Month: April 2025

Written by: Director of Program Development, Carmen Leung

In the midst of the epidemic, there is a wide range of educational animations or online children’s programs for parents to choose from. Many parents also download different tablet apps for their children to use in the hope that they can learn through interactive or interesting images and sounds. Which animations and apps are good for children’s learning? What should parents pay attention to when using multimedia to help their children learn?

Time to use e-learning according to age

In early childhood, as the brain area responsible for coordinating the five senses is developing rapidly, I do not recommend children aged 0 to 2 years old to rely too much on TV or tablet computers for learning. This is because the images on the TV or tablet are flashing at a very high frequency, and children’s eyes and brains will unconsciously receive stimulation continuously, and over time, visual stimulation will become a habit, and brain development will be affected, resulting in reduced concentration.

Some parents say, “My child is very attentive when watching TV and playing with iPhone, but not when reading books, so I buy a lot of learning animations for her to watch. Have parents ever thought that if the eyes and brain are accustomed to constant stimulation, relatively static things such as books and teachers’ explanations will naturally become uninteresting, if you continue to let young children rely on rich images to learn, what to do if one day in the future they will need to face books?

Since the brain of children over 2 years old is more mature, parents can let children over 2 years old use TV and computer to learn in a limited way. The time should be no more than 15 minutes a day as a starting point, and older children can watch a little more. As children grow older, the high-frequency flicker of the computer or TV will have a relatively lesser impact on brain development.

Multi-learning mode is recommended

Although displays have an effect on children’s attention span, I do not believe that using TV and computers for learning is undesirable. Multimedia or computer programs can make learning more interesting and interactive, so that children can enjoy learning more and learn more quickly. However, in addition to using interactive multimedia for learning, children also need to adapt to other less interactive learning modes, such as books and one-way lectures, and find the fun in learning.

Parents should provide their children with a variety of learning channels, such as taking them to the library, playing educational games with them, visiting museums, going for walks on nature education trails, or even teaching them to read the English menu at restaurants, etc., so that they can try different learning modes and methods to find the joy of learning.

Written by Mr. Leung Wing Lok, an octopus parent

Since I got a Kim Jong-un haircut by a hair stylist, I have been thinking about whether I should implement “Kim Jong-un style of discipline” at home to a pair of children, and to authoritatively promote my personal hero worship to my father, so as to regain my status and authority in the family, and to implement the “Great Father Leader”, and I am planning to hang my own magnificent pictures in all rooms and play the “Love Daddy” song, but unfortunately, it has been a failure before implementation.

Should you build authority in your children from a young age?

Many of my friends would remind me to build authority while my children are still young, otherwise we will not be respected when they grow up. The friends’ good intentions are based on how they were “taught” or “lectured” when they were young, and then they “respected” and “feared” their fathers, and had a good relationship with their fathers when they grew up, so they concluded that “filial children come out from under the rod” and “don’t be disobedient”.

A friend shared his personal story of being beaten “because he was beaten every day, both big and small, he was already used to it”, and one night he felt strange because he had not been “taught a lesson”, and before he went to bed, he did not forget to remind his parents “to beat or not to beat? If not, I will go to sleep ……” is full of black humor. But fortunately, my friend is a kind-hearted person who grew up without a vengeance and did not become a murderer.

Dismantling the true power of fatherhood

The question of how to establish the authority of a father is a perennial problem, and I ask “Why must we establish patriarchal authority? Is the purpose to facilitate management? A command was given and all the children obeyed. Or how much of it is to satisfy one’s own desire for power, “I am the father, you are the children, you must listen to what I say. Or even more, “I say one is one, and my children have no right to say two. I believe that if I were such an “authoritarian” father, I would not be happy either, because my father is not so domineering, and has never “dictated” my decisions on further education, employment, etc., except for when I scored near zero in exams and dictations when I was young, I would be given a harsh “What are you doing? I think this is the power of patriarchal authority.

Teaching by example is more important than discipline

Back to my “Kim Jong-un discipline”, my eldest son, Hay, is always angry because of changing clothes, and the conversation often goes like this, my wife or I: “Change your clothes! We’re going out! “ I kept doing my best to show my fatherly authority (pretending) and said angrily, “Go change your shirt, go, go, go! He was so disturbed but did not do anything. My wife couldn’t resist: “You haven’t changed your shirt yet? Is there anything wrong! Hay replied, “Daddy won’t help me change my shirt! I said : “I’d help you change, but you didn’t. Come on over” He is furious: “I want to change myself “ Normally I will be so angry but before the fake role became a real anger, Hay came to me and hugged me and said “Today is Father’s Day, Happy Father’s Day! I feel a sense of déjà vu…. Teaching by example is more important than discipline, and “Kim Jong-un’s discipline” is even less necessary and is automatically set aside.