Chong Ee Jay 庄贻杰

Received this surprise treat from my son one day after returning home from a speaking engagement. He specially made a 🥝 🍎 kiwi-apple fruit bowl for me!

I could see the pride and excitement in him as he enthusiastically shared with me the detailed steps he went through to prepare this fruit bowl.

An ordinary fruit bowl but brought extraordinary warmth and joy to my heart. 😍

As parents, we often spend a great deal of time and energy teaching, guiding, correcting our children.

These things matter. But amidst the daily parenthood grind, let’s not overlook the emotional climate we need to create at home.

Our children may not remember every piece of advice we give them, but they will remember how we made them feel through the times of successes, failures, fun, mistakes and blunders they’ve encountered.

A home where children feel safe, seen, and supported becomes the foundation from which confidence, resilience, and healthy relationships grow.

May we not only teach our children well, but love them well too.

Wonderful afternoon spent at the Singapore Maritime Gallery with my boy enriching my maritime knowledge and learning more about what’s keeping Singapore’s ports so busy!

Keeping a promise I made to my son before his examinations that I would bring him to visit this gallery. Though it was just a one-level simple gallery, he had a lot of fun especially with the coast guard ship driving and cargo operator games.

The cheap thrill for us was spotting the Disney Cruise parked at the nearby Marina Cruise Centre, and the roller coasters were in action on board too!!

All in all, we spent about 2 hours at the Singapore Maritime Gallery and it was free admission! It’s situated just next to the Marina South Pier MRT, so really accessible as well!

So parents, if you are around town area this school holidays, why not drop by for a learning journey with your child! 🙌🏻

Privileged opportunity today to share with school leaders from the N4 school cluster about my ground observations regarding AI and cyberwellness developments and how students and parents are impacted by them.

It was heartening to see the school leaders take time out from their busy end-of-semester schedule for this collaborative think-tank discussion on how schools can further and better support students and parents in this Gen AI era.

As technology keeps advancing, it doesn’t make offline physical interactions and engagements obsolete. In fact, such personal, relatable and tangible connections and relationship are ever more so critical because these are what makes human beings human.

Parents, let’s be reminded: Screens and technology may occupy a child’s attention, but it is relationships that shape a child’s development. So let’s prioritise and be intentional to have more conversations, more real play, more connection and lesser screen dependency.

After the recent English chess challenge with my son that ended in a stalemate, he challenged me to another game - Country Eraser battle! 🤩

I was so surprised that this game is still played by primary schoolers! I was more than happy to accept his challenge because back in my schooling days, I was the champion of country eraser battle! 😆 So I’m looking forward to defeating my boy.

Alas, the proud me was humbled and I lost 2-1 to my son after defeating him in the first set. He now has the bragging rights for a few days before our next match up. Or he might challenge my wife next hoping to defeat her and upgrade his bragging rights.

Nevertheless, it has been fun playing these games with him and bantering with each other. I guess in an increasing digital age, it’s always refreshing coming back to non-digital plays!

Recently through my son and some children that I got to work with, I became quite intrigued by English Chess. I only got myself more familiarised with Chinese Chess when I was in Junior College. And 30 years later, I’m now taking on a new learning by trying out English Chess!

It’s pretty interesting because some of chess pieces’ moves are quite similar! And in my first match with a 11 year old boy, I got annihilated because I lost the match with only my King piece remaining! 😂

Here’s a photo of an English Chess set that I bought yesterday. Now I can play and practice with my son to get better so that I can get my “revenge” with the boy who annihilated me! 😂

As the Chinese saying goes, “活到老学到老” which means lifelong learning! And this definitely gives more another fun bonding opportunity with my son and the children I worked with. 🤩

Someone recently asked me, “What is one important piece of advice you would give to young parents today?”

After some thought, my response was this:
“Delay your child’s exposure to smartphones for as long as reasonably possible.”

In many homes today, smartphones have quietly become a convenient parenting tool - helping with behaviour management, serving as a reward, providing entertainment, or simply giving us exhausted parents a moment to breathe and recover. And honestly, these reasons are understandable. Parenting can be demanding at times.

But while devices may offer short-term relief, we also need to be mindful of the long-term impact. Young children can easily become conditioned towards dependency when screens become their primary source of comfort, stimulation, or regulation.

Research around the world has consistently shown that excessive screen exposure in early childhood can negatively affect a child’s social development, emotional regulation, attention span, sleep, learning, and mental wellbeing.

Perhaps the goal is not perfection, but balance and intentionality.

More conversations.
More play.
More boredom.
More human connection.

Exams have ended, Semester 1 of school is wrapping up next week and school holidays are upcoming! What are your plans to have a fruitful and fun school holidays with your children?

Whether it is quality time or quantity time, what’s more important is to make the time count! Be intentional to bond, strengthen connections, have conversations in whatever we do or whenever we go!

As I’ve always said, life will always get busier but our children only grow up once. So don’t miss out on their growing years!

The teenage years don’t suddenly appear overnight. They are built on the small moments, habits and relationships formed during the lower primary years.

Here in this infographic are important foundations we should focus on strengthening possibly even before we focus on grades, achievements or discipline.

Our daily consistent parenting moments today can shape a healthier and emotional stable child for tomorrow.

I’ve often heard parents lamenting that their child is not confident or that the child is insecure and shy. To be honest, a child’s confidence is not built overnight. In fact, no one’s confidence is.

Our child’s confidence grows through small, everyday moments where we encourage them instead of compare, listen to them instead of being dismissive, and remind them that they are loved and believed in.

Sometimes, the best gift we can give our children is simply our steady presence and belief in who they are and can become.