Parenting on Purpose

The 3-year-old grinned brilliantly at me, a picture of complete bliss. In one hand he held a half-eaten char siew bao. And as I looked at what he had in the other hand, I realised it was another char siew bao , also punctured with little bite-marks.  "Tada!" he proclaimed, obviously feeling triumphant at what he had managed to accomplish. The look in my eyes transformed at once from curiosity to exasperation. "K! What are you doing! Why are you eating in this way! Why can't you eat one thing at a time!" And my frustration increased a notch when I learnt that he had already eaten one other bun, and this meant that he had singlehandedly finished all three of the buns that were meant as a snack for all three of my kids! Our little foster boy gets along well with our other kids. As the youngest in our household, he is always trying to fit in and play with his Kor Kors.  This was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the culmination of one week of behavio...