The essence of fatherhood.

Today, The Star newspaper, of Malaysia, published an article they had commissioned from me, on fatherhood. In the article, I have tried to encapsulate our style of parenting in seven parenting principles. These principles form the basis of how we have raised our kids. They are also the principles which allowed our eldest child to develop into a child prodigy.

I am very curious as to what you think of the article. So, let me know what you like about it, below, if you will.

The article is to be found here:

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2012/6/13/lifeliving/11458603&sec=lifeliving

Please share it with your own readers by linking to it from whatever sites you have. I hope that my parenting principles get to be read by many people. I would like to think they helped some people, particularly children. Thank you.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

The price of parental strictness.

Chinese parents are traditionally known for what would be regarded as “strict parenting”, in Western eyes. Indeed, some parents of Chinese origin have become famed for their regimented style of child rearing. Yet, there is a price to pay for strictness, a profound psychological price to pay.

Recently, two twelve year old Chinese girls, from Zhangzhou, in mainland China, Xiao Mei and Xiao Hua committed suicide in a bizarre pact. The girls left suicide notes in a cupboard which spoke of a desire to travel back in time to the Qing Dynasty (from 1644 to 1911) and seemed to indicate that they thought that death would achieve this, for them. The suicide pact came into being when one of the girls lost the key to her house and was afraid of being punished by her parents, for doing so. She decided to commit suicide, rather than face punishment. Her best friend heard about this, and couldn’t bear the thought of living on without her friend – so they both decided to kill themselves at the same time. They elected to do this, by jumping into a pond.

Now, what struck me about this tragedy was the reaction amongst the Chinese people. There has been an uproar blaming time travel TV shows for the suicides. They seem to believe that the children were somehow acting out, in imitation of such shows, in which people are propelled back into the past, when struck by lightning, or have a car crash. My personal thought on this is that the critics of the TV shows are seriously missing the point. These two girls did not die because they were imitating TV shows. They died, because they were TOO SCARED OF THEIR PARENTS. These girls were killed by strict Chinese style parenting. One of the girls was so frightened of her parents’ reaction to losing her house key, that she decided it would be better to die, than to face up to her parents. So, this tragedy is much darker than it appears. It is not about the delusions of two young girls, unable to distinguish reality from TV fictions...but it is about the psychological stresses they had been placed under by strict parents. Had their parents been more loving, more kind, more warm, more forgiving, more welcoming, I am certain that both these girls would still be alive today.

China should be re-examining the way it raises its children, in the light of this tragedy – not the nature of its TV shows. Children who felt loved and secure, with their parents, would not be so scared of them that they would prefer to die, than to face up to them, when something unfortunate had happened. These two girls were, basically, killed by their parents. Had their parents been less strict, they would be alive, today. It is that simple.

What makes this all the more tragic and puzzling is that China has a one child policy, so it is likely that these girls were the only children of their parents. If so, it seems even more tragic to me, that they should have been parented in such a strict manner, that they would rather die than face their parents’ wrath. Why did their parents need to be so strict, when they had but one lonely child to look after and raise? What would have been wrong with being warm, supportive, loving and flexible instead?

If a child fears their parents, then something is seriously wrong with the way those parents are raising the child. These children were in fear – and that fear led to their deaths.

From the reaction of the Chinese people and their misattribution of the problem to TV, I very much doubt whether the Chinese people will learn anything from this. However, there is a lesson here, for anyone who reads my blog: raise a child with love, not fear, for in love, they grow; in fear, they die, slowly, or quickly, but surely.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

On sensitivity and toughness

Which is more valuable: to be sensitive or to be tough? I know what Singapore's answer to that question is: I heard it today, many times.

This morning I attended a talk, at Ainan's school, for parents. The underlying purpose of the talk was to tell parents how to "toughen up" their children. Everything about the talk, was directed to this end, of achieving tough little children. The speaker, who was an "expert on raising children", had the view that toughness was to be valued. His view had one merit: that a tough child would be more resilient in the face of disappointment or setback. In that sense, he had reason for his position - yet, I worried, as I heard him extol his techniques for generating toughness in children. There seemed to be something missing: the appreciation of sensitivity.

Sensitivity was a word noted only by its absence from his two hour talk. Not once did he mention the concept of sensitivity. Not once did he evaluate its use, value or purpose in the personality structure of a child. I found this lack really perturbing. You see, what is a sensitive child, but one that responds to the environment? What is a sensitive child but one who feels, and thinks, subtly and with freedom? A sensitive child may become an artist, or an actor, a writer - or a leader who feels for his or her people. A sensitive person can make a great boss, for they will feel for their workers and respond to them more warmly. Sensitivity is not something to be dismissed - yet it was ignored entirely. This Singaporean "expert on raising children", clearly did not value the human side of children at all. What he valued seemed very much like a worker who would put up with anything, without complaint. What he valued seemed very much like someone who would take endless abuse and just carry on. Perhaps that is what is really needed in the Singaporean system. Perhaps people without feeling or responsiveness, who just carry on ploddingly, no matter what are what is sought from education, here. Yet, I can't help but feel that such people would be incomplete: without a decent measure of sensitivity they will wholly fail to grasp the essence, truth and beauty of life, at all. Without some sensitivity such people will never truly live.

Every beautiful person I have ever met - and I mean beautiful on the inside, not the outside - has been a sensitive person, to some degree. None of them have been so tough as to fulfil the criteria sought by this speaker.

Resilience is important if a child is to grow up into an adult able to cope with the vicissitudes of life. However, that resilience must not come at the price of losing one's essential sensitivity. It is the latter quality that leads to a beautiful life. Toughness does not afford one a beautiful life - it only allows one to endure the suffering of an ugly one.

There is, I feel, too little concern for the human side of humanity, here. The attention is directed too much to creating efficient little workers who will fit nicely into the system without creating any perturbation - and will endure all the discomforts that come with a system that doesn't actually value the individual human being for themselves.

I would rather a sensitive child than a tough child. A sensitive child could be a great poet, a wonderful actor, an inspiring leader, a perceptive thinker, a lyrical writer, a profound musician. A tough child is unlikely to be any of these - though they are likely to endure in the face of much suffering and "succeed" eventually, in a conventional sense. Perhaps that is all that is wanted here, by the educational system: that the children "succeed" in a conventional sense. No wonder, then, that there is such a dearth of creative geniuses here. Why, you wonder? Well, you see, most great geniuses are, dare I say it...rather SENSITIVE!

With all this effort to knock the sensitivity out of children - indeed with special talks for just that purpose - it is no wonder that so little genius survives to flourish here.

What we need more of is: gentleness, sensitivity, kindness and consideration. Unfortunately, no more alien concepts could be tabled, than those four words, when set against what the system here, would like the children to show - and grow into.

Personally, I would rather a nation with a measurable sprinkling of sensitive geniuses - than an abundance of tough little workers. To create such a place, of course, would necessitate a complete change in the way the children are raised - and that's definitely never going to happen.

So, tough Singaporeans it is to be.

Ah well.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)