Colours

Cowboy is a great Dad.

Despite not growing up having very much interaction at all with children (his family moved from the Philippines when he was 2 leaving behind most of his extended family) Cowboy has improved his interaction with children to the point that most don’t run and hide behind their Mummy when he speaks to them (really, they did this).

We have solved a number of things where Cowboy was perhaps lacking in that particular skill set.

Cowboy has a great singing voice but didn’t know many children’s songs before Champ and him started music school on Saturdays (for both of their sakes). He used to say that children should enjoy whatever music their parents introduce them to; until he saw the light in Champ’s eyes when he listened to Wiggles rather than AC/DC (actually I don’t think I fully realised all the learning benefits of kid’s music and how it truly is tailor made for little ones to respond to until I got involved in this parenting gig).

My in-laws are wonderfully loving people. They do however have the typical Asian mentality of tough-love and being strict with Champ comes naturally to Cowboy. That makes sense; it was how he was raised. He isn’t all ‘children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard’ but is definitely is quicker to discipline Champ than I am (My Mum is of the loving-love-and-then-some-cuddles parenting mentality and I generally have followed in her footsteps). I think that while Cowboy has taught me that discipline is not a dirty word, I have taught him that sometimes kids act up because they need a hug or extra attention (preferably the positive kind) and that his own tantrums actually scare Champ as he feels out of control and it is our place to comfort him not to get cross.

Cowboy has taken on responsibility of bath time to the point that when I help him out for a little bit I often hear comments like ‘oooh, Mummy does that differently doesn’t she?’ which generally makes me feel like I am an impostor on the bathroom scene. None the less, I am very happy that he has taken responsibility for this and I think it build his confidence to be in-charge of at least one area of Champ’s parenting (even if I do have to subtly give Champ’s ears a thorough clean out occasionally).

One thing that perhaps Cowboy still needs help with was highlighted to me when I was eavesdropping on their wonderful bath time conversation this week. That is general stages of childhood development.

Forgive my mother-pride for a minute, but Champ is pretty sharp. He has always been very advanced in the gross motor skill department and of late it has become apparent that he is pretty good at fine motor and has above average linguistic and comprehension skills for his age. I say advanced, not a genius (thank goodness – imagine the pressure of raising a genius!). Cowboy, on the other hand, has the parental pride market covered. He truly believes that Champ could be reading at school level by the end of the year if we pushed him.

Add this superb father-pride with a lack of understanding of average ages children generally achieve certain milestones or skills and we sometime have issues. Some of Cowboy’s comments include:

* (15 month old Champ throwing tantrum) What do you want, Champ? Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it? (To me) Why won’t he tell me what he wants instead on just crying?
* He has been throwing tantrums since before he turned one, he is so advanced. I guess it means he’ll grow out of this stage soon, maybe even before he turns two!

And, the conversation that made me laugh which I overheard in the bath:

Cowboy: What colour is this scoop, Champ?
Champ: Geen
Cowboy: That’s right, it is green, well done. And what about this dolphin? What colour is the dolphin?
Champ: Geen
Cowboy: No the dolphin is blue, blue. What about this ring? What colour is the ring?
Champ: Buu
Cowboy: No it is red, the dolphin is blue, see, blue; the ring is red, red.

The poor kid was a bit confused by all of this and really just wanted to play in the bath. I quizzed Cowboy later and he said he has been trying to teach him colours for a while now. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if he knew colours by the time he was three, let alone 18 months, that would be very impressive.