It all came like cold water pouring on me on a seething hot day. I thought all was all right until I had to help Kiny practice her writing letters A and E the night before her big examination day. Maybe just maybe, it is unfortunately inherent for teachers like I am to pound on students what is ideal and what is required or at least what is expected. But for a three-year-old like my daughter, whose hand control is yet to be developed, doing those slanting lines and vertical lines that consist in what appear to be letter As and Es to me in her small doodled paper is calvary. Worse, her self-appointed tutor, that's me, whose brows remained twitched at a letter E that looks like an antenna of a television, had to sometimes raise my voice just to tell her that a letter E has but 3 horizontal lines and not 4 which would virtually make her E a TV antenna not to mention the lines that could never stick to blue and red lines. Of course, in all these things, I was aware that her psychomotor skills are yet to be developed. But there's just something in me that drives me to go for more even if I noticed that she has gone far too stretched already.
Then I noticed tears welling up in her eyes looking up at me as though pleading for the insensible torture to stop. It was then, after my head swirled in ache after finding ways to have her hold her pencil THE RIGHT WAY that I needed to rest my teacher-stature and come back to being a mother.
The next day after feeling guilty for being too hard on my tiny tot I bought her favorite crayon set. And what met me when I was about to brandish the crayon set was a shrieking, "Look, Mommy, I'm making nice As and Es. It's not antenna anymore, right?" She stood looking at me waiting to celebrate my approval. Needless to say, my heart sank. I had to hug her. I did not wait for a second to go by to give her the confirmation that she needed from her mom.
As early as now, I don't want my daughter to go through what I went through as a kid. I was an achiever all right, but I was only achieving because the approval that I wish to get from my mom took a long time in coming. It did come, all right. But I wished it came just when I badly needed it.
Being a teacher and getting all the techniques, strategies, and approaches right in the classroom do not necessarily manage a family well. But I intend to be good at these two tough acts to my wonderful little girl.
