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Preface

We want the best for our children. We want to give them every opportunity for that extra edge in life because it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. So we rush them from school to their extra classes and fill up their days with activities designed to make them smarter and help them score higher grades in school.

But the choices and opportunities are endless with new centres springing up like mushrooms after the rain. So we flit from one enrichment class to another, like butterflies in a garden searching for the nectar of success. Meanwhile, our weary, exhausted and unwilling children have shut down because they are overwhelmed.

Stimulation for the mind, body, and senses are great for our children, especially when they are still rapidly growing and developing. Nevertheless, there must be balance. More isn't necessarily better, because we can end up with too much of a good thing. Just as vitamins in excess can lead to overdose, we need to make sure we do not overdose our children with all these great activities and forget about other elements that are inconspicuously vital to their healthy growth and development.

There is a popular story floating around on the Internet that many of you may have heard before: "Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand".

A teacher stood before a class and placed an empty jar on the table. She filled it up with rocks then asked her students if the jar was full. The students agreed that it was.

Next, the teacher picked up a bag of pebbles and poured them into the jar, shaking it to allow the pebbles to fit into the spaces between the rocks. Again she asked her students if the jar was full and, again, they agreed.

Finally, the teacher picked up a bag of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand scattered into the remaining spaces in the jar.

The teacher looked at the class and said, "I want you to recognise that this jar symbolises your life. The rocks signify the important things in your life, like family, health, and relationships. If everything else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, like work or school. The sand represents the little things in life, like material possessions. If we fill the jar with sand first, there would be no room for the important things like the rocks or the pebbles."

In our take of this analogy, the jar epitomises our children's time. The rocks are the essential elements vital for their healthy growth and development. The enrichment classes and extracurricular activities are the pebbles in this story. Although they are important, they are not as essential as the rocks. The sand is all the other little things.

What are we filling our children's lives with? Are they rocks, pebbles, or sand?

That's what this book is about: how to make sure that what we're focusing on are really the rocks and that we're not getting side-tracked by the sand because when it comes to child development, sometimes the rocks are not what we think they are. If we focus on the right things first, our children will have a strong foundation for whatever life throws their way.

Shen-Li Lee

June 2016

Chapter 1: The ABCs of Child Development

In a first-aid course, one of the first things you learn is the acronym DRABC, which stands for Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. They teach you this because you need to follow this order in an emergency situation. Deviate from this order and the consequences can be disastrous. Here's why:

Danger: When you enter an emergency situation, the first thing you need to do is check for potential danger to yourself. If you rush in and get hurt, you'll become another victim that needs rescuing.

Response: You need to check the victim for a response to be sure that the victim isn't just sleeping. I'm sure you can imagine the trouble a man will get into if he tries to resuscitate a woman who is merely sleeping.

Airway: Is it blocked? Sometimes the victim can't breathe because an object is obstructing the airway. Breathing may resume on its own if you remove the obstruction.

Breathing: The purpose of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is to deliver oxygen to the victim's lungs for transfer to the blood.

Circulation: Once the blood is oxygenated, you can get the circulation going with cardiac compressions (when you pump the victim's chest). There is no point in getting the circulation going before breathing because the heart will be pumping deoxygenated blood around the body.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow's hierarchy is a theory that human motivation is dependent on a series of needs. It was developed by Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist.

In a way, parenting is similar to what you learn in first aid except that DRABC, in this case, is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the top of the hierarchy is the ultimate goal of self-actualisation where our children have reached their full potential and found meaning in their lives. Like the importance of following the order in DRABC, you cannot reach the top of Maslow's pyramid unless you approach it in a step-wise fashion, beginning at the bottom.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies to us all - adults and children alike. Children, with their limited life experiences and smaller bodies that are more susceptible to change, are more easily affected by the withdrawal of these needs.

The Story of Johnny

Johnny is nine years old. Every morning, he gets up at 5:30 a.m. so he can catch the bus to school by 6 a.m. After school, he takes another bus to his after-school tuition classes where he spends the rest of his afternoon. He even showers and has dinner at the tuition centre. By the time he gets home, it is 9 p.m. He has an hour to wind down and then he's off to bed. The next morning, he starts all over again. On the weekends, he has weekend tuition. Over the school holidays, he attends school holiday tuition. Johnny's Dad is very concerned because Johnny is still failing despite all the extra classes he takes.

At nine years old, Johnny needs 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night. Assuming he falls asleep at 10 p.m. on the dot, he is still only getting 7.5 hours of sleep a night.

He doesn't get enough sleep, he doesn't have enough downtime, and he doesn't get recreational activity. He's not active in sports or physical activity and he isn't getting enough time with his family. It is not surprising that Johnny is failing because his brain is too tired to learn. He doesn't get enough time for his brain to process and consolidate the material that he learns - whatever he is taught is easily displaced by the constant barrage of new information.

In Johnny's case, it is no longer a question of the quality of the extra classes he receives. Because he has unfulfilled needs, he can't pay attention to his teachers no matter how great a reading programme they are teaching or how interesting they make the math lesson.

The Physiological Needs

The most easily overlooked physiological needs are hunger and sleep. Mild deprivations are easily overlooked but the effects can be quite significant. Children whose physiological needs have not been met are essentially in survival mode. It prevents them from attending to other needs higher up in the pyramid, such as making friends, working towards a goal, or listening to a teacher at school.

Consider a time when you were hungry or tired. Remember how you felt - grumpy, withdrawn, struggling to concentrate, easily upset and quick to rage. If we translate these emotions into those of a child's, it suddenly becomes clearer why children behave poorly at times. Even adults, with their knowledge of social etiquette, struggle to maintain propriety when sleep-deprived or famished.

The Safety Needs

Historically, safety needs meant being safe from predators but in modern society, how our children require these needs to be fulfilled has changed. Children may require the physical closeness of a parent to feel secure, such as when a child displays an unwillingness to fall asleep alone. They may require emotional support provided by their parents when they feel overwhelmed by strong feelings they don't fully comprehend or know how to handle.

It may seem counter-intuitive, especially when our children are often challenging our authority, but children feel more secure with parents who provide firm discipline. Permissive parenting challenges the safety of the child because children know they need their parents to keep them in check when they have gone too far. The boundaries that parents provide through discipline give children the confidence to explore.

Safety needs also include emotional security. When we're overloaded with extreme emotions, it can be very difficult to concentrate on anything else. If we recall the times when we were really upset - when someone made us really angry or scared, or when we were very sad - these were times we lose our ability to focus on our work and surroundings. If we as adults, with all our years of experience, still struggle with our emotions, imagine how difficult it would be for our children who have even less experience dealing with difficult emotions. If our children are facing these challenging emotions at school, how can we expect them to learn?

Love and Belonging Needs

For children, love is as essential to life as food or water. Without love, children fall sick more easily, they struggle to learn, and babies die. As they grow, their love and belonging needs may change as their circles expand beyond their parents to their friends, teachers, and mentors. Regardless of how they change, the needs remain.

Children also need parents to help them feel grounded as it conveys love and a sense of belonging. As parents, we need to recognise this and provide emotional support when it is required rather than brushing it off as simply a "part of growing up". We need to be conscious that we are adults with years of experience while our children are still in the process of learning how to handle these "growing pains".

As our children grow up, they will face many challenging life experiences, such as moving schools, losing friends, setbacks and failures, changes in their bodies and emotions as they mature, and many more. Some of these difficulties may seem insignificant compared to the trials we face as adults but it is important to understand that they can appear colossal in the eyes of our children. As parents, it is easy to forget what it was like.

Sometimes we underestimate the impact certain events may have on our children. For instance, when our children move schools, we often don't think it is important to let our children say "goodbye" to the friends they have made - especially when it is a preschool and our children are "too young to remember anyway". But young children, especially the sensitive ones, can feel the loss quite acutely. Being young and inexperienced, they struggle to make sense of what happens when their friends stop coming to school.

Esteem

Esteem needs may be external (the need to be accepted and valued by others) or internal (being confident and liking ourselves as individuals). While we may contend that external validation is an unnecessary evil that we should rid ourselves of, the fact remains we still seek and desire it.

For children, esteem needs are threatened when they are bullied or discriminated against. They may also struggle to move up the hierarchy because society rewards motivation based on esteem, love and other social needs. Children may also be waylaid by misguided but well-intentioned parents who, in seeking "secure careers" for their children, encourage their children to follow the career goals they have set.

Self-Actualisation

This is our goal for every child - to reach the level of self-actualisation. At this level, our children are fully engaged with purpose. These children are ready for learning, achievement, and leading fulfilling lives.

THE ROLE OF MASLOW’S HIERARCHY IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Being aware of Maslow's hierarchy of needs allows us to identify why our children may be struggling, whether it is academically in school, socially with friends, or generally in life. It can help us to understand why a child, like Johnny (in the previous example), may still be struggling despite all the learning resources he has at his disposal. There may be unfulfilled needs that prevent our children from reaching their full potential and, if we can attend to them, we may be able to resolve some of the issues they face, similarly to how clearing the victim's airway may allow them to breathe in the analogy at the beginning of this chapter.

The education of a child can never be just about shaping a child's mind because everything is interconnected - the heart, the mind, and the body. To unlock our children's full potential, we have to address the development of the whole child - physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Brainchild

Secrets to Unlocking Your Child's Potential

Dedication

Title Page

Publishing

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1: The ABCs of Child Development