It's finished!

Kite, horse, letters, numbers, patterns, and Amy Chua

Today , Tina is already 4 years, 5 months, and 22 days old. She could now read whole poems or stories in her books. I'm happy that she's further learned to ask how to read a word she finds difficult to read. But in general she loves to read all by herself. This has now become a habit that she does many times in one day. I'll say more about how she learned to be a good reader later. In sum, teaching Tina how to read is the least of my problem today. I'm focused instead on teaching Tina how to write, do arithmetic, and patterns. Again, Tina could now write her first and surname. With arithmetic, we had already started with two-digit addition three weeks ago and with subtraction a couple of nights ago. My goal before classes begin in June is to get Tina to learn how to do carry in addition and borrow-one in subtraction. With patterns, Tina is just pretty amazing. We had already advanced to the more complicated cases like XCSAXCSBXCSCXCSDXCS___XCSF.  She still commits mistakes here but she listens to me when I explain the pattern. Also, Tina would ask for pattern exercises after addition and subtraction. Below is my journal entry on 28 March 2011.

Tina is now 4-years-and-5-months old.

I and Tina had successfully flew the kite Chris bought last year. I saw in her face that she was so thrilled to hold the kite string and feel the tension and wind pressure in it. My daughter glowed with happiness. I think she was marveling at the idea of a different sort of connection between her and the distant kite in the sky. We did it at an oval track.

Today, I and Tina are also in the middle of doing our paper mache horse. Horse is Tina’s favorite animal. It will take days before I could finally let her paint it.

 

Tina could now do a two-digit addition. Though she has yet to learn the carry-one, we are now very close to moving to this level. Preparations shall be made at once if she’ll ask to do numbers tomorrow. She could also do subtraction with one-digit numbers. Also she seems to have already mastered telling which number from one to ten is more than the other. She could count backwards from ten, from one to 100, and tell what number is before a certain number from one to ten. She still makes occasional careless mistakes though in some of these exercises. But I know that this could be fixed before classes open in June. I’m trying to get Tina to understand x-1 in preparation for two-digit subtraction. There were struggles before I and Tina got this far in math, but the breakthroughs and how they came are likewise important. I’ll talk about these later.

Tina is now a very advanced reader at her age. Our current concern is the perfection of her grammar. Tina’s handwriting is pretty amazing. She could now write “Tina Borega” all by herself. I’m thankful she loves to write her name again and again. First she would use a pencil. Then she would borrow my yellow marker to write her name before tracing it. What a great exercise: She writes her name with a yellow marker and traces it. Soon I will teach her to write her complete name. She should be able to do this by the end of May.

I have already finished reading Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I don’t quite agree with her very strict way of handling her kids’ home training and education. Chua’s kids obviously learned a lot from her, but they were apparently unhappy when their mother supervises their learning. While they love their mother, I wonder if they will adopt the exact same spartan style of parenting to their own kids someday. Despite Chua’s success in getting her children to attain their very high status as pianist and violinist, I still believe that any normal child can learn fast and become excellent at something very soon without sacrificing the happy moments that other children typically enjoy as very young humans. I want Tina to think without hesitation, when she’s already an adult, that I’m a parent worth having again if she’ll be given a chance to live one more time. I want Tina to have, though it cannot be achieved to perfection, only happy memories of me and Chris.

Lost of appetite and being number one

I think my journal entry on 5 April 2011 is worth sharing, especially with moms and dads whose little ones--ages 3 to 5, perhaps--are losing appetite. This I believe is a breakthrough story on how we, the parents, managed to get our daughter to eat her meals and snacks without having to deal with unpleasant struggles with her. 

Our daughter, Tina, is now 4 years, 5 months, and a few days old.

Hunger in Africa: A breakthrough, I hope

I and Chris had trouble getting Tina to eat her regular meals and snacks. She abruptly lost her strong appetite for every dish and food that she used to like. She’d begin her day with a whimper that would progress into a full blown crying in anticipation of or while enduring a regular meal or snack. This had become Tina’s routine everyday before breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. Also, she now hates to drink milk. It’s been a messy battle of will and tricks between us three for around seven to eight weeks. And she's been losing weight.

3 April 2011, 2 days ago, I wanted to write about how, once again, I believe, I had gotten into the mind of Tina. But I was afraid that my strategy would be only good for only one day just like my inflated-deflated plastic trick to get Tina to eat her meals. One afternoon, I was watching youtube videos while Tina was playing when an idea came to mind. I typed “hunger Africa” on the youtube searchbox. When the video played, a touching music came along with photographs of extremely emaciated African children. I called Tina to watch the video. She sat on my lap and I started talking about how lucky she is that she has food on the table, that she has Mommy and Daddy to help her finish her food, and so on. I told her I don’t understand why she has to cry each time she sits on the table to eat her meal when other children cry because they have nothing to eat. This seems to be working quite effectively. The following day, Tina made weak attempts to refuse to eat, but she would suddenly stop crying and resume eating when I bring up the youtube picture of a vulture waiting for a starving kid to die. Probably, Tina finds this horrifying that she would eat again when told that the vulture is out to get hungry children. Now its easy again to get Tina to drink her milk. I hope this is a real breakthrough. It’s been two days and Tina would finish everything that we put on her plate. 

Secretariat and being number one: Freedom

Tina has been crazy about horses since she was 1 year and 6 months old. I think this started in a horse farm we visited in Indiana.

I’d been looking for a CD or DVD copy of the latest Seabiscuit film but I just can’t find one. About a month ago, I stumbled on Secretariat instead. It’s a story of a great champion horse that run in the 70's. Tina likes the race and the idea that Secretariat is a number one horse. I’d been drilling into Tina the final race where Secretariat started ahead and ended up too far ahead of her lone and strongest rival horse. I tell her that being number one like that means not eating dirt and soiling your face. Tina would always say, in response to my question whether she wants to eat dirt and soil her face, that she wants to be ahead and have a clean face. I say that being number one in her case is doing your best in school as she is no horse. I asked her if her classmates could already do addition, subtraction, and patterns. She said no, so I told her, at this point she is ahead of them, hence she is number one like Secretariat. I’d ask her then if she wants to be number one, she says she wants.

I’m looking for a shirt with number one on it and a number one pin.

I want to drill into Tina's head that being number one means many opportunities and many options. That is a higher freedom that she and everyone should pursue. It means freedom from pressure of having to make the right decision in the midst of very limited options. I hope my daughter will come to appreciate this point someday.

 

It’s been a better time for the three of us now that Tina had seen faces of hunger in Africa and Secretariat the champion horse. Both are currently the most powerful reinforcers for Tina.

Tonight, too, Tina had done a good job with one- and two-digit plus and one-digit minus. Tina too has improved significantly with her ability to see patterns.

I was happy this morning that Tina came to me and asked me how to read the name "Knopf,” which is the name of the author of the book she was reading. I’d now think that Tina is possessed by a different soul if Tina will not open and read at least one children’s book in one day. Reading is now built in to Tina. She just loves it. She reads children’s books everywhere inside and outside the house. She brings and reads a book in the car, in the bank, anywhere we take her. Even on the toilet seat. When I say she reads, she really reads. Also, I had a pad of papers and a pencil ready in our toilet as there are times when Tina would prefer to write her name than to read while pooping. 

Tina has now mastered fastening her own car seatbelt. She has been doing this for many months, maybe seven. I'll go check in my past journal entries.