00:00Your best self is brought to you by Garnier.
00:10The school bells have rung to call the new school year intercession,
00:13and that sometimes means stress for all involved,
00:16especially for parents and children getting into exam mode
00:20and kids making that jump from primary school to secondary school.
00:23But clinical psychologist Victoria Sunarainji-Lal Singh says,
00:27parents can play a big role in the way children perceive the process of going back to school.
00:33She says positive energy before they leave and when they return from school
00:36can cause significant change in a child's outlook.
00:39Placing emphasis on that period of time when a child gets home from school,
00:44Sunarainji-Lal Singh says parents need to move away from the interrogation-like questions,
00:48even though they come from a place of care and concern.
00:51Rather, it's better to lead the kids to dwell on more positive things from their day,
00:56as it can help change their view.
00:58When they come home, they don't want to feel as though they're facing another test
01:03to have to answer this question.
01:05Because what if they didn't finish the maths exam?
01:07Then what does that mean?
01:08Their answer now is going to say, well, mum or dad, I failed.
01:12And so instead, our first interactions with our children when they get home from school
01:17should be something like, I missed you today, or I'm so happy to see you, or something like that.
01:24What made you happy today?
01:27What made you laugh today?
01:28What did you do today that was exciting?
01:30And so what it does is it actually almost forces them, but in a really encouraging way,
01:36to go back to something positive that they encountered during the day.
01:40And then eventually, that reshapes that attitude towards school.
01:45For students who've entered exam mode, standard fives, form fives, and form sixes,
01:50Sunara and Jilal Singh shared a strategy that tends to be more efficient and work better.
01:55Exams should be approached more with a continuous learning strategy
01:59than rather, let's study the week before or two weeks before the exam.
02:03Now what does that mean?
02:04If you look at any school curriculum, it can start from preschool, primary school, secondary school,
02:10even all the way up to university, there are courses that build upon other courses.
02:16So the concepts that you learn in mathematics in standard one,
02:19they're the same concepts in standard five, it's just more of it.
02:22And what that means is that if every day you get your notes, you're exposed to something,
02:28you get home on an evening and you read it over,
02:30then by the end of the first week, you would have successfully revised everything that you did.
02:35By the end of the first month, it would already be encoded in your mind.
02:39And with each repetition, it makes retrieving that information that is stored that much easier.
02:45And she also had another tip that can help balance it all.
02:48But another really important strategy in order to manage and balance, as you say,
02:54is exercise or movement.
02:57And I feel like our society, we don't move enough.
03:00We move for carnival, but we don't move all through the year.
03:03She also thinks extracurricular activities are very important
03:07and don't need to be formally tagged as such.
03:10She says these activities also help holistically.
03:13I think extracurricular activities are very important to supplement
03:17not only education, but healthy development.
03:22So an extracurricular activity should be something fun.
03:25It also doesn't have to be a formal extracurricular activity.
03:29I'll give you an example.
03:31My kids have outside time every day.
03:34So at 5 p.m. every day, they have to go outside.
03:37They have to engage in green spaces.
03:39They have to feel the wind.
03:41They have to run and jump and play.
03:43And it's not very long.
03:44It's just 20 minutes longer if they want it, right?
03:47But we encourage them to do something as simple as that.
03:51Siona Rangie Lausing also urged parents to revert to the good old days of board games,
03:56which also enables them to spend valuable time with their children.
04:00If I have to say one thing that I want parents to take away,
04:03go back to the board games we used to play.
04:06Buy one or two and let that be something that you do with your kids.
04:10Sit down and play board games with them.
04:12Ludo, not Monopoly.
04:14Monopoly causes war.
04:17Ludo, snakes and ladders, look who, you know, those different things that we can play.
04:23And for the kids, she had one more takeaway.
04:26So for the kids, enjoy school, enjoy learning.
04:30Think about it as your brain doing exercises.
04:32I am Dominic Ramroop reminding you to be your best self.
04:42Your best self was brought to you by Garnier.
Comments