Parenting on Purpose

This feature article was first written in July 2013 for Essential Parenting, an online parenting magazine by the Ministry of Social and Family Development. It has been reproduced here following the closure of the magazine. The changing face of society: Dinners are no longer the same... It is a rather common picture nowadays at restaurants all across Singapore. An entire family of four would be seated either waiting for the food or eating. The father would be surfing the Internet or checking email on his   i Phone or Android; the mother talking to friends or searching for the latest fashion information on her smartphone; the teenage daughter listening to music on her   i Pod or communicating with her friends via WhatsApp; and the little toddler watching cartoons or playing games on his   i Pad. One could argue that the family has the best communication technology there is on the market. However, how connected are each of the family members with regards to the day...

There are many things that you encounter when you become a parent. There are the less-than-mundane experiences such as waking up in the wee hours of the morning to feed your child, getting vomit and other odourous substances on your clothes while travelling on the plane or in church, and then there are the unique parent-child experiences such as going with your children to the indoor playground. Last month we went with our two boys to no less than six indoor playgrounds during our trip to Korea. In a season when the sky turns dark at 5.30 pm accompanied by a sudden dip in the temperature, we decided that our evenings would be safest spent in indoor locations such as shopping malls. And most large indoor malls in Korea are equipped with a sizeable indoor playground. The lovely safari-themed rooftop playground at Shinsegae Centrum City, the largest department store in the world. I have explored various aspects of play in my previous posts . This entry will however focus o...