J has been attending piano classes for a few months now. But before we take the plunge and invest thousands of dollars in a piano, my wife and I want to make sure that she really likes it.

In the meantime, the only piece she uses for practice is a toy keyboard she borrowed from her cousin!

It’s that time again and buying gifts for Christmas can really be a chore… unless we have in mind what to buy. With a list of hottest toys at your disposal, you will never go off track. What's more, the children will thank you for getting them these exciting toys!

Here is a list of some helpful tips:

Accept the Situation

Let us face it, being a single parent is not an easy thing. With the myriad tasks to be done – plus the weight of the responsibilities they carry – these single parents putting their heart out just so they are able to bear such a heavy burden. 

Pictures, albums and home video may be the only way children ever know they even participated in trick or treating as a baby. Who are we kidding? We all know the fun of baby’s first Halloween or two is more for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings. Here are some suggestions for saving money on baby’s first trick or treat experience as well as safety tips to make the night as fun as it can be.

Something that can survive the test of time will certainly get my attention. Especially when it’s more than thousands of years.

I was introduced to this ancient wisdom by a lawyer friend. He is a strong believer in this and he uses this to bring up his children.

I attended Character First parenting workshop last Saturday and it aimed at parents with children from 3 – 12. The instructor, Joseph Tan, (thanks to his funny and lively presentation or I would have slept through the workshop), called it primary years. It is during this formative period that the children should be given moral drilling and not moral reasoning. Despite this fact, many parents do it the other way. They give moral reasoning first and in teenage years, moral drilling. That explains why the children are rebellious when they reach their teens.

This is a mind-boggling issue. Young parents get scared when they hear stories about the “terrible twos.” Take courage, though, you will survive the toddler stage.  

It’s not easy to understand why your toddler has a tantrum but at such a young age, a child is consumed with thoughts of themselves.  Everything is about them and how they feel.  Until they are taught how to share, every toy or piece of food they see automatically belongs to them.

You could argue until the cows come home but to me TV can be an excellent educational tool if you know how to use it right. Of course, parents must play a role in making sure TV brings more good than harm to children.

I am surprised to find out J and K (now 6 and 3 respectively) are not couch potatoes. Meaning to say they don’t glue to the TV for long hours. Maybe due to the fact that we didn’t encourage it when they were young.

Even if your children are good at amusing themselves most of the times, there may come a day when they get bored. That is when parents have to find ways to keep them occupied.

Try a couple of these ideas here and the boredom will soon be a distant memory.
Children love playing with other children of their own age so if you can, try to arrange some play dates for them.

This is the 3rd time she did this, if I remember correctly.

I smiled with a great relief when J took over my duty. Just after school today, she volunteered to bathe K. More than happy, I agreed. Later, she took shower by herself. An achievement by itself.

We never had such a packed weekend. Just last weekend, it was full of non-stop activities. The children enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

My children have always travelled well. I’ve pinned it to the fact that the first few years of their lives were spent on long trips everywhere as we lived so far away from any centre. To get the milk alone was a 20-minute drive into town!

Now, that we are urban dwellers, most of our journeys are short ones, but during the last three weeks, we’ve embarked on long three-hour-or-more journeys and I was amazed at how well the eight-, six- and three-year-olds coped.

He was coughing badly on Monday night and my wife thought it would be a good idea for K to rest at home the next day instead of going to kindergarten.

The air quality lately is terribly bad and many people fall sick. To make it worse is the outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1).

Fortunately, K was active as usual yesterday. His cough is bad only in the middle of the night, and lasts for 10-20 minutes. For no reason, magically he stops coughing after that. But when he coughs, I will try all available ideas to soothe him and put him back to sleep: giving him warm water, applying Vicks, carrying him, putting him on a higher pillow, and so on.

Today is the second day and we decided to send him back to kindy. Plus after staying home for a day, he himself requested to go to school.

Having a bad experience in the past, I really hope that K’s cough will not get from bad to worse.