by rossanahead | Mar 29, 2011 | children, Lyra Pore, parenting, woman
By Lyra Pore
Getting my kids to clean their bedrooms has been a hit-and-and miss affair in our household. I’ve tried giving direct orders: “Clean your room.” It doesn’t work. I’ve tried praising the merits of tidiness: “Isn’t it awesome?” It doesn’t work. After several years of experimentation, I’ve found two things that do work.
I’ve only written the first paragraph of this blog when I had to leave the computer to get the table ready for breakfast. I come back after a while to find this list typed into my draft:
- Give them chocolate.
- Pay them lots of money.
- Give eldest daughter a unicorn.
- Give eldest daughter books.
- Take eldest daughter to Harry Potter theme park.
- Give eldest daughter an iPad.
Nice try, eldest daughter, but these are the tricks that actually do the job:
TRICK NO. 1: Grab a large garbage bag and announce to the children: “I’m going to clean your rooms. Everything I pick up on the floor will go into this bag and get chucked in the bin.”
It doesn’t matter whatever’s keeping them busy at the moment. Selena Gomez could very well be doing the most amazing thing on Wizards of Waverly Place, but they drop everything at the sight of the black garbage bag and run to their rooms as fast they can. They know our ever-reliable garbage collector never misses his weekly run.
TRICK NO. 2: Invite their friends to come to the house.
Two weeks ago, one of their classmates rang around 11:00 in the morning.
“Can I come over to play?”
“What time?”
“11:30?”
“Mom, is that OK?”
“Yes. But make sure you tidy up. You know I don’t like showing other people our mess.”
As soon as she hangs up the phone, she and her sister run around the house picking up toys and other litter. In less than half an hour, they have the house–not just their bedrooms–looking sparkling clean.
Ha! You bet I’ve been on the phone today organizing play dates with other moms.
“Hi! I was wondering if I could invite your little girl to come play at our house this weekend.”
“Thank you! That’s wonderful. She’d love to come.”
Featured Photo Courtesy of Metro Parent
by rossanahead | Mar 28, 2011 | children, Education, parenting, woman
By Bubbles Salvador
The terrible twos can be, well, terrible. This I know because my son, only almost two, is worlds away from that cute little baby who always did as Mommy or Daddy said.
It’s not that he’s out of control – he’s just too much to handle sometimes.
Luis behaves very well in church, and is able to sit through the entire mass. At night, we say our prayers together, which he ends with a sweet “Good night, God!” He even surprises me with an affectionate hug every now and then.
But there are also times when the terrible twos hits like the plague. When he refuses to share a toy or greet an elder (we insist on the age-old tradition of pagmamano), it could result into a riot: Mommy is screaming, Daddy is demanding obedience, Luis starts whining.
“It’s a phase,” my Mama said. Should I believe her? She instilled enough fear in me and my siblings to make sure that none of us even thought of misbehaving like that. What did she know about terrible twos?
“Just keep telling him that what he’s doing is wrong. It’ll take a while but he’ll get it. Luis is smart,” she told me.
Maybe Mama’s right after all. “Smart” may be the key word. At times, even before we send him to the corner for a timeout, Luis would go there himself and say, “Stay…corner. Mommy’s mad.”
It is exactly this smartness that we are counting on so we can finally get past this stage. He can recite the rules anytime: “No hitting. No throwing toys. Good boy lang.” I think we’re getting there.
I guess part of being a parent is hitting these highs and lows; we just try to make the most out of the highs. Just as we need to encourage our kids’ positive behaviour, we also need to give ourselves a pat on the back for trying (and just keep our fingers crossed that things turn out OK!).
Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Mar 27, 2011 | Jing Lejano, parenting, woman
By Jing Lejano
The other week, I had dinner at my friend Janice’s house. I’ve known Janice and her husband Gary for years. And I’ve always looked up at them as an ideal couple. They not only love each other to bits, they also work very well together.
Janice and I were at the living area talking when Gary said an inviting “Kain na.” When nobody seemed to pay him any attention, he barked a more commanding “Kain na!” And, as if on reflex, I stood up straight and realized that there was a man in the house. It was kind of disconcerting.
I’ve been a single parent for years and years now. There is no man in my house. I’m the boss of the house. I spend time with my kids and take care of them when they get sick. I pay the bills and run the household. If something needs to be done–paint the walls, change the light bulb, tile the bathroom floor, whatever–I do it. If I can’t do it, I pay someone else to do it for me.
I admit that it’s not the most ideal of situations but I make the best of it because I have to. I just have to.
Sometimes, I feel guilty about the whole thing. When they were younger, I noticed how my boys got so easily attached to my sisters’ boyfriends. I knew they were just hungry for a father figure, and unfortunately, that’s something I couldn’t order online.
But when I see my boys today, taking care of their niece Sophie, going out with their barkada, laughing at reruns of How I Met Your Mother, washing the dishes no matter how reluctantly, and occasionally, fighting over the computer, I tell myself, “We’re doing fine.”
Photo by Aswin on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Mar 25, 2011 | Gina Abuyuan, parenting, woman
By Gina Abuyuan
A friend and I got into a pretty huge argument a couple of years ago when she kept on insisting that I was a solo parent, while I felt the total opposite. Well, technically, I was—I was recently annulled and living alone–but the support group I had from family, my partner (who at that time was working abroad), loyal househelp, and friends made me more equipped at parenting from all fronts than most moms who were married.
Perhaps what irked me most was how she categorized or described kids of solo parents. They had issues, she said. Special issues that needed special attention. And that I, being a solo parent, would not be able to best handle such issues.
Not to say I’m turning a blind eye towards situations that may indeed need intervention, or that I’m in total denial about issues kids raised by one parent may have (believe me, I’ve seen and heard quite a few), but the scenario isn’t as bleak as she wanted to paint it to be.
In fact, kids of solo parents can be intrapersonally healthier than kids of partnered parents. Of course it depends on the environment in which the child is brought up. It goes without saying that if a child is brought up with respect, attention, and a fair amount of discipline, he or she will turn out ok.
Here are other things single parents may be doing that help in producing more well-grounded kids:
* Single parents have a more solid view of reality. It may sting at first, but there comes a point when every solo parent realizes that they’ve “missed the bus” in the fairy tale life department. Therefore, solo moms and dads are more conscious of bringing up their kids with a more balanced and sober view of disappointment and unmet expectations. Whether one turns bitter and cynical, or hopeful—but not naïve and psycho—is up to him or her. What every single parent should watch out for though is the syndrome called “parent-child,” wherein the child takes the role of the parent. The child may feel he or she should take upon the role of an adult, or even take care of mom or dad.
* Without meaning to, single parents teach their kids to be more understanding and responsible. Those family weekend trips to the mall, the church, the on-the-dot family dinners? Sure, a two-parent unit can fulfill those easily most of the time, but when taken up by a solo parent, schedules tend to get moved around. There’s work to be done, errands to be run, tasks that have to be completed that would be much easier if mom/dad had a partner. Kids of solo parents learn to deal with unexpected glitches early in life, and therefore become more understanding. If you’re lucky, your kids will also take it upon themselves to bring to the table—whether it be a particular behavior, or duty—something uniquely his or hers, in order to make the family function better.
* Kids of single parents communicate more and better. Again, provided he or she has no deep emotional or mental issues, single parents seem to make more efforts in communication and keeping connected with their kids. Heck, who else do they have to talk to anyway? Likewise, who else can you turn to to learn about what they’re going through? You don’t have a spouse, and a yaya isn’t exactly the best source of information. I may be wrong, but observation has shown me that kids of solo parents are more bonded with their mom/dad on deeper levels.
And, oh, in case you’re wondering, my friend doesn’t have kids. Neither is she married.
Photo by Randy Rooibaatjie on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Mar 23, 2011 | Mari-an Santos, travel, woman
By Mari-An Santos
“I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above,” goes one of my favorite songs. This is apparent in little miracles of daily life. But it was even more vivid during my recent holiday in Thailand.
I so enjoyed the hospitality and kindness of Siam last year that I returned with two friends in tow. As we were by no means experts on traversing the streets of Thailand, we often relied on the kindness of strangers.
There was the young man in Bangkok who I asked if I was at the right bus stop to MBK. Indicating that he could not speak English, he proceeded to call a friend on his mobile. When his friend was unreachable, he asked people for directions. And as it turned out, I was on the wrong side of the road. He not only pointed out where I should wait, he also helped me cross the street.
There was the girl on the train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, who along with her mother, was making flowers from ribbons for her brother to offer at the temple. We asked what they were doing, entranced by the rhythmic movement and ease by which they transformed a simple band into a floral replica, and soon, she was asking about the Philippines. At the end of the ride, we gave them some polvoron baon and she gave each one of us a rose.
There was this woman and her husband in Ayutthaya who we asked about how we could walk get to our house from the night market. She said that it was too far for us to walk. They let us ride in their car and drove us there instead! She gave us her number to call in case we needed anything else while in Thailand.
There was the sales clerk from 7-Eleven who, a few minutes after I asked for directions to the Warorot Market in Chiang Mai, drove up in his motorcycle as I was walking down the street, clutching the tiny sketch he had made for me. He said that he would take me part of the way since he was on his way there too.
There was this couple giving an old friend a temple tour of Chiang Mai that generously offered me a seat on their Benz to join them for the day. I ended up exploring Doi Suthep, a popular hilltop temple frequented by tourists, and a little known pagoda that had a 600-year-old history. We had a late dinner at an authentic Thai restaurant.
God has situated angels all over to help us in many different ways in the form of people we meet on our way. When you open yourself up—of course, not too much, but just right—people reveal to you their most beautiful qualities and you in turn are able to show others the good in you.
Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash
