My twins:"We are husband and wife"

My husband and I burst into hilarious laughter earlier this week when my twins claimed strongly that they are husband and wife. They were apparently trying to "emulate" what we had told them about our relationship.

"Both of you are brother and sister", we said.

"No! We are husband and wife!",they both said simultaneously. Despite several other attempts to explain the different kind of relationships, they had chosen to ignore what we had said.

It is kind of interesting here because in some ancient Chinese beliefs, they believed that twins of different sex are reincarnation of husband and wife in their past life. That's if you also believe in reincarnation. I began to wonder if that's true for my twins........though it sounded silly. *smile*

In any way, we decided to let this little "husband and wife" dialogue rest. Most likely, it is just one of those young kids' interesting dialogue or small talks that tickle your life.

The Dreadful Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease

There is an outbreak of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease (HFMD) recently at my twins childcare centre. 5 cases were reported in the last two weeks. And it seems that country wide Singapore had reported about over 700 cases of HFMD last month, mainly infected by pre-schoolers and young kids under the age of five. It is definitely a viral season.

Am I afraid? Certainly. Though my twins had unluckily contacted HFMD last September, they are not immune to the next infection.

What's so terrible about it?

The young children will usually have the following symptoms :

• mouth ulcers,
• Rashes (flat or raised red spots, some with blisters) on their palms, soles or buttocks;
• maybe some fever for 2-3 days, sore throat and runny noses.
• Vomiting and diarrhoea
• Poor appetite (mainly due to mouth ulcers)
• Tiredness and weakness

There is no treatment for HFMD, except medications to relieve symptoms which takes about 10 days to retreat. And in severe cases, if the young children are infected with a enterovirus-71(EV71) strains, it can cause neurological diseases like encephalitis and meningitis.

I remembered about 7 deaths of young pre-schoolers reported in Singapore over the peak virus outbreak of the HFMD EV71 in year 2000 and 2001. The island wide childcare centres had to be shut down for two weeks to stop the strain of virus from spreading. And parents at that time were more than happy to keep their children at home.

Last September, I was cursing and swearing at the odd chances of my twins getting HFMD though it was the milder coxsackie virus (CA16). Apparently, HFMD never sparred anyone, even adults could get it.

At that time, my twin girl, Gwyneth got HFMD first, but I did not notice any symptoms except her poor appetite; which I mistakenly thought it was due to her picky eating habit. Then her childcare teacher called to inform me that Gwyneth had a fever and she discovered some light red spots on her hands on the second day. That was when I started to find several mouth ulcers deep in her throat which were not easily visible unless you shine a torchlight in it.

I actually refused to believe Gwyneth got HFMD until the paediatrician confirmed the diagnosis. By then, on the third day, my twin boy, Asher was also infected with HFMD due to his supposedly contact with contaminated articles by Gwyneth; not surprisingly for twins with such close relationship.

My twins were not allowed to attend pre-school for at least 10 days until all symptoms are cleared. The most difficult part was the kids' diet, they basically did not feel like eating anything due to the pain coming from the ulcers. And I certainly do not wish to go through the same cycle again. God Bless.

Teaching my kids to be offensive to School Bullies

The last time I wrote about my twins being bullied in preschool, a website "Coffee Grounds", primarily discussing about school bullies, picked up my story to relate to his readers. I find that interesting as finally some parents congregate to share and hopefully seek some practical solutions in a common issue that they faced with their young kids.

Perhaps as a first time parent, it amazes me that school bullying could occur at such a young age (my twins were only about three years old when the incident happened). At that time, I was thinking hard if my parenting skills could have gone "hay wired" in anyway? Maybe as parents, we could have entrenched such a strong mindset of good behaviour in our kids that when school bullying occurs, the kids did not know how to deal or react to it.

So recently, my husband and I decided to teach our twins to be on the mildly offensive side to their school bullies should any incident happen again.

"If Jarren beat you again, tell him to stop it, and quickly tell your teacher about it." We role play in front of them a few times. I noticed that my twin son brightened up immediately as if he was armed with a "new weapon". We got both twins to role play with us until they are both confident about saying,"Stop it, stop beating me .....I'll go and tell Teacher Michelle now...".

A week after the role play, my twin son told me cheerfully that he had fend off one of his friend who tried to beat him. I praised him for being brave. He definitely feels more confident in preschool now. It is a stark contrast in comparison to his worried face every morning when I brought him to preschool previously.

Are kids having fun?

In our daily and busy life, we often sent our kids to the childcare centre early in the morning before we went to work and brought them home after work in the evening. The kids followed a routine almost daily for 5 days.

Sometimes, they would ask,"why do I have to go to a childcare, why do I have to take a nap in school, why do you have to work?". These are questions that are easy but also difficult to answer. In this "cat eats dog" society coupled with rising inflation, a dual income in a family is almost ascertain to ensure some quality of life. So talking about kids having fun? Are they? Perhaps on the weekend only where you would bring them to the zoo, parks, excursion for some fun. You can see the delighted faces smiling at you for the whole day.

But I pitied the new generation of preschoolers or young kids. Before they joined the first year of primary school, they have got to recognise words, understand simple arithmetic and science. They need to familiarise with all these to be in the "norm" group and not in the "outstanding" group of students. So some preschoolers' weekends are spent in phonics, brain stimulation, science and language enrichment classes, just to prepare them for a good head start in their life. And these enrichment schools usually emphasize 'learn through play'.

During our generation, we only needed to know the letters of the alphabet and recognising the numbers, who cared about addition, subtraction in arithmetic or spelling of words in English?

So are the kids today having fun? I wonder?

School Bullies in Preschool?

Think that school bullying will never happen to preschoolers?

My twin son just told me last night before he slept,"Mommy, Jarren used a duster to hit on my head.....and also on Gwyneth (his twin sister)." He was also showing the action of the duster hitting his forehead concurrently.

I asked him immediately what his reaction was. He said he had told his teacher and Jarren, his preschool friend, got a "scolding". I commended that he did the right thing and should inform the teacher should such incidents happen again.

In anyway, this is not the first incident since the twins joined the preschool. End of last year, both of them were beaten (on the chest and face) by a bigger size boy in their class, though they were not physically hurt. Apparently, another boy in that class had joined the action, thinking that it was fun. It went on for about two weeks even after my twins "complained" to the teacher and both of them started to develop a fear for school. I quickly spoke to the principal and teacher regarding the bullies "beating" incidence and my then twin toddlers' phobia about school. I think the preschool realised how serious the "bullying" was and not just toddlers or young kids messing around with gentle fight (my kids did not even fight back!). The preschool separated them into different classes this year, counselled both "bullies" and spoke to their parents about the beating incidents. That was when my twins started to re-settle into preschool life; but they remembered that incident and sometimes would still talk to me about it.

Sometimes, as a desperate mommy, I wish that my twins are the school bullies instead of being bullied; I wish that I could tell the twins that if the bullies hit you, hit them back instead of just standing there; I wish I could tell those young bullies off directly; and I also wish I could confront the parents of these bullies. But they were just desperate wishes to protect your own kids and everybody knew that they could never be deployed in the civilised world.

I suppose school bullying is what the twins got to manage in many years to come in their school life.

3 Most Effective Ways of Managing Tantrums for Busy Parents

From experience and reading books on managing tantrums, I find that the 3 most effective ways or methods of managing tantrums are as follows:

• 1. Prevent or avoid it : The best way to manage tantrums is actually to prevent tantrums from happening. The key is to find out the cause or causes of your toddler/kid's tantrum. What are the factors triggering the tantrum? Is it hunger, tiredness, lack of sleep or perhaps simply an inability to express or communicate their needs? For example, if you know that your toddler/kid is going to flare up or throw a tantrum after switching off his/her favourite TV program, then pre-empt him/her about 10 minutes before that. Give your toddler/kid another reminder 2-3 minutes before you switch off the TV. Young children basically do not like sudden changes or to be caught by suprise.
  


• 2. Distraction : If you sense that your toddler/kid is about to throw or has started a tantrum, try distracting him/her. "Shall we go to the pet shop to see Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy?", " Shall we play hide-and-seek now?, "Do you want to eat your favourite yogurt now?". The trick here is to find something else that will catch the toddler/kid's attention and led him/her to another action instead of letting the toddler/kid focused on his emotions.



• 3. Ignore it : If all else fails, then simply ignore the tantrums. Do not attempt to shout or argue back (most parents under stress tend to have this reaction, it is important to keep your cool or control your rage at this moment) with your emotionally charged toddler or kid. That will make the tantrums worse. Sensing that you are not giving him/her any attention on his tantrums, the toddler/kid would eventually "cool down".

These three tried-and-tested ways or methods of managing tantrums work even pretty well with twins. Try it and share your experience with me.

Recommended book for managing tantrum if you need one :