SweetieTots

I have a friend who set up a business on providing lessons to children on Money Habits & Financial Literacy has just opened for business and they want to run free lessons as a promotion to their business to create more awareness.

Well, the biggest benefit goes to the kids.

They are currently looking at children aged between 10 to 12 years old for the free lesson.

For more details, visit this link -> http://bit.ly/63OsCR

This article can be found at http://www.spark.org.sg. I personally find it is a great resource to read up on understanding ADHD.

You can compare and see what kind of traits your kid possess if you suspect them to have ADHD. Words in blue are my findings of Miloboy and Sweetie, my second child, when compared to the article.

(Miloboy did an assessment of ADHD earlier this year and he is diagnosed with ADHD, with inattention as the Primary Characteristic.)

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ADHD is generally considered to be a neurobiological disorder. Researchers believe that the symptoms of ADHD are caused by chemicals in the brain not working properly. It is characterised by the inability to sustain focused attention, impulsivity and hyperactivity.

There are 3 types, based on the latest diagnostic criteria of the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM-IV:

1. ADHD with the combined characteristics of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention,
2. ADHD with inattention as the primary characteristic, and
3. ADHD with hyperactivity and impulsivity as primary characteristics.

Both my kids have ADHD with Inattention as the Primary Characteristic. Miloboy has ‘more’ displays of ADHD than Sweetie. Her Inattentiveness and Hyperactivity is most evident when she is at a shop, or an enclosed area. You will see her playing, touching, or even climbing up things….. and yes, she likes to climb to the window, and we had our window grills fixed up when we had our house.

The first and third types are most often and easily identified because these children tend to have symptoms that are highly noticeable. These are the ADHD children who are loud, always on the go, take risks, engage in dangerous behavior, and talk back to adults.

My Miloboy talks loudly, especially so when he is excited. My therapist taught me to let him know what ‘level’ he is operating at.

My Miloboy always operates at Level 4 and 5. Now, when he talks loudly, I will tell him to operate at Level 3, and sometimes he will listen to me with a smile. And when I need to whisper, I will tell him I am now operating at Level 1. And it never fails to bring a smile to his face.

Another noticeable symptom is Miloboy talks back to adults. He talks back to his teacher, not only me…. But well, he is sometimes cute when he does that. Cos he likes to be funny at times.

The second group, which is often where females are placed, are the quiet daydreamers. They lose personal belongings, can’t work alone, don’t finish tasks, and are often lost in their own thoughts.

Miloboy loses belongings but Sweetie seldom loses, rather, you will see new things in her pencilcase…. She can’t work alone. She needs me by her side in order to finish her homework. (This is a very common trait amongst kids)

As for Miloboy, he can do it all by himself, provided nobody distracts him. Sweetie likes to distract Miloboy as she wants him to play with her. Miloboy displays more “Daydreaming” trait than Sweetie. Not that she doesn’t.

Researchers estimate that ADHD occurs in as few as 1% and as many as 20% of children under 18 years of age. The most accepted estimate is 3-5% of school-going children. That translates into 2 such students in a class of 40 in Singapore’s context.

List of Problems typically faced by ADHD children:

• Poor attention in class   (Miloboy always gets this complaint)
• Poor classroom participation and failure to ask teachers for necessary help  (applies to Miloboy too)
• Poor understanding of material taught (unless they are ‘gifted’ with high IQ)  (If so, Miloboy should have high IQ, cos he can understand)
• Poor study skills  (Hmm, what’s study skill?)
• Poor organization skills (ie. does not know how to organize time and work) (applies to both Miloboy and Sweetie)
• Great difficulty in doing homework  (Applies to Sweetie, she knows her work but simply refuses to do it…)
• Failure to complete (and hand up ) homework  (Applicable to Miloboy at times)
• Sloppy or illegible handwriting (Miloboy is slow, so he rushes to finish his work and his handwriting is sloppy now compared to first half of this year.)
• Disrupting the classroom  (Not applicable to both kids, lucky…)
• Getting into fights with peers (due to poor social skills)  (Miloboy’s classmates find him funny and likes to play rough to Miloboy, e.g. pulling his shirt, chase after him and you will see hand marks on his shirt..)
• Low self esteem  (Both kids display some traits of low self esteem….)

I met the mother of my daughter’s classmate yesterday. she is very very interested in education for children and she likes to deal with children.

She happened to be one of the playgroup teacher of Miloboy when he was 3 years old.

She shared with me a simple tip while chatting yesterday. She knew I am concerned with the kids’ mother tongue.

She recommended teaching the kids, say, 3 words/characters a day. She told that this method is easy and fast and should not be too much of a problem. Like me, she believes in instilling interest when learning.

Learning through play is best. I totally agree with that. I will try it and post the results.

Miloboy is currently undergoing Speech & Occupational Therapy as recommended by his Doc over at Child Guidance Clinic.  Miloboy is slowly improving, at his own pace. I would like to share some of the activities we did.

Do note all of the below things I did are ‘customised’ for Miloboy.

Activity #1 – Playground Helps To Channel Excess Energy

I find bringing him to the playground very good to help him fall asleep at night, especially on days where he uses much energy, such as playing chasing.  The sessions last 45 mins each and there’s plenty of recommendations by the therapists to do at home with Miloboy.

But, the therapists do warn that we should not force the kids when they do not want to.

It is not easy to get ADHD kids to do homework.  Same for those “exercises” that the therapists ask me to.

Activity #2 – Read Out Loud

Miloboy knew he could not read very well. Sometimes, when he is stressed up, he stammers and tends to read the same word twice in a sentence. But when he is relaxed, he can actually read quite well. I do strongly suggest PRAISE & ENCOURAGEMENT for all kids when they did well. It works for Miloboy.

Activity #3 – Star Jumps For Hand Leg Coordination

I will also do Star Jumps with Miloboy to improve his hand leg coordination. But Miloboy does not fancy that. He only did it once (I had asked him to do it with me for 4 days in a row). Got to keep asking…. Don’t give up!

Activity #4 – Paste papers on wall for writing/drawing

I also pasted mahjong papers (white paper) on the walls to get him to write and train his wrist muscles, at the same time, teaching him Past Tense. This is a pretty common activity but Miloboy likes it.

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I will share more activities that we did as we go along. So far Miloboy has gone for 4 therapies for the past one month.I am glad that I am not working so that I can bring him there weekly.  Gotta count the blessings.

When I was a 7 year old grade school kid, I can still remember that the first few years of school are what we called, Fundamentals Of Learning. Everything was nicely paced and there was little to no stress.

However, it could also be because at that point in time, we are mostly raised in families that spoke our own mother tongue rather than English. So, most of the kids like me only aim for a passing grade in English. I remember I have to crunch my Primary English Textbook very very hard, English is so hard to learn.

Now that Miloboy’s in Primary One. I am so shocked that he has to learn SO MANY things in one year. He learnt the Nouns, to common Nouns, then proceed on to Singular and Plural of animals, to Singular and Plural Forms of Verbs, to Punctuation (include speech based punctuation) then Present Tense, Present Continuous Tense to PAST TENSE….

That’s basically his syllabus for Primary One. I am real amazed by the fact that our Ministry of Education Singapore did such a Compressed English Syllabus for 7 year olds, when they really should be focusing on strengthening their English, instead, they chose to move on with speed to the deeper levels of English.

That is not all.

All Primary One kids are supposed to be able to write a minimum of 60 words based on a 4 picture sequential story telling composition by the final term. The model answers given by the teachers are Full of Adjectives and one look at it tells me, its not something that all 7 year olds can do…. well, ironically, those kids that receive Enrichment Courses might be able to do it.

Miloboy missed a point to the passing mark on a mock storytelling composition. But I really can’t blame him. What he wrote were very simple sentences.

E.g. Model Answer Opening: It was a bright Sunday morning with beautiful white fluffy clouds. My mother exclaimed, “Why don’t we go to the beach?”.

Miloboy’s Opening: Last week, we went to the beach.

On several other occasions, Miloboy mixed up Singular and Plural forms of verbs with the Past Tense.

E.g. Do (Present Tense), Did (Past Tense), Miloboy told me the Past Tense of ‘Do’ is ‘Does’.

These made me realise that the Fundamental Teachings are gone…. They compressed so much stuff in one year, for the poor 7 year olds. I wonder by what age they need to write Reported Speech. That is one of the most difficult part of English.

Even so, you know, teachers also make mistakes. They also get confused  at times. I have seen errors in their marking before, let alone the poor 7 year olds who have to digest so much stuff in one year?