order to push our kids towards independence.
Then again, maybe I am being too judgemental. Sometimes things are easier said than done. We will never know the difficulties of the real situation unless we are really in their shoes.
For one, I am still not 'heartless' enough to leave the girls to feed themselves completely at mealtimes. Even now, I still regularly help Ying Ying to spoon her food and shove the bowl in her face. If not, she would tend to eat very little and slowly or being extra picky about what she spoon. (My FIL is worse - he spoonfeeds her in front of the TV!)
Mealtime battles aside, we manage to succeed in training Ying Ying in other areas of life-skills, like teeth brushing and dressing skills last year.
These days, we no longer stand by and check on her teeth brushing because we are confident she is able to do a fairly good job on her own. (Though the dentist advised parents must still supervise till P1, I guess we were too lazy erm busy... :p) Last week, I started setting up a timer on my iphone for her because I felt she was brushing way too quickly - the recommended brushing duration was 2mins. The timer strategy worked well because she kept on brushing till the creepy sci-fi music (her choice) came on. Heh Heh.
Since last year, I refrain from helping to dress her up too. I just leave her set of clothes on the bed and tell her to dress up. So basically she has 2 choices - dress up by herself or go naked. (Unfortunately, this method doesn't work on Pum Pum because she will choose to go naked!!!!) Sometimes if I notice she is taking her own sweet time, I would do a 10s countdown to challenge her to dress faster. It works because this girl simply loves to be challenged. @_@
Ahhh.... I can't wait for Pum Pum to turn independent too! Freedom for mama too!
* Pum Pum is meimei's current nickname. Sometime last year, she started saying her name was Pum Pum when we asked for her name. She also said jiejie was "Kam Kam". But "Kam Kam" didn't stick on cos Ying Ying refused to be called that. :p
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