On the Forum there are different topics posted on the page regularly that seeks people’s opinions, and yesterday I saw a comment by a mother, who said “I want to be a working mum. But how do I live with the guilt?”

I think most mothers feel guilt at times in various degrees, because as a mother we feel we have the main responsibility for our children’s well-being and welfare, and when mothers are not able to be with their children as much as they feel is right for them, it causes a lot of stress and anxiety, because they worry they will not be with their children enough to feel like a good enough mother and this prevents some mothers from working when they have children.

I know of workplaces where the employers are fine with employees going home, when they have worked the expected number of hours in their contract, whether it’s at 5 or 6pm depending on what time they arrive at work, but because there is always more work to do, colleagues staying back longer and late office meetings, it’s difficult for employees to go against the norm and go home “early”. It requires a mind shift in how people view work, themselves, family responsibilities and free time and courage to stay committed to what feels right for them, even when their colleagues stay longer at work than they do.

I believe that mothers who work and who are with their children enough to fulfill their own need to feel like a good mother, whatever that means for the individual, as it’s different from mother to mother, are not only good performers at work, because they are more focused and work more efficiently to complete their work on time to go home to their children, but they will also raise happier and emotionally well-functioning children, because when mothers feel good about themselves and what they are doing with their lives, it has a positive impact on their children and everybody else around them too.

It’s all about feeling good about the choices we make in our lives and staying committed to do the best we can for ourselves and our family, our employers and community.

However I think employers have to start thinking about the expectations they have to their employees, because in most jobs today, work never stops, there is always more to be done and more that can be done, but a healthy business and society must strike a healthy balance between what is reasonable to expect of work to be done by the individual employee to make a sound business and ensuring that employees don’t get sick from the stress of overworking themselves to meet unreasonable demands and the stress, anxiety and inadequacy that parents feel, because they don’t have enough time together with their children and spouses, which prevents them from having the emotional surplus and energy to be a patient and understanding parent and spouse. There are a lot of expectations on today’s parents, which are hard to fulfill, which I think is why we are seeing a rise in non-communicable diseases like high blood pressure and emotional and psychological problems, but because of the expectations, the fast pace and the desire to earn a comfortable living and doing their best to secure their children’s future, parents can hardly breathe before the next task is demanding their attention.

From a whole societal perspective it would be much better if workplaces were flexible enough to allow employees to work according to the work hours in their contract, as long as they live up to reasonable expectations, and it should not matter that a person arrives at work at 7-8am in the morning and leaves at 4-5pm or arrives at 9-10am and leaves at 6-7pm or later if they choose, as long as they perform the job they are supposed to, as they will spend less time stuck in traffic, which is good for the environment, but it will also give parents the option of planning their family life better to create a healthy environment for their children and themselves to flourish and prosper and live happy lives. This will also have a positive effect on the relationships between spouses, because their lives would be less stressful and they can do things that makes them happy together.

I think that companies that are able to offer this balance between work and free time to their employees will be more successful in the future, because I think that employees who are happier and healthier in mind and body are less sick and will do the best they can at work, because at some point people will realise that the wealth and status that might come from working harder and longer will not be worth the effort, if it comes at the expense of their own and their family’s health and well-being, and people will begin to settle for less luxurious lives, in order to live a happy and balanced life without anxiety, unhealthy stress and disease.

As a business owner I know that sometimes we need to work longer hours to meet a deadline or fulfill our promises to clients and that is okay, but we need to be able to prioritise our work and be more focused and effective in completing the tasks at hand, and not waste time on unnecessary distractions, which takes our mind away from what needs to be done. It should be possible to get one days work done in 7-8 hours, and if we can’t, it’s because we are not focused and productive enough in those 7-8 hours. In other words we allow ourselves to be distracted from the work we should be doing or are trying to stretch ourselves too much and beyond what is healthy for us.

We need rest to allow our mind and body to relax and recuperate by doing something else like exercising, spend time with our loved ones and/or friends and do things we love e.g. a hobby, reading, writing etc. as long as we are enjoying it. By working 12-16 hours daily and staying late at work every day all year round doesn’t make us more successful and I don’t think we accomplish more work or better results than we would, if we worked effectively for 8 hours a day or 40 hours spread out over a week. Some people even claim to work effectively for only 4 hours daily and still manage to live a comfortable life. So maybe it’s a paradigm shift in how we work and also what employers expect of results from each employee, as this of course has to be reasonable.

I agree that our children in an international school shouldn’t have to go for extra tuition, but since I wasn’t there to hear the Principal’s talk on the issue, I don’t know the school’s reasons, so I will tell you my own reasons for not sending my children for extra tuition.

1. I was brought up and educated in Denmark, and it was and still is very unusual that parents send their children to extra tuition after school, because it is believed that the teaching received in school is sufficient enough for the students to be able to pass their exams with fairly good results and with a bit of extra effort on the part of the student will result in very good results. Only students who have learning difficulties like dyslexia would require extra help by professionals.

As neither of my two children have a learning difficulty, I expect them to be able to do what’s required of them in school and do faily well at their exams, as I did in my school time, without the need for extra tuition. Parents in Denmark help their children if they need help and if parents are not able to help, the students have no choice but to figure it out by themselves or get help from their friends or teachers, which is a good way for them to learn how to be responsible and pro-active.

Being involved in our children’s education by supporting and helping them ensures that we take an active and positive role in our children’s lives, which also has the benefit of bringing us closer together. It also gives us parents an all-important understanding of our children’s strenghts and weaknesses, which will furthermore enable us to help and guide them properly and continuously rather than giving that responsibility to someone else.

2. Extra tuition defeats the purpose of teaching our children to work and strive independently, to become pro-active and take responsibility for learning the required topics in school, when they are dependent on extra teachers outside school to give them the expected extra edge or advantage to excel in their studies. I believe that extra tuition done by other teachers outside school downplay the students’ sense of responsibility for their own education and learning and may also confuse them, as they are given work that may not reinforce what they learn in school and may even be in conflict with the teachings of the teachers in school.

3. The school day in the international school, my children attend, is already quite long compared to national schools, and most days my children get home at 16:00 or 17:00 hrs, and they leave at 6.45am in the morning. That is about 9-10+ hours a day that they are away from home as part of their schooling, which is like an adult. If they go for extra tuition for another 2 hours or more, it means 12+ hours a day, which is much longer than the average working adult.

4. I would also worry that this information overload that they are exposed to from a young age will exhaust the children with the result that they don’t really understand what they learn, as there is not enough time for their brains to absorb all the information, hence they are forced to memorise it for one purpose only, to get good results at exams, but the moment the exams are over, they forget what they have learnt, hence the impact of their learning is only short-term. What’s worse is that they may not want to continue reading and learning throughout their lives, because they had too much of it prematurely, which limits their opportunities in future, because it’s unlikely they will be successful in business or in a career, if they are not prepared to keep reading and learning for the rest of their working lives.

5. I feel it’s important that my children are allowed to be children and have some free-time to do what they like to do at their own pace and without parent involvement and without expectations of being productive all the time. So much are expected of children today and even higher expectations when they become adults. Many are expected to live out their parents’ dreams of higher education and careers or more success in one way or the other. That is a lot of pressure on children and I believe if parents are not careful, our children may develop depression or other mental disorders or simply grow up without being happy or being able to enjoy life and life’s simple pleasures, because they can’t fulfil these expectations.

If I had a choice I would rather see my children, when they become adults, happy and enjoying life than seeing them dragging themselves out of bed every morning to go to work without any excitement or happiness in their hearts. And I believe that it is possible to create a life that combines happiness and success, personally and financially, one doesn’t have to exclude the other.

6. I don’t understand why there is such an extreme focus on getting good grades at exams, as from the newspapers we can read that most of the graduates don’t possess the required skills and abilities to be considered attractive candidates for employment. And the question is therefore, do straight As really give students an advantage, in the long run, over students, who have had more time to develop other essential life skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, interpersonal skills etc., since they had more time to be involved in other activities such as music, art and craft, sports and other creative hobbies, which has proved to strengthen them in other profound and all-round ways than purely concentrating on getting top grades academically. Perhaps a combination would give more desirable results in the long run.

7.  Finally I believe that if students do all their homework, classwork and projects, if they make an extra effort and do additional reading and practising outside school by themselves, if they have a pro-active attitude and seek help if needed and if a student doesn’t have any learning difficulty or other events prevents them from getting a fair grade at their exams, it is not extra tuition that is needed, but the school that needs to be approached. And since we send our children to an international school, and pay for our children’s education, we can expect the school to deliver results based on the students’ abilities and efforts. And if the school fails to do that, we have the right to address this concern to the school, rather than just give up and send our children to extra tuition, as it really shouldn’t be necessary.

I know of parents in international schools that send their children to extra tuition in order to get good grades at the exams, paying RM 600-900 per month for tuition for just one subject and who complain that the school takes credit for the students’ achievements. I think there is something wrong with this arrangement. I can understand that parents who send their children to local schools have no choice but to send their children to extra tuition, because they may not be able to expect much of the teachers, when they don’t pay for the school, but parents who pay premium fees in private and international schools have the right to expect good results without the need for extra tuition. And if parents don’t think or worry their children may not get the desired grades, they should bring it up with the school.

There are probably more reasons that can be thought of and I would like to hear your comments, but my opinion is that children only need extra tuition by teachers outside school, if they have a learning difficulty or if they need to catch up with the other students, because they haven’t been taught the topics before, if they have just moved school, or if for other reasons such as illness or involvement in competitive sports or other very time-consuming activities, they have fallen behind the rest of the class.

If a child cannot cope with his/her studies and none of the above reasons are applicable, perhaps we as parents are not taking our responsibility seriously enough of teaching our children the important lesson of responsibility and commitment to their studies or express our expectations clearly enough, and thereby allowing our children to do badly in school and that is our own fault, not the school’s, the teachers’ or anybody elses fault.

If our children don’t perform as well as desired, I sincerely believe that it is our own fault for failing to do something about it, and that doesn’t include considering extra tuition, because I don’t intend to spent money on that. If we could manage in school without extra help, so can our children, otherwise it would be the same as saying that we don’t believe our children can do as well as us and how would that effect their self worth and confidence?

I can’t stress enough my agreement with Ms Moore and how happy and fortunate we are as parents to welcome her in September 2009 in Tenby.

Enjoy!

Extract from the book called ‘Positive discipline’ by Nelsen, Lott & Glenn.

“We often hear the cry, “back to basics!” We agree. However, we disagree with many on the definition of “the basics.” We do not believe that the basics are reading, writing and arithmetic. We believe the basics are Courage, confidence and life skills, because with these, children have fertile ground on which to plant the seeds of academics and to live successfully in the world.
Reading, writing and arithmetic are not enough to prepare young people for responsible citizenship. All the academic knowledge in the world will not help those who lack self-discipline, judgment, social interest, ability to make good choices and sense of responsibility that enable them to act effectively in life. Unfortunately, our educational system today often does not provide young people with these skills.”

“The positive discipline dream…… We have a dream. A dream about schools where young people are treated with respect and have the opportunity to learn the skills they need for a successful life. A dream about schools where children will never experience humiliation when they fail but will instead feel empowered by the opportunity to learn from their mistakes in a safe environment. It is a dream about schools where students learn cooperation instead of competition, where students and teachers collaborate on solutions. It is a dream about students and teachers helping one another to create an environment that inspires excitement for life and learning because fear and feelings of inadequacy and discouragement are no longer part of the learning environment. The end result is an educational system that nurtures young people and gives them the skills and attitudes to help them be happy, contributing members of society.
Many teachers and students have realised this dream by using methods based on mutual respect. Mutual respect requires that adults see children as people and as unique individuals. Teachers who see students in this light do not treat them as robots whose only function is to be controlled and manipulated for their own good. They see students as valuable resources with worthwhile ideas and skills.”

Comment from Ms Moore:

This is an extract from a book called ‘Positive discipline’ by Nelsen, Lott & Glenn. As a teacher I always look to different ways in which I can support my students wellbeing as well as their academics. This book has a very positive stance on how to open up communications and give children the opportunity to participate in class decisions. Whether a teacher or a parent it has different ideas to help us adults deal with children. Based on developing mutual respect through positive discipline rather than discipline through control and punishment. This book tries to show that it is possible to turn negativity around, but it takes both time and commitment to change the atmosphere in our schools and classrooms. There are consequences of continuing with the approach of discipline through fear and punishment. There is an effect on children’s outlook on life and their willingness to learn new things. The book demonstrates studies in America that show mental conditions that carry on into adulthood.

“Dr. William Nicoll calls his first category Classroom-Induced School Phobia. This condition expresses itself through persistent, excessive worry about school and a fear of doing something or acting in a way that could be humiliating or embarrassing, possibly resulting in disapproval or rejection. The problem may be accompanied by headaches, stomach aches, decreased social functioning outside of school, verbalised fears of poor performance, fear of teacher, nightmares, sleep disturbances, depression and a refusal to attend school.

Dr. Nicholl sums up with a description of what he calls Adult Children of Dysfunctional Classrooms. These adults become agitated when faced with new tasks, responsibilities or challenges; they suffer flashbacks involving past classroom traumas, such as failure, perceived humiliation and loss of prestige. They may also avoid risk taking, experience feelings of inferiority or inadequacy or possess generalised anger and resentment towards educators.”

As a teacher I believe it is my responsibility to not just teach my subject but to care and show consideration to my students. We all have at least one bad experience as a result of student teacher interaction that we remember into adulthood. I would hope with the correct school environment and a positive discipline approach to teaching, children can recount their time at school as a good and positive experience. Having developed a long the way a love for learning and a lifelong quest to always better themselves. I continue even as an adult taking new courses, learning new things and wanting to share the important things I have learnt. I hope this article is a help to parents who want to know what should be the bench mark and the expectations in a modern school system.
 
Ms. Moore