Let them talk
I did a course about 4 years ago and what my finance lecturer said has gotten stuck in my head since then. It's nothing to do with finance, but it's to do with Asian (or maybe Singaporean) children and their upbringing.
In his opening lecture, he remarked about how Singapore students tend to be very quiet and non-interactive in class, unlike in the US where he studied. Over there, students would be putting their hands up, shooting their mouths, raising their voices and bombarding the lecturer. In Singapore (and maybe other parts of Asia), it'll be like:
Lecturer: Any questions? or Any volunteers?
Class: (complete silence - pin drops at the back)
Essentially, he attributed it to how we raise our children.
When they are young - it's always "Be quiet! Stop making noise! Shhh! No talking!!". And when they grow up and go to school, college, university, they remember those words and don't talk. All those years of "be quiet, shhh!" actually sinks in and they become mute - not being able to respond properly to questions, talk about themselves, sound intelliegent - not having the confidence to speak up and ask questions and so on.
So, encourage your children to talk (not in the cinema though) and give them the confidence that when they speak, others will listen to them. We tend to treat them as background music sometimes - and not pay attention to their little voices as they say "Daddy, why is ..." or "Mummy, is that ...". Tuning in to them, showing them respect and hearing them out gives them a whole world of confidence that they matter, they can communciate and what they say makes a difference.
I often ask Nigel to go to the McDonalds counter to ask for balloons, or order stuff. He has to make the request clearly and thank the staff later. We also get him to converse clearly with us and ask us for things in grammatically correct sentences.
So as far as the people around us can stand it - we hardly tell him to keep quiet. Unless it's in church.
In his opening lecture, he remarked about how Singapore students tend to be very quiet and non-interactive in class, unlike in the US where he studied. Over there, students would be putting their hands up, shooting their mouths, raising their voices and bombarding the lecturer. In Singapore (and maybe other parts of Asia), it'll be like:
Lecturer: Any questions? or Any volunteers?
Class: (complete silence - pin drops at the back)
Essentially, he attributed it to how we raise our children.
When they are young - it's always "Be quiet! Stop making noise! Shhh! No talking!!". And when they grow up and go to school, college, university, they remember those words and don't talk. All those years of "be quiet, shhh!" actually sinks in and they become mute - not being able to respond properly to questions, talk about themselves, sound intelliegent - not having the confidence to speak up and ask questions and so on.
So, encourage your children to talk (not in the cinema though) and give them the confidence that when they speak, others will listen to them. We tend to treat them as background music sometimes - and not pay attention to their little voices as they say "Daddy, why is ..." or "Mummy, is that ...". Tuning in to them, showing them respect and hearing them out gives them a whole world of confidence that they matter, they can communciate and what they say makes a difference.
I often ask Nigel to go to the McDonalds counter to ask for balloons, or order stuff. He has to make the request clearly and thank the staff later. We also get him to converse clearly with us and ask us for things in grammatically correct sentences.
So as far as the people around us can stand it - we hardly tell him to keep quiet. Unless it's in church.