The 1 week of staying home to mug and 临时抱佛脚 took a toll on Raelynn. She was sick of being cooped up at home. Yesterday afternoon, I had a very funny conversation with Raelynn.
RL: I am home sick.
Me: What? We are at home leh.
RL: No no, I mean I am shop sick.
Me with *Blur like sotong* face.
RL: I mean I am Toysrus sick. I miss Toyrus.
Me : LOL!
But tonight she also made me very angry. Tomorrow is Chinese exam. I marked her comprehension practice and something was off. Because she got questions 1-3 wrong but the hardest last question correct. I asked her what is the answer and where did she get the answer from? And she stumbled. She had copied the answer as I suspected. I was super mad that she has learnt to cheat and lie to me. When I asked her why she did it. She did not answer. When I asked her if she think I will know about it and get angry, she nodded her head. I am even angrier that she chose to do something even though she knew I will find out and be mad about it.
She did something similar recently. She made a mistake for 听力测验。But she told me some people wrote no. 1 and no. 2 and no. 3 But when I probed. No. 1 was the correct answer and there was no one who wrote no. 2 and no. 3. She did not have friends who wrote no. 2 and no. 3 as the answer. She only said that to justify her answer. I scolded her, made her apologise and write lines after that incident. But instead of repenting, now she did something even more serious.
I remembered being super mad when RA did something similar at Primary 1. She withheld the truth from me when her school pocket money did not tally with what she said she bought for recess. Did the stall uncle give correct change I wondered then. I only found out the truth the next day from her classmate's mother that RA had bought a $1 pencil from the bookshop. I was hopping mad. Minus her stars and made RA copy lines. HB was more zen. His words were "she has evolved". 进化了。。。
Needless to say. I was not amused. I chose to be a SAHM to spend more time with my kids. To have them lie to me is like a slap in the face. Especially when they are still so young. I have never punished them for getting the wrong answer. But of course, I did rant and rave if it was a careless mistake or they copied blindly from passages. My explanation to them was if you are careless then you are not doing your best. And I want you to do your best. For tests, I will always check what kind of mistakes they made. If it was really a question that was beyond their abilities, I will tell them that they need to study harder next time.
On the bright side, RA did not tell anymore lies after that incident in p1. And she will proudly tell me that she did not ask her friends for Science mock tests or use her e dictionary for her Chinese mock tests. I hope it is because she has learnt her lesson. I don't know if telling lies is something all kids will go through.
As for RL, I marked her answer wrong even though it is right. Also going to make her write lines and take away her reward stars.
I hope she can really learn from this incident to always tell the truth.
