Last month, the month of November in 2018 my youngest son managed to graduate in nuclear engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia or UTM in Johor. At the grand convocation, he was also awarded an excellence award by the University Alumni Association. Even before the graduation ceremony, he was offered to do a Masters in Management and Gas program at the same university for which he did not even apply. Recently, he was also offered to do a Masters in Nuclear Engineering by Tsinghua University, one of the best universities in China. The offer comes with a full scholarship and a job offer after graduation from the Chinese Nuclear Corporation Agency. Seeing the achievements of my youngest son, I could reflect back on how I have brought up my children. I just want to share my experience in bringing up my children and the things that I've done or acted upon.
I remember one of the things that I did as a parent is to stress on three important subjects which were Mathematics, Science, and English. Every time when guiding or advising the children, I would always emphasize the importance of these subjects. I really made sure that my children were good at Mathematics. When they were young children, I would always teach and guide my children how to add up the numbers in the license plate of cars. I would also do calculations and other mathematics types of activities. In a long journey to Melaka or to Kedah, I would reward my children with special prizes if they managed to answer all my mathematics questions. With the rewards, they would be very thrilled and would try their best to answer the questions. The prizes did really motivate them. I believe because of my pieces of training, all my children were good at Mathematics. My eldest would always able to win money prizes for answering mathematics questions posed by the teacher in his school. I still remember vividly how my eldest son would smile gingerly with a few ringgits that he held in his hands after coming back from school. I could see his grins imbued with satisfaction.
The same thing with English subject. I would do presentation activities while we were traveling in our car to other places. I would create situations in which they had to give presentations depending on the situations given. All would have to talk in English with no exceptions. At hotels we stayed in, I would also always ask my children to call the hotel reception for extra pillows or towels and all these had to be done using English. I would also make sure that they all spoke in English with the hotel staff when checking in or out and I would observe them from afar. In short, I would encourage them to use English whenever communicating with people at banks, hotels, and restaurants. I myself never taught them English at home, I also seldom communicated in English with my children but I got them to use the language at the right places and situations. I think it worked as all my children were able to communicate in English fluently and all of them managed to get A+ in the subject.
My children not only loved Mathematics and English they also did very well in the science subject. I remember when they were kids I would regularly take them to the zoos in Melaka and Gombak to see the animals. I would get them to see for themselves the animals and learned about them. I would also take them to secondary jungles and places where there were plants and I would share with them things that I know about- the plants and animals. At home, I would talk about insects and other living things. I remember my youngest kept several caterpillars he found in a container until they became beautiful butterflies but he did not want to release the butterflies. But finally, I managed to convince my youngest to let go of the beautiful insects to the wild. He cried but later he felt so happy.
Other than making sure that my children were immersed in Mathematics, Science, and English, I as a father would always make sure that they did not miss their daily prayers. Even though I seldom go to the mosque myself for the daily payers, I make it a point that they always be grateful to Allah and that they would never miss their obligatory prayers. I would instill in them good moral values as well as religious values. All my boys were able to recite al Quran and all the necessary after prayer doas and all would be able to become an imam at any jumaah prayers. The sad thing is that I myself when I was young, was not able to do what my children were able to do. I still remember the day I really rotan my eldest for missing his Friday prayers for no good reason. That was the only time in my life that I really spanked my children and I regretted it so much.
One thing about bringing up the children is that I did not punish them or give any physical punishments to my children except for that one unfortunate incident in which I rotan my eldest for missing his Friday prayers. I don't believe in physical punishments as I went through that myself as it was very painful physically and emotionally. My dad who was a police officer had a very regimented and disciplined upbringing of children. He would always resort to physical punishments to get us to listen to him. I could still remember how he would hit us with the police issued belt and we would be crying in pain. In one instance, he hit me with papan rehan, a wooden plank where you would put your Quran on it, so hard that the wood just split into two. I could still remember that day and on that day itself, I promised myself that I would never do that to my own children. True enough, I have kept my promises. I have never resorted to physical punishments to teach my children. I would only shower them with unconditional love and care.
With the grace of Allah, my children turned out to be quite okay according to my own standard. My eldest son is now a doctor serving in a remote hospital in Negeri Sembilan. Occasionally, he would come back to my home in Bangi. He is already married to a girl from the state of Selangor who is working as a doctor in a hospital in Putrajaya. They both have a son -my grandson now aged 3. My second child is a daughter who works as a lawyer in a legal firm in Bandar Baru Bangi. She's now specializing in Conveyancing and now doing her Masters in law in Intellectual property. She hopes to have her own firm in a few years time. And my youngest has just graduated from UTM and also doing his masters. He's also applying to further his studies in Korea under the KAIST programme. Alhamdullah ...for all the blessings.
