Our twins will be turning seven next year. 2018 is going to be their final year in preschool and frankly, it has been a long time coming given the fact that they have been in four childcare centres since 18 months young. Nazri and I are working professionals; he works twelve-hour shifts in a synthetic rubber plant in Jurong Island while I teach students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Yishun. In the second quarter of 2013, our then domestic helper Tim, needed to return to her homeland due to family commitments My husband and I found ourselves in a quiet frenzy searching for a suitable childcare centre.
Facing with the reality that we were going to enrol our twins in a 7am to 7pm childcare centre, our requirements had been rather simple. Their centre had to be primarily located within walking distance to home. Secondly, the centre must serve halal meals for our twin girls. Being 18 months young, we barely looked into the centre’s curriculum framework. This was because, at the unyielding advice given by their neonatologist months before, we had already signed up for their library cards and buying and borrowing books to read to our pre-term babies before bed. Being the young parents we were, we were quick to introduce them to swimming and getting our toddlers to be physically active with a preschool gym instructor who incidentally was their aunt. Many hands were needed to raise a child; what more twins.
Given their young age, we had been more concerned about possible abuse at the centre – then, there had been reports in the media about a childcare teacher who was caught on CCTV abusing a child under her charge. The childcare centre was going to be an interim one anyway because Nazri and I were waiting to move into our own home in the northern part of Singapore. Our twins’ social emotional well-being and getting them used to the routine of dropping off and fetching and the entire emotional rollercoaster of separation anxiety coupled with a twice-changed teacher-in-charge of the Playgroup class took precedence over curriculum. The centre was newly established, was spacious and air-conditioned with an adjoining infant-care but did not have a halal kitchen. Thankfully, its manager was willing to accommodate to me packing slow-cooked porridges from home. Nevertheless, Nazri and I had been pleased to attend their first Parent-Teacher Conference with their new teacher to learn that they had developed socially acceptable group skills and were able to cope with the centre’s in-house early literacy, basic Mandarin, early numeracy, gross motor development skills as well as play skills curriculum.
When we relocated, we found that our requirements barely changed when we looked for a new centre except that we were more selective in looking for centres offering Malay Language. As our choices streamlined to two, we settled for the one which was approximately four feeder bus stops away because this centre seemed more established with courteous and professional staff. It also offered plenty of opportunities for parental involvement. Nazri and I happily attended all their festival-based celebrations, witnessed our first and second born run their toddler hearts out in their annual Sports Day and took part in weekend parents’ workshops such as chocolate-making and baking with our twins. By the end of their nursery years, we were most grateful to this centre as its staff painstakingly helped wean our twins from bottle-feeding (although this was mostly initiated by us), assisted us in toilet-training them and soon, the twins were able to dress themselves at the tender age of four. It was also a plus that the twins continually had a fixed group of friends to share lots of good memories with them.
Outside of weekday preschool, we were bringing them to local places of interest like the nearby Yishun Park, Mandai Zoo, Science Centre and River Safari as well as attending affordable children’s plays with them at the Esplanade and theatrettes in community centres. One could say that as parents, we allowed them to engage in active learning in their preschool while encouraging them to be cultured and well-rounded through our weekend activities.
As soon as they turned five, travelling four bus stops to and fro grew increasingly taxing and work too became more demanding for the both of us. It came as a blessing that we were able to enrol our twins into the new kindergarten just opposite our block; its partner childcare functioned next to it and its curriculum was congruent to that of the kindergarten. This meant that the twins attended childcare in the morning and were brought to their kindergarten class in the afternoon before returning to the childcare until either parent fetched them. This third centre had very driven staff and a robust curriculum; one which focused on the child’s active learning in exploring the environment, and for them to have strong interpersonal skills and a good foundation in thematic literacy and numeracy learning corners. Given that our twins were due to enter Primary One in a couple of years, this centre seemed promising.
However, it was not meant to last. Months later, we pulled them out of this centre in order to accommodate a new living arrangement. Our family of four was about to welcome a new addition. Due to circumstances we had faced then, we saw ourselves moving out of our own home and relocating back to the eastern part of Singapore in the comfort of my parents’ double-storey terraced home.
Thankfully, we were still able to place our continued focus on our twin girls’ preschool education. Our pre-term babies were ahead of all their peers in their class (according to their class reports), able to form and speak in sentences more eloquently than most five-year-olds, they were curious, and willing to learn and pick up new skills like cycling and playing the violin. One thing that was lacking though was the connection to our Muslim faith. In relocating back to the east, we felt compelled to find a kindergarten which was able to provide introductory lessons for preschoolers to learn more about our Muslim faith. As per the past, we were at the crossroads between two centres but ultimately, we went ahead with the one which was well-established and provided a dynamic and holistic Islamic integrated curriculum. Within months of them being enrolled in that centre, we noticed how much more inclined they were to receive education both in mainstream topics like comparing sizes of the different types of rhinoceroses to more Islamic teachings such as memorisation of Quranic verses.
This centre had been the only one to send in weekend assignments focusing on a home-based reading programme which would get the twins to read books either from the class library or the occasional Molly bus library. Subsequently, they were to produce an artwork for the upcoming show-and-tell session the following week. Being brought up in secular schools from our preschool days, Nazri and I were pleasantly surprised at how this centre managed to get our twins to be energetic learners and self-motivated to be ready for primary school education. Needless to say, like in all their previous preschools, we remained true to our involved parenting styles and religiously attended their Sports Day, helped out with parent volunteer events and continued our weekend activities in ensuring that our twins were not only bookish but also street-smart.
If asked whether parental involvement in the education of preschoolers has increased over time, I would unquestionably agree to a large extent. When my own parents were asked if they recalled any involvement during my formative years of life, their response was a stark contrast to what I had put in as a parent myself. Like us, my parents were working professionals but they had relied heavily on my maternal grandparents for child-minding assistance. As the option of depending on either set of our parents to look after our children (his parents are too elderly and caring for twin toddlers were not physically possible for them) was not made available for Nazri and I, right of the bat, we resorted to enrolling them ina childcare centre. Being actively engaged in our children’s preschool education seems to have had a positive impact on us; it has enhanced their preschool experience by allowing us to engage in more common topics to talk about at the dinner table and also provided us a platform to network with other parents from their preschool. We also stood to gain by having a more open communication with their kindergarten teacher with regard to curriculum and academic plans for our twin daughters. ⬛
Nur Husniyati Husin is a 32-year-old mother of three young children. She has been passionately teaching youths with Autism Spectrum Disorder for the past eight years. In her free time, she enjoys reading a good novel or going for a leisurely stroll along public parks. While she finds cooking extremely therapeutic, she considers cleaning a daunting task. Recently, she tried her hand at floral arrangement as she is addicted to fresh flowers.
