My daughter, JJ, turned nine last week. Instead of throwing her a party surfeit with sugary treats and garrulous friends, my wife and I opted for a more subdued celebration. We invited a few of her classmates to a cinema-shindig where they would catch a movie quietly, while my wife and I would catch forty winks in the back row of the theatre.  I highly recommend this mode of celebration…

Forget Maths. Forget Mother Tongue. And forget Spelling.  The toughest subject our children will need to ace today isn’t taught in a classroom or scored by weighted assessments. A flashcard-primed photographic memory won’t help them achieve AL1, and no amount of expensive tuition will save them from this neoteric illiteracy. Because the biggest academic challenge our kids are struggling with today is this: How do they even tell what is…

I am not one to brag – being nothing if not unpretentious – but I recently had occasion to suspect that my nine-year-old daughter is a little bit of a linguist. How else could I explain the fact that just a few weeks ago, I heard young JJ speak a smattering of Samoan?  I had casually asked her a question in perfectly proper English (“What would you like for dinner…

My buddies and I have a running joke: Those of us who have fathered girls will soon be shielding these darling daughters from boys like our younger selves.  Sure, we might joke about it, but none of us actually find it funny. Instead, we’re rather terrified. We’ve been there and are only too familiar with the tricks our younger, philandering selves deployed to ensnare unsuspecting maidens. Cat-calling. Dogged grovelling. And…

Happy New Year, fellow parents.  Whether you’ve been cradling your baby, reining in a restless primary schooler, or hopelessly commandeering an apathetic teen, you’ve made it through another year of semi-successful parenting. They don’t give out annual parenting awards – mainly because we’ve all bought into the silly belief that a happy and healthy child being is its own reward – but if they did, we should all get a…

Ah, tis December. There’s definitely something thick in the air this time of year. Your olfactory might be catching the taut and hissy winds blowing from the vents of your departing flight. Maybe it’s the cool, crisp bouquet of an East Asian temperate garden. Or perhaps – if you’re more of a tropical traveller – it’s the earthy beach pong and the buttery sunscreen silking on your shoulders.  Yes, it’s…

It defies any adult logic to expect my child to be always sensible. She is but right and there are suitable limits to her ability to rationalise. Meanwhile, I am 52 – so really, I have no excuse. 

Researchers have confirmed that watching Bluey, the cartoon dog, will help your kid learn resilience. I guess screen time is good again?

Explaining to your child about the supernatural is infinitely harder than talking about sex and babies.

It’s important that kids learn how to swim, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons you’re thinking of.

I’m not comparing Father’s Day to Mother’s Day – I swear!

Our parents didn’t know about newfangled parenting styles, but we turned out OK, right? (Well, except for maybe Martin Shkreli.)

If you thought preparing your child for P1 was tough, you ain’t seen P2 yet.

Admit it: Most parents think their toddlers to be rather clever. There’s one way to tell for sure….

Here’s what’s really going on when you see hyper-polite Asian parents navigating a play date.

The jobs our kids will take up tomorrow are yet non-existent, just like how Tiktokker as career was not imaginable when we were children.

Co-sleeping is a big, fat lie.  By its very definition, the concept of co-sleeping refers to a nocturnal scenario whereby the parents spend their slumbering hours with their young child on the same bed, in a state of restful bliss. But the truth is that there is very little actual sleeping involved in co-sleeping – especially for the adults. They might as well just call it “co-staying-up-all-night”.  Before the turn…

At 45, I became a first-time father. I’m not