TODAYonline

The modern parent trap

Are children over-indulged, over-scheduled and yet under-parented?

crispina robert

I RECEIVED a call from my younger son's kindergarten teacher recently. She started by saying how social and creative he was and what a natural leader he was.

Then, she went to the real objective of the call. She was concerned that he was still not able to read and recognise simple words and asked if I could step up the coaching at home so he could keep pace in school.

When I hung up, I felt like a terrible mother. Was my plan to enrich my children in a more natural way backfiring? A Singaporean mother worth her salt would have signed up her child for enrichment classes so that these academic milestones are met without too much trouble. Alas, Ethan attends swimming and guitar classes, both hardly academic.

While my husband's assurance that Ethan will be able to read "the fat cat sat on the mat" by the time he is ready to be married was mildly helpful, it got me wondering about what is a good balance when it comes to giving your child the things he needs to succeed. And succeed in what exactly?

Then I read an article on over- indulged, over-stimulated and under- parented children in the United Kingdom. According to writer Lucy Cavendish, children are turning into monsters and all this is their parents' fault, because they get their kids everything they want and yet, strangely enough, emotionally neglect them.

It would be easy to say that our kids do fall into that category, judging by the roaring business education centres do and children who have people to pick up after them every minute of the day.

But I'm not sure parents neglect their children from an emotional point of view. If anything, they treat their offspring with precious care. But could this love, and wanting the absolute best, lead to an over-indulged, over-scheduled and under-parented child?

Over-indulged

When my son attends his friends' birthday parties, they seem quite happy to be sitting around playing games on their PlayStation Portables (PSP). This is their hopscotch.

The only problem is they have this curious habit of not being able to look someone in the eye when they are having a conversation. In fact, they don't seem to like conversations at all. And when they do open their mouths to talk, they speak of battles, bombs and other unintelligent gibberish.

In her report, Ms Cavendish says that the PSP can never be an imaginary friend. They can't take it to a picnic and it cannot cuddle them. But, believe me, to go against it is to fight a losing battle. For where these games fail in making our children nimble social creatures or creative geniuses, it sure compensates by being an excellent babysitter.

The practical thing to do is to go with the flow. My sons, however, have to vary their entertainment diet (causing some tears and tantrums).

If your child cannot be entertained by books, movies, board-games, playgrounds and people, then perhaps it is time to pull the plug on devices that might save us a lot of time but end up robbing our children of unscripted playtime where they learn how to pick themselves up after a fall, how to make friends and, most importantly, how to have fun.

Over-scheduled

Unless money is an issue, most Singaporean children have a calendar that is busier than that of their CEO daddies. I have a sneaky feeling that the increased numbers of children seeking psychiatric help is not just due to awareness, and that there are vast numbers of little people with lots to handle.

My son is up at 6am on weekdays. Twice a week, he gets home at 4pm due to "supplementary lessons". On other days, he's back at 2pm.

I tried to resist tuition but his mother tongue ability was causing both of us grief, so a wonderful tutor has stepped in to help once a week.

On some days, he has swimming, soccer practice and church. I feel a little sorry for him.

And then I found out what the schedules of other children his age are like while researching for an article on tuition. One tutor told me she has kids who have tuition or "enrichment" every single day, including Saturday and Sunday.

The goal is very clear, say these tutors. Parents just want their kids to do well in school.

To me, tuition seven days a week sounds awful. But if you ask other parents, they might disagree saying their children need it. And others even swear their children love all the classes they attend.

I don't know who these kids are, but it appears that the over-scheduled child is doing what adults do their whole lives — work their pants off.

I imagine these children putting on a mini-suit and pulling in two shifts a day with weekend duty thrown in. At the age of seven!

What happens when they turn 30? Will they suddenly feel incredibly tired and quit work just so they can watch Tom and Jerry in the afternoons?

More interestingly, will the experts be right — the ones who say that too many programmed activities lead to long-term stress disorders and a dulling of creative thinking?

I don't profess to have an answer either. Which leads me to the last bit.

Under-parented

I checked what this means and the easiest way to explain it is to look at what is over-parenting — when a parent demands total obedience and the child's opinion is not taken into account.

Under-parenting gives a child no limits — where he learns tricky things like values on his own or from his peers. In Singapore, with more parents being educated and aware of their roles, neither really applies.

There is also something called "hyper-parenting" where the parents believe that a child's life must be crafted and managed.

When from the word go, his life is crammed with all the "right" activities and this consistent guidance will lead to a "successful" child, presumably one who can get into an Ivy League school and eventually earn millions of dollars.

But if we draft a script that is essentially made up of our own goals and wishes, our children might one day feel that they were never authors of their own lives.

And the regret for us parents would not be that we wasted all that effort and money, but that we wasted the most important thing that was given to us when we had children — our time.

Ethan may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is more than a string of a few sentences.

He is my co-conspirator for art projects, a budding photographer, my shopping companion and together with his brother, my tickle/torture playmates on rainy days.

I don't know which category I fall into, but it is the little unplanned things that make my job so sweet.

Crispina Robert is a freelance writer and editor.