养不教, 父之过, 教不严, 师之惰, 子不学, 非所宜

As the popular Chinese saying goes,

人之初 ,性本善, 性相近, 习相远, 养不教, 父之过, 教不严, 师之惰, 子不学, 非所宜, 幼不学, 老何为?

For those who did not have the chance to experience taking Chinese as 1st language for ‘O’ Levels, this comes from "三字经" which is the ancient book from China that teaches you the way of the world.

The phrase can be loosely translated as:

人之初, 性本善, 性相近, 习相远,: "When one is born, our personalities are originally virtuous, and everyone is about the same, but with the experiences that we accumulate throughout a life time we begin to differentiate"

养不教, 父之过, 教不严, 师之惰: "If you raise a child and don't teach him/her to be good, it's the father's fault, if you aren't strict and through with your teachings, it's the teacher's laziness"

子不学, 非所宜, 幼不学, 老何为: "If a child doesn't learn, this is not the proper or good behaviour, because when you don't learn when you are young, what will you do when you become old/grown"

It is thus with a heavy heart that Mummy Eliz penned this entry. Although we live in an urban city, if ones ponder on the above, a lot of reflections can also be arrived at.

Mummy Eliz knows of someone, who out of convenience does all the schoolwork for her son. She claims that she often loses her temper in guiding her child’s work, and thus, felt less stress if she just breezes through it on her own.

It had been going on for a while, for almost two years, and it is definitely not beneficial to the child. Advice from friends with kind intentions falls on deaf ears, and her child is falling behind more than ever. At an age when reading skills are picked up, her child still struggles with the differentiation of the alphabets.

Mummy Eliz is not advocating over-stressing a child, but perhaps one has learn to differentiate between what should be done, and what should not. If she sends her child to school, and completes the schoolwork for her child, how then can she claim that the school fails as a good learning environment?

If the child is a hands-on learner, maybe that mummy can supplement the school’s learning by coming up with appropriate hands-on activities for the child to learn via play? Or maybe have a change of school if she really feels that the school is at fault? Or maybe she can consider home-schooling her child? Or if she is incapable of teaching her own, maybe tuition classes would help?

The bottom-line is the blame should not be shifted to others because in life, one should seek a solution to the problem. Over-coming problem helps build mental strength, and taking responsibility for something that had gone wrong is better than assignment blame right?

Mummy Eliz is not a child-raising professor, and definitely is also learning along the way. It is just that this experience had been bothering her for a while, thus, penning it down might be a good way to let it go.