Last Friday we went to see "The Day the Earth Stood Still" at the request of my nephew and niece. It was at the end of an afternoon's outing with them and when my wife joined us after work, her movie suggestion was taken up very enthusiastically by the 7-year-old and 12-year-old :)

Most of us know that rich carbohydrates and little exercise is the reason why this is happening. If your child is considered overweight by your family doctor, it is time you acted.

Do you spare the rod in bringing up your child? Perhaps you believe in the positive (read softer) approach.

Most of the time we think that true happiness is when things happen to be happening the way we want it to happen then we are happy (as how my pastor would say it).

As a young man, I wanted to be a father by age 30. Indeed, God gave me the desires of my heart and my first born arrived before my 30th birthday. That was some 15 years ago. The first things I learnt as a father was to clean my daughter’s “poo”!! Before, that I thought it was so ‘fun’ having a baby to ‘play’ with and this was when I realized that becoming a father was ‘hard work’.

My father was a good man, who works hard to provide for the needs of our family. He was a loving husband and father, but affections were not openly demonstrated when I was growing up. I was blessed to a ‘foster father’, a loving Christian elderly gentleman when I was studying in the States. It was through this relationship that I was introduced to hugs and open affections like saying “I love you”! This enabled me to be more affectionate with my kids even to this day.

In my early ‘fathering’ years, I thought that my main responsibility was to be the “provider”, to work hard as my father did to provide for the physical and material needs of my children since my wife was a stay home mom. One day, my wife made a remark that was a ‘wake up’ call. She said: “Your son may call you, uncle soon”.  My one year old son was spending more time with my brother every evening while I was out meeting clients or in the office. By the time I came home at 9, my son would be sleeping and by the time he got up in the morning I was probably out of the house.

Spending time and connecting with my kids is something that I need to prioritize even up to this day. Very often, my wife needs to remind me that I am spending too much time at work or even in church ministry. At times, my children will remind me that I have not taken them on their one-on-one time for the month. To carve out time for the family, I will involve my kids in church ministry by taking one of the older ones with me. This gives me an opportunity to talk to them when we are on the MRT and while we do the work. Usually, they will get a treat after their work hard which gives additional bonding opportunities.

Fathering requires commitment and consistency. At different stages, the challenges become very different. When the kids are younger, we need to spend a lot of time ‘sowing’ life, moral and spiritual values into their lives. When they are older, in the teenage years, we will have ‘lesser’ time and influence in their lives. They would rather spend more time with friends on the phone, MSN or just doing their own things. We need to make deliberate efforts to seize our opportunities with them, to be there for them when they need us.

We need to ‘know’ our children and we can only do this if we spend enough time with them. Playing with them through a sports or hobby is an excellent way to ‘know’ their temperament and find ways to mould and shape them. Taking an interest in the things they like, will also give us the chance to relate to them and understand their thinking and heart beat. Fathering is a life long journey and adventure, some thing that needs diligence and persistence. Our children, whether sons or daughters need good fathering models to help them become good parents.

Loving their mother, is an important part of fathering. My kids know that my wife is the most important person in my life after my God. Loving my wife, showing open affections for her and giving her first priority, gives my kids a great sense of security and stability in our home. Working together as a team, agreeing on the rules and values we want as a family, help me to become a better father and she a better mom. Therefore, to be an effective father, I need to the loving support of my wife, her constant reminders and encouragements.

Have you ever seen kids going around the steel pole in the MRT train or playing with the salt and pepper shaker while you're catching up with an ex-classmate you met in a cafe? What should parents do? Create rules along the way? Give them something else to do to distract them? Threaten them with punishment? What do we do during these moments?

I came across this old picture recently and looking at the happy smiles of my brother and me, stopped all that I was doing and started to reminisce about my childhood. 

What did I remember? Playing catching with my cousins beneath the void decks, taking after dinner walks with my parents at Toa Payoh Central, splashing at the public pools, picnic by the beaches and weekend “camps” in the living room to stay up late to watch mushy movies starring “Lin Ching Hsia” and “Chin Han”.

Met a friend over coffee yesterday and was updated that his 11-year-old son has topped in Science in his GEP (Gifted Education Programme) class and now into Diploma level for his violin. His 8-year-old daughter (not as smart as the brother, so he said) is at Grade 7 for her piano and has cleared the 1st level selection for GEP. The father was not boasting at all. We knew each other for a long time yet he hardly spoke about his kids and their exellent academic performances.

At what age should a child be given a mobile phone? Increasingly, children seen with one are getting younger.

I had just finished my coffee and my cup was still on the table. I had to step away for like 10 minutes.  When I returned to pick up my empty coffee cup that still had like a sip of coffee left in it and who should I see "ANTS". Not one, not two, not even three but a whole load of them!