His "Happy Space"

His first assignment brought from school, no not those English / Math worksheets. He told me he needed to draw a cover for his art journal.

He came back with a rough sketch of small mini objects in the background and he told me that it was an outer space scene and I noticed he coloured the background black as he mentioned it is dark in space. My next question to him was "Is your cover going to be filled with black?" as the objects were tiny. Is he going to colour the rest of that big space patiently ?

I told him why not enlarge what he has drawn. I passed him a picture of an astronaut, taught him how to estimate the size to be by drawing grid lines, told him to be bold and draw it big ! Fill up the space so that he don't need to colour so much of the back ground.

 

I left him to do it on his own and was surprised to see a cute, smiley face in an astronaut suit ! He told me he was happy, he wanted a have a happy astronaut and wanted more happy colours to be filled into the picture and if he could colour the background in blue instead of black. I replied "why not if it makes you happy, space does not necessarily needs to be in black, shades of blue is totally cool as well."

So here it is, his completed piece. I LOVE IT, his happy drawing ! And hope he remains as happy throughout his schooling journey, just like the astronaut he has illustrated, carrying a smile on his face always.

I hope and wish that I will not be too hard on his grades. So far he has no enrichment classes apart from Mindchamps (Read my previous reviews HERE) for creative writing and swimming on the weekends.

During my employment with Institute of Mental Health, I have seen plenty of young children, youths and even adults, broke down mentally from facing stress. I would not want my children to be faced with such pressure and be on medication for the rest of their life.

Being happy would be the most crucial factor towards learning and I really hope I can keep him enrichment free (minus the creative writing class) as long as I can and not being into the rat race of kiasu-ness. To me academic success is not everything, the character of the child needs to be moulded, their interpersonal skills. If you have a high IQ and low EQ, it's not going to make you a happier person in the workforce in the future. I would choose and hope Xav to grow up into to be a person well liked by all.

His completed "Happy Space"

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