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10 Parenting Lessons learnt from Mr Lee Kuan Yew , Late 1st Prime Minister of Singapore.

Although Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, has passed away, it is undeniable that he leaves behind a legacy that serves as an inspiration to us all as parents. This is evident from the things that Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong and his siblings Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Wei Ling have said about their father during interviews with the press.

From their memories of their father, there are many lessons that we can learn from one of the greatest leaders in the world who brought Singapore from a sleepy state to the successful and prosperous city that it is today.

1. Teach your kids the value of being FRUGAL
Being frugal helps you to be resourceful and careful with your savings . It also teaches your kids to be appreciative of everything that they have in life: a cosy home to live in, basic necessities like clothes, food and water, and a family that showers them with love.

Although it was apparent that the Lees lived a comfortable life, Mr. and Mrs. Lee made it a point to instil in their kids the importance of being frugal from young.

“We had to turn off water taps completely. If my parents found a dripping tap, we would get a ticking off. And when we left a room, we had to switch off lights and air-conditioners,” laments Dr Lee Wei Ling to The Straits Times.

Through setting basic rules like these for your kids at home, you can help develop a sense of gratitude while teaching them about the value of money.

2. Treat everyone with RESPECT
One of the most important value to teach your kids is that everyone - regardless of their family status or background - deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.

In fact, according to daughter Lee Wei Ling, that was exactly how Mr. and Mrs. Lee brought up their kids, as they were told that they should not “behave like the PM’s children” and expect to be treated differently.

“As a result, we treated everyone - friends, labourers and Cabinet ministers - with equal respect. My father’s security officers became our friends,” she said.

3. Enjoy life's Simple pleasures
You don’t have to lavish your kids with the latest toys or expensive holidays to show your love for them. In fact, sticking to the simple things in life such as a trip to the park may be just what you need to bring a smile to their face - and they’ll be sure to remember special moments like this for years to come.

PM Lee’s fondest childhood memories include the short holidays and relaxing activities that he enjoyed with the family. He recalled that when he was five or six, his father would take him and his siblings to Tanglin Halt in the evenings to look at the trains go by.

“It’s a great thrill and outing for us, for me,” PM Lee reminisces.

4. Do not put unnecessary pressure on your kids
As parents in Singapore, it is tempting to set the bar high when it comes to your expectations on your kids’ development and achievements. Despite your good intentions to motivate them to realise their potential, it is also important to remember that your kids should have the right to enjoy their childhood - before having to deal with complex life decisions as adults.

In a recent interview, Lee Hsien Yang, the younger son of Lee Kuan Yew, said, “I think parents who are good manage to guide their children along without making them feel constrained.”

At the same time, PM Lee and his sister, Lee Wei Ling, shared that although their father was the prime minister while growing up, they were not pressured to excel in school. “I was not the top student in the class or in the school. But as long as [I was] doing [my] best and [I was] managing well, [our parents] were okay [with that],” shared PM Lee.

5. Always believe in your kid's dream
How many times has your five-year-old come up to you to tell you of her dream of being a doctor one day, and an astronaut the next day? During these instances, how did you react to her fast-changing aspirations in life?

If there is one thing that we can all learn from the former Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew, it has to be this: When your children shows an interest in something, it is only right that you, as a parent, do all that you can to help them pursue it.

PM Lee cites himself as a perfect example of this. When he decided to learn music after picking up a recorder bought by his parents for one of his siblings, his request was met by his parents who made arrangements for him to attend classes. From learning to read music, he decided to play the clarinet in the band, and later showed a keen interest in the tuba.

You can do the same for your kids, too. Always take their dreams seriously - no matter how often they change. Who knows, this could be the start of a successful career path in the future?

6. Have Respect for your elders
One of the most important Asian parenting values that is slowly dwindling in a lot of families today is the need to show respect for elders and other family members.

According to PM Lee, although he and his siblings grew up in a relaxed family setting, all three children were expected to behave well and speak properly when addressing the rest of the family. "I think those are things that they are stricter about than many parents today,” he said.

Showing respect is, indeed, a valuable rule for setting children on the right path of appropriate behaviour - especially when it comes to addressing their elders. You, too, can do this with your kids at home by setting a good example through your interactions with your own parents and in-laws. After all, kids learn by picking up cues from people whom they trust and love, such as their parents and caregivers.

7. Be present in your kids' lives
Speaking about Lee Kuan Yew’s role as a father, PM Lee has this to say: “He was a very strict, good father. He left a lot of the looking after of the family to my mother because he was always busy with politics and his responsibilities, but when you needed him, he was there. In a crisis, he was the key person in the family.”

PM Lee also shared how his father went to great lengths to keep in touch with his children, even while they were away. “He would write to us, and my mother would write to us every week. His letter would be dictated, typed...with double or triple space. Then he would go through and correct the typed version, add stuff and maybe have another paragraph or two at the end in writing [before] sending it to me. I still have them all stored away somewhere.”

So, do take that few minutes to sit down and talk to your kids to find out how their day went. This is also a great chance for you to bond with them and to give them advice on how to cope with the challenges they are facing.

8.Inspire them with novelty of hard work
By observing his father at work, PM Lee is inspired with Mr. Lee’s approach of hard work and the guiding principle that things could be done better. “Just watching him and the way he fought, worked and struggled with all the issues and challenges, I think that’s a great inspiration,” he shared.

One great example which PM Lee pointed out is the way that Mr. Lee worked on his Mandarin by listening to the tape, practising with a teacher and listening to the tape again while he exercised - even during weekends. According to PM Lee, his father kept up this routine even until old age, as he did not want to lose touch with the language.

You can teach your kids that hard work does indeed pays off by setting a good example. Get involved in a project together. For example, take music lessons together - and practice playing the instrument until all of you get it right and become pros at playing your favourite tune. Accomplishing this mission together brings greater satisfaction, and over time your kids will realise that hard work comes with plentiful rewards.

9. Do not dwell on regrets
Life is never perfect, and there are bound to be times when things do not go the way we’ve planned them to be. Despite all this, it is important to teach your kids to pull themselves together and look forward - rather than dwell on the past.

Through his numerous interviews with the media, Lee Kuan Yew was not one to wrestle with the “what ifs” and “what could have beens." Befitting the personality that he often portrayed, the former MM Lee allowed no room for regrets and implied that regrets are “for wimps."

10.Sacrifices is the starting point of success
PM Lee once said that he admired the hard work and sacrifices put in by his father for the sake of the country. “He was so singularly focused on this obsession to build up Singapore, to make it safe, to make it better and to create something for Singaporeans...together with his colleagues and with the population. I think that’s quite exceptional,” said PM Lee.

His brother, Lee Hsien Yang also shared that their father “always had the best interests of the country at heart” - while at home, “it was always the interests of his children and our mother.” Through these accounts, you too can teach your children about why sacrifices need to be made for the sake of the people that we care about. At the end of the day, it is not so much about what “makes me happy” - but rather, “how can my actions help to make the lives of others better.”

Excepts from http://sg.theasianparent.com/parenting-lessons-to-learn-from-lee-kuan-yew/

Imparting Core Values & Principals to Children

Parents see it as important to teach their children such simple virtues as honesty, thoughtfulness and respect. Those virtues were affirmed and upheld by schools.

It was accepted that greatest responsibility of any generation was to hand on those virtues to the next generation. That revolution was to change among other things education, social policy and the justice system.

Historically, education all over the world had two aims; to help young people master the skills of literacy and numeracy and to help them build good character. They understood that to create and maintain a civil society there had to be education for character as well as for intellect, for decency as well as literacy and for virtue as well as for skills and knowledge.

Until comparatively recently, educational philosophers have stressed the critical role of moral education. Almost without exception they assumed that adults either as parents or teachers, were primarily responsible for shaping the character of the young.

It has only been in recent decades that psychology has replaced philosophy as the well-spring of education and teaching practice.

Though most children only went to standard academical levels, they received an education for life. They could calculate in their heads, they were master spellers, they could express themselves in prose, they had beautiful handwriting, they were literate – they read widely. Until the day they died they had poetry dripping from their tongues. They absorbed life-lifting language that sustained them through the tough times. 

Each of us must accept some responsibility and commit ourselves to do something. As adults we can not condemn the behaviour of our young people if we are unwilling to model and commit ourselves to the restoration of character training in the home and the school.

The solution is not to try and reclaim some mythical golden age when things were supposedly simpler and more honest.

Responsible adults acknowledge that we can’t turn the clock back – we can’t be old fashioned. But we can re-fashion what has worked through the generations.

We must re-fashion a generation that has the great potential to make a difference – to make character count – but is lacking in role models.

We have to provide our young generation with role models so that they can fashion our nation’s character.

We have to understand that the best education, in addition to developing skills and knowledge, makes young people keenly aware that it is their own character that is at stake.

We can help to achieve this by restoring character education to its rightful place at the centre of the curriculum.

It is no coincidence that almost ten years after the Ministry of Education declared “attitudes and values” must be an integral part of the school curriculum that schools have had little guidance to achieve this.

But the Ministry of Education’s failure to deliver support should not come as a surprise.

The essential relationship in education is not between the Ministry of Education and the school but between the school and the parents.

Effective character education is not initiated by centralized agencies.

Effective character education is a task for the grassroots.

For parents, teachers, and community organizations who understand that character is learned by being experienced, observed and modelled.

Since it is only through good relationships that good “attitudes and values” can be transmitted the first task is to create a positive, relational culture in our schools. That if we want to influence the character of our students, core objective values must influence everything that happens in a school, be it in the principal’s office, the classroom, the playground, the sports field or the board meeting.

Parents are best able to impart core objective values. They are the child’s first and most important teachers of character. Nothing can ever replace the home as the place where character traits and taught and observed.

It is in the home that with or without parent’s help children during their earliest years begin developing character. This is both a conscious and unconscious process that takes place by simply watching their parents “being.”

What is taught and observed in the home is far more influential on children that what is taught in the school or any other way. Nevertheless, children do partly learn character from their friends, the popular culture, the social environment and significant relationships.

Among those significant relationships is the relationship between a child and her teacher.

The starting point for character education is belief. 

Values, regardless of whether the are preferences or principles, do not exist in a vacuum. They are rooted in belief. There is a connection between belief and behaviour. In terms of values education, or as I would prefer to call it, character education, there are two beliefs that determine a school’s approach, methodology and objectives. These two beliefs are mutually exclusive for they represent the opposite ends of the moral spectrum.

The belief that there are no core moral precepts produces values that are preferences while the belief that there are core moral precepts produces values that are principles. Like the belief in which each is rooted preference and principle values are mutually exclusive. Preference values, like all preferences, whether for tea or coffee, for long rather than short hair, for a Mazda rather than a Maxima, are personal choices. They are always subjective and open to a change of mind. They are neither right nor wrong. Their correctness, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. The individual can rightly claim of her preference values that My values are as good as your values. I like my coffee with milk as much as you like coffee without milk.

The measure of values that are principles lies beyond individual preference. Because principle values are the product of the belief that core moral precepts exist they are objective. Their truth lies beyond the preference of the individual. Principle values are traits of character - honesty, compassion, courage and perseverance – they transcend personal preference. The defining difference between preference and principle values is that preference values are something “to have” while principle values are something “to be.” Indeed, the most important thing to be.

Belief is not only the genesis of values it is also the starting point for social change and personal behaviour. Social change starts with belief and ends with behaviour. All social change reflects basic changes in the values system of a nation, but these changes in values are themselves preceded by changes in beliefs. Beliefs – what is held to be true or real – produce values, and these values in turn determine the norms (what everyone is doing) that govern behaviour. No one has the luxury of having no belief, for believing in nothing is itself a belief. Behaviour is always the final stage in social change. To change behaviour, which is governed by norms, the regard or disregard for belief must first be changed. So the starting point for a change of social behaviour, whether societal or personal, is always with beliefs.

It is for this reason that many well-intention and often generously resourced intervention programmes fail. As a nation, we pour millions of dollars into the black hole of the well-intended. 

The way objective values work explains why they are inexplicably linked to character, and therefore behaviour. Each objective value – honesty, kindness, compassion, respect, responsibility, obedience, and duty – has three working components.

- Moral knowing

- Moral feeling

- Moral behaviour

For an objective value to function each of the three component parts must be operating. To show, for example, compassion, one must first know what compassion is and what it requires of our relationship with others.

To be compassionate we must first have moral knowledge. But knowledge, by itself, does not make us compassionate. We have also to care about compassion and be emotionally committed to it. We must have the capacity for appropriate guilt when we behave without compassion and be capable of moral indignation when we see others suffering or the victims of injustice. Yet even an emotional commitment to compassion will not make us compassionate. A further step is needed. We must practice compassion in our personal relationships and carry out our obligations as a citizen to help build a caring and just society.

These three parts - moral knowing, moral attitudes (feeling) and moral behaviour can be expressed as the involvement of the head, the heart and the hand. Objective values produce behaviour that benefits the individual, others, and the community. Moreover, these values prevent harm to both individuals and society, they are the essence of healthy relationships, and they build a sense of community. In short, they enhance the well-being of all and create a civil society.

Cornerstone values such as honesty, compassion, consideration, responsibility and respect have only positive and constructive outcomes. They reproduce themselves as they are practised. They are given as they are gained and gained as they are given. Honesty, for example, is returned as trust, respect and loyalty; consideration as courtesy, gentleness and helpfulness. Objective or principle values – cornerstone values – are inextricably linked to character. 

Character is the inner form that makes someone or something what it is. Character is distinct from such concepts as personality, image, reputation, or celebrity. A person’s character is the inner reality in which thoughts, speech, decisions, behaviour and relations are rooted. Character determines behaviour just as behaviour demonstrates character. Character is who we are no one sees.

Character can also be defined as knowing the good, desiring the good and doing the good. It is about the habits of the head, the habits of the heart and the habits of the hand.

The three functions of an objective core value which involve the heard, the heart and the hand are coupled with the three components of character which also involve the head, the heart and the hand. In the language of the educator both involve knowledge, attitudes and behaviour.

A wheel illustrates the connection between objective values and character.

The rim represents character. The spokes, all of equal length and spacing, represent the objective core values. The give the wheel, character, its form, shape and strength. The hub, which holds the spokes in position, is a special core value -duty.

A sense of duty is pivotal to good character. Duty is misunderstood by our generation. Duty is obligation. Our obligation to our children, parents, elders and posterity. Duty has as much to do with child abuse, honest business practice and treating those of a difference race or colour with respect as it does with flags and war memorials. What we destroyed we have to replace or re-invented.

Over recent decades attempts have be made to replace character training with theoretical constructions, fancy strategies and therapies. We seek the form of character but not the substance. The reality is that you can not reinvent the wheel.

C. S. Lewis spent decades studying a host of civilizations including the Ancient Egyptian, Old Norse, Ancient Jewish, Babylonian, North American Indian, Hindu, Ancient Chinese, Roman, Christian, Greek, Australian Aboriginal, Anglo-Saxon, Stoic and Ancient Indian. He identified objective values that they all held in common.

He wrote that:

Common objective values were essential for the well being of both the individual and society

Common objective values must be the guiding principles for both rulers and ruled alike.

Common objective values were necessary to the very idea of a rule that is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.

Lewis conclude that such objective values as honesty, generosity, duty, justice, mercy and fairness were built into all human beings and that society would be foolish not to take them into account. He said that they were as vital to the community as the heart is to the human body. How absurd it would be, for example, to remove someone’s heart and still expect other organs (like the brain, liver and stomach) to keep working.

Lewis’s point was that if we fail to pass on to our children clear standards of right and wrong, of what is admirable or ignoble, then we must share the blame if our communities eventually fall apart.

When writing of this in 1943 C. S. Lewis penned my favourite passage about education.

And all the time – such is the tragicomedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more drive, or dynamism, or self-reliance, or creativity. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful.

Modern curricula have moved schools from the historical understanding that educating for character is a core responsibility of schools.

The result has been that character training has been replaced by intervention strategies based on theoretical constructions. Not only do most of these not work in practice but they make the management of schools and parenting unnecessarily difficult.

A teacher may talk as if right and wrong are matters of personal preference to be determined by time, place and circumstance and that the last thing a person should be is judgmental. But when confronted by real situations [Johnny punches Mary, someone pinches the teacher lunch or tells her to get stuffed or a defiant Shaun arrives drunk at the school assembly] the teacher, the principal and the trustees react as if there are common objective values.

Theoretical constructions, like relativism, create tensions that become barriers to the management of schools and parenting.

Young people interpret the belief that nothing is right and nothing is wrong, that it all depends on time, place and circumstance as meaning that all behaviour is acceptable.

There are compelling reasons for restoring character education to its rightful place at the centre of the curriculum.

There is a clear and urgent need

Even in a pluralist society there is common ethical ground

Transmitting character is and always has been the work of a civil society

Democracies have a special need for citizens of good character

There is no such thing as values free education

There is strong public support for character education

Character questions are among the great question of life

- What kind of a person do I want to be?

- What kind of a person am I becoming?

- How will I live with others?

- How will I live with the environment?

An unabashed commitment to character education is essential if schools are to attract and retain good teachers

Character education is a manageable task and the results are cumulative

A failure to educate for character results in enormous economic cost

Character education is a reform that will work. Other reforms may work but high standards of behaviour and conduct do work and nothing works without them

The good news is that character education does not cost a lot of money. Nor is it an add on to the already crowded curriculum.

The resources are already in the schools

The existing curriculum can be used to deliver character education

There is no set script there are only principles

The key is the school culture and the quality of relationships that exist within it

Character is learned by being experienced, modelled and observed.

The principles of effective character education are consistent regardless of the school level. All that changes is the methodology and resources to remain age appropriate.

Character education is both small and large. Small because it does not add to what the school is already doing but large because it informs and directs everything that happened in the school. It’s like a pebble being thrown into a pond.

Quality education systems since the time of the Romans have been characterised by:

Loyalty to parents and family

A sense of responsibility to public order

A feeling of duty towards the community

A high regard for human life

Respect for nature

A love of beauty and truth

There is nothing to suggest that, despite the prevailing worldview that underpins modern education, these are not the characteristics that today’s parents and grandparents desire for their children and grand children.

To think that we can have a civil society and social cohesion without character is as illogical as thinking that we can have trees without roots or flowers without petals.

Once there was a rug merchant who saw that his most beautiful rug had a large bump in its centre. He stepped on the bump to flatten it out – and succeeded. But the bump reappeared in a new spot not far away. He jumped on the bump again, and it disappeared for a moment, until it emerged once more in a new place. Again and again he jumped, scuffing and mangling the rug in his frustration. Finally, he lifted one corner of the rug and out slithered an angry snake.

Ponder on this .... 

"In matters of Style , swim with the current ; In matters of Principal , stand like a ROCK . " ~ Thomas Jefferson

Playful Parenting Without Being Permissive

Playfully engaging with children, especially in matters of discipline and parenting is sometimes mistaken as being permissive.  But, playful parenting most often leads to more cooperation and listening. It is possible to be playful and set meaningful parenting limits.

Playfully connecting with a child fuels cooperation and a child’s sense of capability.

You can also use playfulness with your child to:

- reduce power struggles

- help a child accomplish a task with enthusiasm

- acknowledge and overcome fears and worries

- change boring tasks into fun moments

- help siblings get along

- avoid tantrums and meltdowns

- set limits that are kind and clear

Here are two examples of using playful parenting without being permissive.

Playful Parenting: Fantasy and Story Telling to Fuel Cooperation 

When a child, age 4,  decided he no longer wanted to have his hair washed.  Instead of engaging in a power struggle, I tried to listen to his concerns. He was worried about the water in his eyes. This new issue also coincided with the birth of his sister.  When a sibling is born, preschoolers can have a hard time adjusting.

Understanding the child needed connection and reassurance, start telling him a story about some sand gnomes. Little gnomes that magically appeared into a little boys head one night. It took three minutes of telling this cute story of mighty sand gnomes, castles and the special powers of soap and water to change our situation around.

My goal was to get hair washed, my son needed some extra validation and love. Play helped us both. Win-Win!  Although it was an added step to be playful, it was nevertheless much faster to help him feel in a bit more in charge of something that was not a favorite event for him.

Permissive, would have been to skip the hair washing. That was not negotiable in that moment for our specific situation. (Another day it may haven been okay, family values and context will always play a role here too!)

Instead, the intention of being playful validated his feelings and helped the child feel loved and cared for. In this process, the child also learned that it was safe to tell us parents his worries and that we could find solutions together.

Playful Parenting: Setting Limits with a Game

Here is another example of how using playful parenting can help us set a reasonable limit without having to resort to nagging, yelling or rewarding:

A few years ago, both of my boys liked running at preschool pick up, from their classroom door up to the exit gate. Beyond the gate was a busy parking lot.  It was important to me and to the boys safety that they did not run beyond that gate. 

At the time, a three year old was having a tough time containing his excitement. It was just so hard not to run beyond that gate.  To instill in both boys and especially the youngest the importance of stopping right at the gate and waiting for the parent, we started playing “Red light, Green Light.” This gave both boys a chance to practice running while still pay attention to a stopping que.  Parent played at home, at the park and finally at preschool. Both boys totally understood the limit of the gate and the game served as a friendly reminder not to run too far. Even their friends started joining in and enjoying the game each day. 

This playful strategy eliminated daily reminders that they must wait for their parent or not run. Over time, the parents did not even need to say “red light” as waiting right at the gate became a habit. Permissive would have been to allow the running out the gate and hope for the best. Play instead helped us build a sense of trust.

Why Positive Parenting ?

Because it works, from toddlers to teens. Positive parenting raises a child who WANTS to behave.

Strict Parenting raises angry kids who lose interest in pleasing their parents. Permissive parenting raises unhappy kids who test their parents. In both cases, the child resists the parent's guidance and doesn't internalize self discipline.

Positive parenting -- sometimes called positive discipline, gentle guidance, or loving guidance -- is simply guidance that keeps our kids on the right path, offered in a positive way that resists any temptation to be punitive. Studies show that's what helps kids learn consideration and responsibility, and makes for happier kids and parents.

"Children misbehave when they feel discouraged or powerless. When you use discipline methods that overpower them or make them feel bad about themselves, you lower their self-esteem. It doesn't make sense to punish a child who is already feeling badly about herself and heap more discouragement on top of her." -Kathryn J. Kvols

Why Spanking is Bad ?

When most people think of discipline, they think of physical punishment. Fear is a time honored and potent motivator, right? It certainly nips problem behavior in the bud.

But research confirms what intuition should tell us, which is that physical force teaches children all the wrong lessons. Children who are spanked learn that might makes right, that hitting is justified in some circumstances (such as when you are bigger), and that people who supposedly love you may hurt you.

Not surprisingly, study after study shows that children who are physically disciplined are more aggressive toward other children, more rebellious as teenagers, and more prone to depression and violent acting out as adults.

"But then how do kids learn lessons?"

Kids who are physically disciplined are actually less likely to learn lessons, because, as anyone who has ever been harshly punished can attest, they become obsessed with fantasies of self-justification and revenge rather than considering how to control themselves to prevent future misbehavior. Instead of becoming motivated to change and avoid the misbehavior in the future, they become motivated to avoid more punishment – not at all the same thing.

"So what kind of discipline does a conscientious, compassionate parent use to coax good behavior out of immature little humans who are still developing the ability to control themselves -- and are completely capable of driving you crazy?

As a result, kids who are physically disciplined are not only more likely to repeat problem behavior than other kids, but are more likely to exhibit increasingly worse behavior, including deception.

And, presumably, the ultimate goal of that learning is self-discipline, so the lesson does not have to be repeated. So what helps kids stop themselves from acting in ways they know they should not? What gets them to start desirable behavior, and keep doing it?

"Okay, so the question, of course, is what kind of discipline is most conducive to learning?"

Let's start with the child acting in undesirable ways. When a child misbehaves, there are three possible explanations:

- He does not know what is expected of him

- He does know but can’t control himself

- He does know but does not care.

If he does not know, teaching is clearly in order: “HOT! The stove is hot!” or “We have to wait our turn for the slide.” But most teaching of this kind is modeled, as you thank Aunt Jane for inviting you, or wait for the light to turn green before you cross. Kids learn what is desirable behavior from watching you, or their classmates.

If he does know but can’t control himself, we need to help him learn to manage himself. But how?

Most discipline takes the attitude that children learn to control themselves by developing more motivation and stronger “consciences.”

But we all know that “doing the right thing” and overriding our “lesser” impulses does not result from admonishing ourselves to do better, or from making new and improved resolutions. If that were sufficient, we’d all have perfectly balanced diets and fit bodies.

The secret of managing our impulses is becoming aware of and motivated by competing impulses. “I’d like to eat this entire pint of ice cream, but my cholesterol level and waistline are more important to me,” or, for your son, “I really want to skip my homework so I can play outside, but I don’t want to face my teacher without it.”

More challenging, of course, are crimes of passion: “This colleague is really attractive, but my marriage is too important to me,” or, for your son, “I really want to hit my sister over the head when she teases me like that, but Mom would be really mad.”

Eventually, we hope, he will move from his concern over losing Mom’s love to awareness of what he wants in his connection with his sister: “I'm really annoyed at my sister right now, but I know that when she’s not being obnoxious I do love her and I don't really want to hurt her.”

Obviously, all this takes considerable maturity, which kids need our help to develop. It takes practice. Kids get this practice naturally as life deals them upsets and we help them handle them.

The key is providing our children with the experience of relationships where compassion trumps anger. When the body is flushed with the hormones of “fight or flight,” it’s hard for anyone to make wise decisions or to choose positively between competing priorities.

Helping children toward this level of emotional insight and self discipline does not happen in the heat of emotion, whether the emotion is related to the original transgression (“But she was teasing me!”), or created by our punishing response (“I’ll teach you to hit your sister! Take that!”). Instead, we need to reduce the amount of time our child spends in the overcharged physical states of anger and fear, and give him an opportunity to calm down and reflect.

Once kids are calm, we can work with them to strengthen that positive motivation and help them to recognize and control their emotions, so they can manage the opposing impulse.

"But what if the child does know that the misbehavior is off limits, but does not have the competing impulse to control himself?"

This was our third possibility, right? He does know what's expected of him, but doesn't care.

The misbehavior in this case is a symptom of a much greater problem. The competing impulse to control himself should come from his relationship with us. Children only learn to behave and manage themselves because we want them to, and because they want to please us. If he doesn't care that he's upsetting us with his misbehavior, it means our relationship with him needs strengthening. Of course kids need our guidance, but if the relationship isn't strong enough to support that guidance, then our primary focus needs to be on repairing the relationship.

Eventually, of course, kids reap the rewards of good behavior – good grades, self-esteem, approval from peers – and it begins to come naturally. It becomes part of their self image, and they automatically act to preserve that self-image. But this positive way of being always starts with their desire to please us.

On the beach recently, I saw a two year old knocking down sand castles. He took such immense pleasure in this activity that it made me want to try it myself. When his mother saw what he was doing and came running, he looked chagrined, and allowed her to lead him reluctantly away. His desire to be loved by her was already slightly stronger than his desire to knock down sand castles.

Why don’t all of us run down the beach knocking down sand castles? Because we've discovered that it’s more rewarding to be loved.

Ultimately, love is the only leverage we have with our children. Even if they worked, fear and “Because I say so!” only last for as long as they can be physically enforced.

Every parent knows how fast children grow; fear works for a very short time if it works at all. Love, on the other hand, becomes a more effective motivator over time. And it raises kids who WANT to behave.

Tribute to Mr Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015)

GoodBye Mr Lee Kuan Yew, The Creator Of Spectacular Singapore; U were the best & U stay the bestest; death can't change those facts ever... Your light shall shine bright till infinity. Singapore has lost a true son. a legend. a giant leader of our generation... we are grateful for what he had done; the foundation he built; the opportunities created & the legacy he left behind.

Mr Lee passed away peacefully at the Singapore General Hospital today 23rd March 2015, Monday at 3.18am. He was 91.

You were not just the Founder Leader of Singapore but A global legendary leader & personality that many reckoned with n looked upon for your wisdom, ethics, integrity, intelligence, leadership, commitment, hardwork, understanding & much more. 

Not to forget that You were an incredibly remarkable global personality with crystal clear vision & superb ideologies. A moment of true mourning but at the same time a person so very sincere, dedicated and perseverant who worked hard non-stop for ages to bring all kinds of goodness and best to Singapore n its people..; such a man, didn't deserve to suffer in pain or otherwise. I sincerely hope that His Soul left in peace & content. 

May His Soul rest in Divine Love & Peace. Such personalities that create histories and create nations like Singapore can never be forgotten, so He shall surely be missed every step of the way!!! 

His guidance & values will stand by for generations to come & in many innumerable n valuable ways; He will stay alive in many many hearts

Marriage Convention 2015

Programme Schedule