The Singapore Life of Foreign Children - Part 1
This article (written by me) was first published in Pravasi Express. This is a four part article.
Consider this:
You are a parent of a teenager. You were brought up in India, and you came to Singapore following a great job opportunity with which you can provide a better life for your family, and maybe even for your parents back in India.
Everything is going well and smooth like you planned, until your child becomes a teenager and starts secondary education here. One day, out of the blue, you feel like your teenager has changed. All of a sudden, your world has been turned upside down because you feel like he or she is no longer the innocent child that you still considered them to be.
Maybe they have started talking back. Or showing you bad attitude, sometimes even questioning your authority. He or she starts to constantly complain that he or she is being misunderstood or that you are not trying to understand them. Something just doesn’t feel right. You feel disconnected with your teenager. You feel helpless. You are worried.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
If it does, you are not alone.
Don’t worry, you are not a bad parent. Neither is this a situation that you cannot resolve. These are things that most parents of teenagers face. If you are a parent and have a teenager who is not giving you trouble like those stated above, then consider yourself lucky - either you have a very understanding teenager, or you have gone out of your way to take the effort to understand your teenager and bridge the generation and cultural gap.
Yes, the keyword here is “Understanding”.
While as a parent you may feel stressed up and worried about your teenager’s behaviour, there is a very important factor that you may be overlooking. Your teenager is facing the same predicament as you are.
They are growing up in the Singapore culture, which is unfamiliar to them just as much as it is unfamiliar to you.
Growing up in Singapore has its fair share of difficulties for children. As someone who was not brought up in Singapore, you may not be able to relate to it, because you do not know what student life in Singapore holds for teenagers here.
“What could be so different from the student life in India?”
This is a common question that pops up in many parents’ minds.
In order to answer this, let me just put forward a few simple questions which you may hopefully be able to relate to:
- Is there a difference in the office and work culture between India and Singapore?
- Is there a difference in the general public culture between India and Singapore?
- Do you feel stressed up at your workplace, or feel out of place at least once during your stay in Singapore?
If your answer is yes to at least one of these questions, then the answer to the question asked earlier regarding the difference in student life, is also a resounding yes.
Just as you may find it difficult to fit in to life here or the pace at your workplace, your teenager may also find it difficult to cope with studies and student life here.
This leads to frustration, but your teenager does not know who to turn to for advice.
“Why? We parents are always here for them, right?”
This is another question that many people have. But think of it from your child’s point of view.
Your child knows that you were not brought up here. Hence, he or she automatically deduces that you are unfamiliar with the problem that they are facing and therefore you cannot provide them with a viable solution.
Can you blame them if they feel this way? Many a times, when you have a problem, you choose not to share it with a person who does not have experience facing and resolving the same (or at least similar) problem, don’t you?
If you, as an adult think this way, then imagine the thought process of a teenager, who has much less life experience and is surrounded by a lot of emotional and psychological pressure in the Singapore lifestyle. Sometimes, teenagers do not approach adults for help with solving an issue simply because they are afraid of getting scolded or upsetting you.
For teenagers with parents who are not brought up here, life at home is very different from the life they face at school. They face a constant clash in cultural differences as they transit between home and school. It is a culture shock that many youngsters find difficult to adjust and adapt to. Some children may never be able to adapt at all, and this combined with the feeling that their parents do not understand them can have a lasting negative impact.
Teenagers always yearn to be accepted by their peers. In this case, their peers are most often Singaporean children, born and brought up in the Singapore lifestyle.
What is this Singapore lifestyle?
The answer for this question can be summed up in one word: Freedom. There is freedom for everyone to do what they please. There is freedom to explore the unknown, and learn about things that they are curious about. As a modern nation with 24 hour amenities, night activities are common things. Get togethers and outings are different from what you are used to. Student-Teacher relationships are different, and so is friendship.
While parents like you are concerned and protective of your child, showering them with care and love, parents here are not so protective. Most of them give their child the space to explore and learn from their mistakes, while just keeping a lookout for them, so that they do not make serious, unethical mistakes.
For this, understanding and trust is very important.
As a parent - or rather, an adult - there is only one way to reach out to children and teenagers. You have to go down to their level of maturity and think with their mindset. You should never expect them to come up to your level and think with the maturity of an adult. Constantly calling them immature because their actions are immature when you look at a situation from the adult point of view can throw them off and make them very confused.
This is because, as mentioned earlier, they are just growing up, and have much less experience in life than you do. The maturity and wiseness that you have as an adult was developed from the many experiences you have had in life - both good and bad.
The kids are still learning. You were once a child and a teenager, before you became the adult that you are now, and that is the reason why it is possible for you to imagine yourself as a teenager in the current society and align your thought process with theirs, even for a little while.
Children, however, have always been children for their whole lives. They do not have even the slightest idea of how it feels like to be an adult. So how can parents expect their teenagers to think like adults?
Besides, as we all have felt when we were young, they also can’t wait to become an adult, and all that they are doing now, is trying to act like they are an adult. They are trying to believe that they know what life is about. We, as adults, now know it is foolish, but the truth of the matter is that this is a learning process - for them as well as for us.
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