Category Archives: Parents & Children

Technology brings so much ease in running the household in this day and age but modernity has its downside. Both parents usually work to support the family’s needs and they are left with two choices in dealing with kids: leave them with a relative or yaya.  With the latter option, it is tough enough to leave their dear offsprings to a total stranger but even harder to make sure Yaya is honest. How do parents detect a major fib?

ARE THE KIDS EATING PROPERLY?  Responsible parents can almost ensure their children eat right by leaving healthy foods in the fridge and cupboard and instructing Yaya which to chow for meals and snacks. Question is, are they actually being fed? Children have different eating styles. Some easily take whatever is spoon-fed but the more independent ones flatly refuse and need more coaxing. Nannies are different characters, too. Some are very patient in feeding youngsters and some just give up easily.

A doctor-friend Doc Don was alarmed when he noticed his daughter getting thin. She was not exhibiting any signs of sickness and Yaya assured him the baby had a good appetite. The weight loss remained a puzzle until a neighbor tipped that Yaya had the habit of chatting away with the subdivision security guards. Since his wife could not take a leave of absence, he sacrificed a great chunk of his professional life to make sure his youngest recovered from malnourishment. He discovered that his little girl ate so little and hardly finished four ounces of formula milk. The tot was more than a year old and should be consuming at least 6 ounces per feeding. After confirming the neighbor’s report of the nanny’s neglect, he fired the negligent Yaya.

ARE THE KIDS SAFE AT HOME? Parents cannot help but be paranoid with all the news about children being kidnapped. It is one thing for a stranger to abduct a minor but it is scarier if Yaya exposes your child to this kind of danger.

Little Mickey is a usually messy eater and an active toddler so Mommy Mia got wary when her son’s clothes piled up in the hamper without much smudge and dust. Yaya happily reported how her charge is handling the spoon better now. Yaya even boasted about her extra care to keep Little Mickey from getting dirty. Mia was not convinced so she decided to spot-check. She usually sent text messages to Yaya to know how Little Mickey is doing. Once, she decided to make a random call. Voila! Mia caught the ambient sounds of cars speeding by from her cell phone. It turned out Yaya was a regular window shopper of the nearby town center mall tagging along Little Mickey. Yaya was given ample warning. Thankfully, she tried to stay indoors afterwards and just contented herself with the family’s weekend visits to the mall.

ARE THE KIDS WELL TAKEN CARE OF? Mark is a contractor and stays home most of the time unless there were client calls. He and his wife Lily just needed some assistance in caring for the kids so they hired a nanny on-call.

The children were old enough to tell their parents if there was something wrong so Mark and Lily were quite at ease when they were both away. But the clever yaya sneaked out during naptime to do her own laundry and chores at her place. The kids were totally unaware of her trips.

Yaya reasoned that she makes sure the kids were fed well and their needs were taken care of when they are awake so it is okay to steal some of her paid working hours for her own family’s needs.

Good thing, a concerned neighbor who runs a store sees yaya leave every afternoon and quietly return after a few hours. The old lady lectured yaya on the need to be around even as the kids doze off. It was her responsibility to keep guard. Yaya would not hear any of it so the kindly granny opted to tell Mark and Lily about it. The couple did not have second thoughts parting with the yaya and took an old relative to take over.

ARE THE KIDS HURT? Kathy and Gilbert had the scare of their lives when their 3-year old started running a fever and throwing up. Pushed to confess, Yaya admitted that her ward fell off the third step of the stairs the night before and hit her head on the cemented landing. The husband-and-wife lost no time in rushing their unica hija to the hospital. Much to their relief, the cause of their little girl’s vomits was not brain damage. She over-ate popcorn. It was too much for her tiny tummy to process.

Janine just gave birth to their second baby when her husband Rudy got an alarming call from his sister-in-law. It turned out their toddler was in her walker when Yaya rushed outside to get the laundry as it started to rain. She made sure the door was shut but the baby somehow managed to pry it open and tumbled on to the front lawn head first. The in-laws live in the nearby house and rushed to the rescue when they heard their niece’s painful cries. Her face was full of scratches after landing on the gravel walkway. Although scared, Yaya spewed out the whole story and profusely apologized. Janine warned Rudy beforehand not to lose his temper despite the unnerving incident.  She knew how dependable Yaya was and it could have been equally unsettling for her. Upon the doctor’s advice, the tiny tyke was observed for symptoms of a head injury. Thankfully, she did not vomit, run a fever or become weak and was active as ever.

ARE THE KIDS “OVER-DISCIPLINED”? There are numerous horror stories of caregivers getting too physical when kids get rowdy. It is easier if the kids are a bit older since they could always tell Mommy and Daddy if Yaya is abusing her authority but newborns and toddlers are totally helpless. Parents have no choice but to be vigilant of telltale signs like unexplained bruises or scratches and the child’s sudden loss of appetite, inactiveness or changes in behavior.

LESSEN THE LIES. Three common denominators arise from the cases cited to promote honesty among nannies. (1) Be good to your neighbors and their genuine concern will naturally crop up especially in looking after your children. (2) Be observant of your kids’ well-being. There are always detectable physical traces of abuse. (3) Fear of being scolded or fired are major reasons for a cover-up. Learn to deal with them gently in small faults to encourage nannies to tell the truth when it really matters.

Photo: “Maddox” by Tracey, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

First published at the Philippine Online Chronicles

The first thing that comes to mind, when children are bored, is that they have to do something, and that would most certainly involve spending money – buying food, clothes, gaming consoles; or spending time with friends out of town Let us try to take the hard-earned peso out of the equation, because that brings out creativity and imagination. Mothers are best fit for this task, because they operate on a budget, and we shall try our best to seek solutions that best represent their elegant point of view.

Summer Job
Human dignity wouldn’t be expunged by taking on a summer job at the municipal office, a BPO, or the fastfood chain. It will help the children appreciate the real value of money, and that they will learn early on that it comes from hard work (and not as reward from people who owe you favors).

If, as a parent, you don’t want them taking on such big responsibility (or abuse. But productive abuse.), they could just go into a summer business for themselves. One husband-and-wife team, according to the Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho show, turned Php20 to more than a million, just by selling ice candies. It’s one thing to have a mini-stand, and another to talk to various sari-sari stores, getting them to agree to a concession. If you can teach your kids, the skill of landing clients, they would breeze through the K-to-12 program, whose think tanks may have taken the ‘lifelong learning’ clause a bit too seriously.

Woodworking and Scooter Making
A mom friend is skilled in the craft of wood furniture making – tables (and not the sissy ones either – twelve seaters), and shelves. We won’t be expecting toddlers who can barely keep their balance while walking to erect a shelf on their own, or teenagers to drive a nail straight home in one hammering (although my friend knows how to construct without need for nails). Simple light apprentice work, like gathering wood shavings for the kids, and teaching the teenagers to shave wood, with the proper precautionary reminders and gear, would do them much good.

Still too much? Back then (after World War II), children made their own toys. With bamboo sticks and plastic bags, plus sewing thread on spools, we can fashion kites. Yes, there was a time when kites weren’t bought in the malls. If you go to your province, you still might still get to see this dying culture of Pinoy toys for the Filipino children.

That, and kiddie scooters. Just wood panels, ball bearings, and nails – the reason why woodworking is a requisite in this section. Wood with 1 x 1 dimension gets sculpted into a cylinder, for two stainless ball bearings to fit each side. The ball bearings are the most costly here. The wood, you can get por kilo. You can go to your friendly junk shop, but maybe not such a good idea if you’re going to leave your kids unsupervised with a scooter they made on their own.

Another is the wacky wheel. The simplistic version is you get a worn down bicycle wheel rubber, a yardstick, and use the stick to drive the wheel. A more creative one is you get the round flat lid of an infant milk can, a yardstick, one-inch nail, and flatten a bottlecap as guard for when you nail the lid onto one end of your yardstick. The kids made their own toys, they’re proud of themselves, they run around the yard, and are asleep faster than you can say Wacky Wheel. The mommy’s joy is complete.

Scrapbook
As with crafting the wooden scooter, the scrapbook, unknown to some, is mainly an outdoor activity. Leaves, flowers, weird-shaped stalks, weeds, and pollen stalks plucked from vacant yards and the neighbors’ then dried in between newspaper pages for a week are great for designing photo scrapbooks.

A scrapbook can be a journal. It can be as manly and as girly as your children want it to be. Went to a beach and had some cute shells as souvenir? Use that on your scrapbook. Fond of collecting stamps, recycling packaging of your favorite grocery items? Use that on your scrapbook. Nuts and bolts and metal clamps and the rocker wallet chain and padlocks for a manly feel? Right on.

Door-to-door Selling
Into baking? Love merienda after siesta? Not satisfied with the usual halo-halo? Setup a table in front of the gate, and sell your own. Take your kids along when you talk to the neighbors, or other sari-sari stores for business opportunities. In approval and denial, discuss with them what you have learned, and why what you are doing is important. That shall be your chance to talk to them about money matters, and to teach them to fend for themselves – no matter what happens to them – or to you. You remember the Wacky Wheel? Have your kid sell that to his or her playmates for, say, Php10-20 each. Or the wooden scooter, for Php100-150 each, depending on the price of ball bearings.

Chores
The kids learn to fend for themselves, they learn to be responsible, they get self respect from a job well done.

When general cleaning, give them cloths to wipe the tables and chairs with. Teach them to sweep the floors, wash the dishes, fry hotdogs (this will help them appreciate the use, dangers, and learn to control the fire of the gas range), and keep the house in spit shine.

Cooking pastries, finger foods, and local viands will help them, with your guidance, know more about the nutritional value of real food cooked at home, compared to the taste and price of fastfood that by now, they’ve grown accustomed to. This could be a springboard for frontyard business ventures, which will benefit them long after you are gone.

Mending inseams, and learning crochet, cross-stitching will teach them patience and finesse. They can even become interested to sew dresses for their dolls. Php50 for a t-shirt or shorts at the local bazaar. Easiest money they ever made – because they enjoyed themselves.

Detailing/Welding
The secondary school children, and the college ones could take summer jobs, or learn vocational ones, even before their lessons are taught in school. In detailing, help them notice that the local carwash will not clean the car as meticulously as you or they will. So when they enter a business, they will have a competition headstart, because they believe in quality detailed work.

Welding is a great hobby, which can be used to start their own steel gate-fabricating business, or with enough artistry, they will start iron sculpting. Sculpture would be best for inhabitants of Pila, Laguna, or other such artistic hubs. Enroll your kids in art workshops – graphic arts, performing arts, and the like.

Furniture (design) and art go hand in hand.

Play with Other Kids
What’s the fun in having all the nice toys when you don’t have anybody to share them with? Not to turn the kids into braggarts, but individuals who know the spiritual value of sharing, and the tremendous joy it brings. Even without toys, you, your kids, and their friends can go jogging, biking, hiking, playing basketball or the summer pastime specialized for mommies and girls, of course – zumba.

Overall Hygiene and Personal Grooming
How can a person respect himself if he doesn’t look good? Good grooming starts in childhood. If a child pinches boogers into flickable balls in public, most likely that will continue well into adulthood. Show them how to iron their clothes, and let them know how the flat iron works, so they won’t fear it. Teach them classic ways to maintain their hair, with buns and gels, to always have hankies (or wet wipes) and bamboo fans handy when going out for when they ride public transportation. Erect posture, and the power poses for confidence, and to always always respect themselves. Reading books go hand-in-hand with this section.

Read books
Read books to your children, or if they’re old enough, have them read on their own and have a round-table discussion on the summary, and the parts that spoke most to them. There is such a thing as “deep reading” or how a person is able to glean from the books various lessons that shape their morals profoundly. Reading is for the soul. What you read to your children and what you let them read will fill their spirit, and so the classics are advised. Shel Silverstein, Narnia, Tom Sawyer, and for the very intellectual, Florante at Laura, Noli me Tangere, and El Filibusterismo.

Volunteer
Wait for the Rakhin refugees to break land, or better yet, go to the church nearest you, find the ones whose cheekbones cling to the skin, ask them if they are hungry, and feed them. You can organize feeding programs on your own (What does it take to feed somebody anyway? If you have food and utensils, you’re good to go. Don’t think too much into it.), or join a reputable organization where you have a friend. This way, when you take your kids, they wake up to the realities of life, and it empowers them, and tells them that they can always do something good, in whatever situation.

Play a Peter Pan game
Let your kids know that all the abovementioned that they’ve learned are for one and one end purpose alone – to be able to play, and play with sheer joy the air in betweeen their ears pop at the mere thought of it.

Bring out the enchanted cardboard boxes of old and tell them to use all the imagination they’ve got. It could be a merchant ship sailing out to new territories and they’re hijacked by pirates with water stink bombs, water guns – bamboozlers who know nothing of door-to-door selling and making an honest living, much less oral hygiene and personal grooming.

You were left marooned with the crew on an island with nothing but your scrapbook and a plunger – which you had to fight for to keep, in fact. And since it was evident that you were the only one with a weapon strong enough to gross out the feral inhabitants of the island (and because the Captain chose to become a pirate), you were promoted as the leader of the pack. You were renamed by the aboriginal member of the crew to “Mario Barraders” or in English, “King Stick-it-to-’em.”

You turn the plunger into a short spear (the scrapbook is to remind you of the beauty within – equally important as the plunger), and hunt for wild boar, but seeing none up and about, and not really knowing what would happen if the boar snatches that spear from you, you content yourself for the meantime with wild fruits from your neighbor’s backyard, and the aratilis berries from the vacant yard overrun by dinosaurs (bayawak), dragons (dragonflies) and man-eating vegetation (prickly weeds and shrubs).

A wild boar turns up, attempts to flee, but being the King (FPJ?), you chase it good, bring it down, and the scrapbook opens by itself, the seashells, sequins, and other glittery stuff shining a bright ray of light on your face, reminding you that you are a beautiful person, prevent you from becoming a complete animal, and just stick your spear to the ground as the boar slobbers you.

As it turns out, the boar was really your sister bewitched by the pirates’ all-smelling (foul-smelling; and not all-seeing) witch – sent to the island from your farm home to deplete your supply of fruits and berries, and finish off where the pirates started.

In the end, the boar, I mean, your sister helps you to harvest more berries since she brought with her (always) a spoon, that you were able to tie to the end of your plunger-spear, you are rescued by the Navy Seals before noon. Baby Sister recently had her birthday, and mum gave her a celphone – so she wouldn’t get bored. Fancy that.

Photo: From www.flickr.com/photos/iamagenious, some rights reserved

By Anna Manila as originally posted at the Philippine Online Chronicles