The Sad Cycle

After about a decade I finally figured the puzzle, it was foolishly slow but still  I am able to see a clearer picture now. What puzzle am I taking about? It is about the cycle of Kenzo’s whining and his mom abusive reactions to it.

We all know that kids will use tantrums to get their way, it was a classic and a natural children’s instinct, quite a few parents can smell this sadly not all. Rather than deal with the horrible tantrums the parents will take the easy way out by letting the kid get his way. It will solve the problem in the short term but creating a bigger problem in the future. Many parents fall in this trap, we see them in the mall where the kid wanted a toy but the parents wont buy and the kid will whine until public humiliation forced the parents to purchase.

Back in 2016, when we first brought Ken to the US, Sue pointed out that Kenzo only act out when his mum is around because he knows that his mum will make him stop by giving in. I raised this point many times before and had been a subject of many arguments in the past, but this morning I realized after soo many years this is still a ‘thing”.

Few days ago, Mum complained about how Kenzo and Tita Ann had a disagreement. Kenzo was scolded and punished (not physical) because he did not do his school work. When I was told about it, I did not bother to probe and just thought it was due to a typical disagreement. This morning the “fight” came up again and this time I had a better picture. It was due to Kenzo complaining that he is not getting incentive to do work as much as Liam does. Becuase of his percieved “unfairness” Ken refused to do school work. Naturally, his tita will oppose this and will not give in and since his mum was there to make the rescue, kenzo used bawling to get a helping hand. It ended in a impasse between his Tita’s stonewall defense and Kenzo’s loud protests and Mum is the only piece to break the stalemate by giving ken an escape out.  His mum also told me that she was uncomfortable to see others reprimand Ken and that she is the only one who must do the punishing ( a reason which I think is stupid), rather than convince Kenzo to do the work she was asking ken to decide to stay at home if he is not keen on doing the work.

Then that is the time it occured to me how his mum was creating a bigger problem in the future by sweeping it under the rug today. She was gonna make Ken scoot his way out of the school work by not going to his Tita today. She was thinking if there will be no confrontation between Ken and his Tita then there wont be any tantrums, fights and punishments… which is good…. but sadly what will happen next week,next month,  next homework that Kenzo needs to do? Are we gonna forever scoot around his Tita and his school work forever?

So, I sternly took Ken’s Tita’s side and I think her ways was justified. I criticised her about her continuous complaints about Ken’s being a crybaby, while it is in fact her fault that she encourage this by rather by jumping over disagreements with him by giving in to his crying.

I understand her POV because wailing his irritating and it is an easier route to just surrender, but if this become a habit and  is left unchecked this can snowball to something horrible someday.

Hopefully all will better soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Gory

Our weekend morning (or during holidays) is never peaceful, I am not exagerating, really it is. Weekend morning is when we are all here, normally they will head to momsie’s house at around 11am, and between 7am to 11am  when we are all here. It will start with a hopeful typical morning, to be fair we dont wake up already hating and grumpy, normally there is a plan to make the day typical. It will start by cooking breakfast, brewing coffee after that within the next 1 to 2 hrs things will escalate from typical to HELL. It can be the first 10mins of eating breakfast or about 2 hours after, one will just have to wait  and the riot will come.

It can be Kenzo not liking the food or how it was cooked, a conversation between mom and I that will start nicely and even up into an argument within 20mins, it can be due to soemone being slow, or a mess, or someone not taking a bath, a lost shoe, charger, toy, shirt etc… anything that can tip us over our edge, even with just an exaggerated slight nudge Kenzo, Mum and I will instantly lose it. It will be either bawling, tantrums, whining, fighting between the 2 kids or bad words like Shit, Gago, Putangina, Fuck etc that will fill our weekend morning.

It is not a happy life. We are stressed and unhappy and no one can stomach all this stress for a long time, one day one of us  or all of us will have to give up, and break. Like a bridge loaded with weight over its capacity,  one day the rivets, foundation, support will eventually break.

Disappointment

When a baby is born, we as parents are full of hope about the best things. My kid will be a doctor, or a lawyer, we often say.   Sadly when we failed to guide them to the right path our kids will gravitate towards the easiest and convenient path. We all know how difficult and boring to do school work and it is easier to just loiter and play video games. When we failed to do our job as a parent to lead them, they will end up doing just the fun things. If we allow kids to choose between toys and books, they will probably always choose toys and play.

I used to giude Kenzo in doing his school work, 4 years at JMS and first 2 yrs at San Beda, sadly recently I am too spent and tired from all life’s difficulties and curveballs. It has become quite hard for me to have the fortitude to motivate to teach and that left Kenzo and Liam to wander away from the right path of learning.

We are on our 4th month of stay-at-home and they have not done anything substantial learning-wise. They wasted their time watching videos and playing games on their gadgets. They are falling into that scary trap of the unlearned and the dumb.

It is a sad sight to just see them fail in reaching their potential, and in losing their rhythm and momentum in their school work. But what can I do, I lost all my patience to also pick up a pencil to teach them.

I used to dream big things for them but( mostly our fault ) they are heading now, if not corrected, to a mediocre to below average school life.

When I see them spend useless hours playing video games, I feel disappointment in them and in myself. It is as if they are not the kids I wanted anymore.  how can they be like that? How can they be at an early age let their brain rot inside a pixelized reality of a computer game? I hated video games because it is a big waste of time that is why I hated how they waste their time on it.

It is sad to see them fizzle into like what they are now, little boys addicted to games. To be honest, I am disappointment in them and quarter of me is starting to unlike them for what they had become and I hated myself and my life for also not re-directing them to do the right things.

 

 

Microscope

I am currently waiting for the Microscope I ordered online. It is for the kids to hopefully drum up their interest in Science. It may or may lead to a career in science but at least, I can hopefully tip them to it.

I dont care much about other subjects, I just really hope the boys will be good at Math, Science, English and History, and if they do I will be happy.

I remember a few years back, Ken and Li got a bit interested in Astronomy and Black holes and I excitedly bought them a book about space and even considered to buy them a Celestron Telescope to watch interplanetary space. I was really happy that Astronomy interested them.

If not science I hope math will attract them too. I often squeeze some snippets about the beauty of math, like the only thing in life that tells the truth is Math. Math does not lie, unlike people or other stuff.

I really like the kids to be good a sports and Math and Science, if they come to me about those I am able and ready to talk about it but sadly lately they are concerned mostly about Video Games and Youtubers. Many times they will stop me to talk about ther games but I am too bored to even fake interest but if we are gonna  talk about important stuff like Science and History and I am all ears.

I am wishing that the microscope will open the door of the world of micro organism, the life and universe of the smallest things. I cant wait for it to arrive and to work it with them.

Kramer Vs. Kramer

Finally I was able to watch the movie Kramer vs Kramer and it happened in the prefect time, when I can relate to it. It is about parenting and divorce, in a way the story is like my story.

At the start of the story when Meryll Streep was saying goodbye in the elevator to Dustin Hoffman, she said “He (their son) will be better off with out me.” which is about the same thing I was saying all these years.

Meryll was suffering from an unhappy marriage, pyschologigical issues decided to walk away and left her son to his father, played by Dustin.

Initially Dustin had a hard time being a single parent, juggling work and parenting… and then it all crashed down. He was not able to handle the frustration and stress and one day, he just snapped at his kid.

The similarities on my life ended there.

Towards the second half  of the movie Dustin ( and later Meryll too) recovers and started to be a good dad. The second half is about redemption and the fight to be a good dad.

Like Meryll, I am too suffering from sadness, mental illness, crumbling personal and domestic life. Like Dustin I am stressed and frustrated. Sadly, in my story I dont think there is a looming recovery of a sunny day.

A new side

I saw 2 sides of Liam that I am previously unaware of – that he is imaginative, creative, a planner or cunning. 🙂

The first one is how he leads you to answer that he wants. Rather than asking you directly, he will ask you series of questions until it lead to answer or a request that he wants done. It is a whole circle of planned questions that I think needs some sort of creativity, brain power, EQ, patience to pull off.

Ex: He wants a Nutella sandwich. Rather than ask someone to make him, like other kids do, he will ask you leading questions until you realized that he wants you to make him.

Is Nutella sandwich yummy? Yes. If you are hungry will that make you full? yes….Do you like Nutella?

Then you realised maybe he wants a sandwich made.

Do you want a sandwich? Yes, make me.

The other side of Liam I just learned about is how he uses his imagination and creavity to plan. About 10 days ago I was making him a McDonalds store made out of old corrugated boxes. When he saw it, he was happy but he wanted more additional features or fixtures like where to put the doors, stairs, windows and how he wants it to look. I was amazed on how it is clear in his mind how the look fo his toy should be.  Couple of days ago, he asked me how fishes eat. I said the fish owner will feed them. But what if he slept and forgot feeding his fish and in the morning the fish will die. He suggested maybe there should be something that the fish will press or bump to release the fish food to the tank so it can always eat when he is hungry.

I asked him how if he come up with those ideas, I was thinking perhaps he saw it on the internet but he answered , “I just figured it out.”