As usual, I would send my two elder sons to the bus stop at Seksyen 9, Shah Alam. For the past few days, their bus was always late. Their school hour starts at 8:15am. Today, the bus arrived at 8:15am; later than yesterday at 8:05am. On last Wednesday, when the bus did not come at 8:00am, I sent them to school straight away. The boys were saying that their friends missed one class, due to the lateness.
Since I reached there early today, ie around 7:40am, and my office hour only starts at 9:00am, I just did not want to drop them and leave. Normally, I would use that 15 – 30 minutes time as useful as possible. I would just ask them about their school, their tuition classes, their games and many other things. I tried to be a good listening friend to my children as I want them to share their daily experience and encounter with me. I guess we should be in our children’s lives all the time, not only when we want to correct them. I would say that my children are happy when I am ‘one of them’, and they are happily sharing their secrets and sometimes share others’ secrets too.
Yesterday, my eldest, Radhi, was mentioning that he wants to learn Mandarin as more than 1 billion people is speaking the language. Hmm… that’s a good fact and a good reasoning too. We encourage our children to speak up and this works very well with my second child, Nabil. He can ask people bluntly, eg “Ayah Long’ (Uncle), why do you smoke? Don’t you know that smokers are syaitan’s friends?’ That was more than a couple years’ back (He actually asked in Malay Language, of course, I translated it!).
This year, I made Radhi the Imam for myself and his brothers, Nabil & Umar. At first, he was quite reluctant especially comes the ‘doa’ session. I said to him to just say anything, ask for anything, even in Malay Language. If you do not ask, God will not give it to you. Same with me, I said. If I don’t know what you want, I can’t give it to you. I can't read your mind. Now, I am very proud to say that his ‘doa’ session is even better than mine. All recited in Arabic. (They learn Arabic in school!) Nabil also get to become the Imam, when Radhi is not around etc. I really hope that my children would grow up being strong, independent and excel in their future undertakings, as well as being a resourceful leader.
My worries are that they do not like reading very much. Be it fiction or non-fiction. But they like to draw whenever time permits them. Umar was asking the other day, 'Why does our house have lots of books?' My reply was, 'I want you to read, that's why.' I would need readers' advise in this matter as I was not that successful yet.
** Having called their teacher, informing about the bus driver's lateness consecutively. We were informed that their lateness was due to family matters ~ death. Sorry to hear that. AlFatihah to the ‘jenazah’.
Same here Dina, my boys don't like reading too, only the little 4 yr old Madeehah loves reading. The boys just love games..probably a big mistake buying them PS3. I guess reading is to be inculcated since small like what the Brits schools do. They come with story books everyday to read with parents and we have to sign their redaing diary. Madeehah would't sleep without reading first.
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