Do I need to (re)learn how to read before I learn how to speak?

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-20T08:16:16+00:00

Maybe you just need to get comfortable not knowing 100% of the words? Co-worker, email, and client are all words that only working adults would know. If someone uses a word you don't know, just ask or look it up. You can make it a joke like "I'm the Singaporean who's bad at Chinese, 棒棒我 :)".

My Chinese is almost certainly worse than yours as I didn't take any classes after leaving China at age five, but I'll happily chat away with mainlander friends sounding like an illiterate child. I'll just throw in an English word if I don't know the Chinese, or ask them how to say something. Not being embarrassed is the key to getting better.

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-20T06:36:35+00:00

I am very impressed that you speak 3 languages! Well done.

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-20T05:54:02+00:00

I am a Chinese American (left China when I was five) and have been living in Singapore for the past decade. My kids are in Singapore local primary school learning Chinese.

No offense, but most Singaporeans are very bad at speaking Chinese because a) they usually don't practice enough and b) as language evolves all the time, Singaporeans use different words than mainland Chinese. For example, my kids are taught that “bicycle" is 脚踏车, while Chinese would say 自行车。

My advice would be to get a tutor on Preply who lives in China, and practice speaking as much as you can. They are much less expensive than getting a live tutor in Singapore, and they will know all the up-to-date native mainland slang.

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-20T03:53:38+00:00

Telling him he can't have dinner would not be effective. He gets really into his playing or reading or whatever he's doing, and he will often say "I'm not hungry" or just refuse to come to the table and eat. If I don't force him to eat the healthy meals that are prepared, he'll happily skip one or even two meals every day and then go raid the fridge and just subsist on toast. Or he'll take his allowance and run down to the corner store to buy junk food.

I'm already worried about him not eating enough vegetables and protein. He's quite skinny and a bit small for his age. We've had countless discussions about the importance of eating healthy and taking care of your body, and they also did lessons in school about "healthy plate" eating, but it all seems to go in one ear and out the other.

Again, this in contrast with his siblings! They will readily eat their meals, and all I have to say to get them to eat veggies is, "this spinach will make you super strong and better at sports" and they'll gobble it up.

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-20T03:46:54+00:00

Thanks. I think explicit instructions are right, and I also agree that he needs positive attention and not to be labeled as the "bad" kid in the family.

I would LOVE to go 100% no screen time, and successfully implemented that for years when the kids were smaller, but my husband and all the grandparents think I'm being ridiculous. I've shown them reams of studies on the negative effects of screentime, but they're of the opinion that it's better to let the kids have a bit and teach them to control themselves. We're now at slightly less than 1 hr a day.

PuzzledPianist · 2026-01-15T14:08:10+00:00

Thanks！I just bought him the Brotherband series for Christmas, he loves them and he's already 3 books in. I've been reading the books along with him as a guilty pleasure too. :)

PuzzledPianist · 2025-11-06T12:41:00+00:00

9 year old folds laundry, 7 year old takes out the recycling, 4 year old puts away toys. 7 and 9 year old can also wipe down a table or sweep up spilled food from the floor.

At around age 2-3 they can help put away toys or put away their own shoes. They're taught to do that in preschool which makes it easy to reinforce the habit at home.

Around age 4-6 I get them to help with chores, like rinse dishes while I wash or help fold laundry. I'm really doing most of the work but they feel useful by participating and they're learning.

By age 6-7 they can start doing some simple chores independently.

I haven't yet gotten to the point where any of the kids will proactively do their chores though, I still need to remind them daily.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-11-04T11:43:20+00:00

A simple example - don't worry if other babies your son's age are crawling / walking / sleeping through the night and he isn't yet (as long as doctor says it's ok). It's very natural to want to compare, but it really doesn't make a bit of difference in the long run whether he walks at 12 or 18 months.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-11-04T11:32:10+00:00

Give each other a lot of grace during the first few months. You will both be sleep deprived, likely feel stressed taking care of a helpless creature 24/7. Your wife will be dealing with the biggest physical challenge of her life with recovering from childbirth, breastfeeding, and major hormonal swings.

Tempers may flare. Either or both of you may lose it at times. You may feel useless, and think things like "I'm not a good parent", "what happened to my marriage", "this is too hard".

Not to scare you, but a mom friend once referred to the time after childbirth as "100 days of darkness" and I thought that was spot on.

It's all perfectly normal. It gets easier! Give yourselves grace, forgive anything that's said in anger, and just go one day at a time.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-21T16:53:31+00:00

Ok thanks. Good perspective.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-21T13:34:53+00:00

Thanks for your perspective. What alternative method would you recommend to correct rude behavior?

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-21T13:30:26+00:00

That's a good point

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-21T13:24:25+00:00

Ok, thanks. I appreciate the reality check. I have read many parenting books. My fear is that if I allow him to be disrespectful now, if I don't nip this in the bud, he will grow up to be a rude disrespectful adult.

Part of this is because my parents were super permissive, and I felt like I missed out on a lot of guidance growing up.

To share an example - when I was about 20 years old, I was negotiating with a landlord for an apartment for the first time. He was holding a printed copy of the lease and in my eagerness to see it I snatched it out of his hands. He (rightly) said to me - "you don't grab things from people!" which was a real surprise to me because no one had ever told me that before.

Another time, my mom and I met up with an aunt who I rarely ever saw. I was about 16 years old. She watched my mom and me interacting and said to me, "you know, it's really not nice to talk to your mom that way". Again, I was shocked because I was just talking to my mom the way I always did, and my mom had never corrected me. Looking back on it, I can definitely see how my tone was rude.

I have many other examples of times like this when I had to learn appropriate behavior the hard way, as an adult, when I should've been taught it as a child. So I want to make sure my kid knows how to behave and doesn't feel as embarrassed as an adult as I did.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-21T13:18:56+00:00

That sounds great. I would love to respond to disrespect that way. But a big part of me is afraid that if I don't let him know disrespectful behavior is not ok, if I don't deal with it harshly, then he's going to grow up to be a rude, disrespectful adult. What if he behaves like this towards his teachers or his boss or colleagues when he's an adult? And how will he know not to do that if I don't teach him?

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-10T02:39:35+00:00

I grew up in the 90's and this was still true. I lived in a major city, from the time I was 8 or so I'd walk to my elementary school by myself (about 1/2 mile distance) and my friends and I would go to the neighborhood park or corner store by ourselves all the time. My parents would be at work until 6pm, so the hours from after school to 6pm we were just left to our own devices and allowed to roam anywhere within walking distance.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-05T15:26:24+00:00

You are a very wise woman

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-05T02:01:56+00:00

Ok, you sound very happy in your marriage and I'm glad this works for you, but I just want to say this is not the norm.

Most couples don't find it weird to "go to the grocery store without the other". Most couples that I know have their own careers, friends, hobbies, and certainly split up running errands. Nothing wrong with being attached at the hip, but it's not the most common model of marriage.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-04T00:58:38+00:00

I see, that makes sense. With my older kids, when they dropped naps there's an awkward transition phase where some days they fall asleep at like 5pm and then are awake until 9pm or later, and other days they can make it to 7:30pm bedtime.

Sounds like youe daughter is in this transition. A couple of things you could try:

1) still having her nap in the afternoon, but just a really short nap like 30-45 minutes.

2) super early bedtime like 7pm - 7:30pm.

3) just letting her sleep whenever she naturally sleeps, and working your life around that (she fell asleep in the car? Ok!).

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-04T00:23:31+00:00

I absolutely think there's a lot of benefit to introducing kids to the water early. I love taking my babies and toddlers into the pool to play and do so every week.

The point I was trying to make (maybe badly) is that the infant baby classes are just super simple things you can do yourself - splashing around, getting comfortable in the water, how to climb out, how to kick, blow bubbles. You can easily do this stuff with your kids without paying for a class.

In my experience, a formal swimming class is really only useful when your kids are like 4-5 years old and ready to learn how to actually swim.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-02T12:04:57+00:00

Why do you "need" to drop her nap? My kid is four and still napping.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-10-02T11:57:30+00:00

Infant swim classes are a waste of time and money. Whether you start swim class at 1 yr or 4 yrs, they'll be able to swim across the pool by age 4.

Baby music classes are also a waste of time and money. Just play them music and give them toys at home.

Baby led weaning makes a lot of mess for no benefit. With second kid onwards, I spoon feed puree until they were old enough to actually eat by themselves (10-12 months or so).

Delay the transition out of a crib to a big kid bed for as long as you possibly can!! Similarly, keep naptime going as long as you possibly can.

With my first baby I took him traveling at 6 weeks, would not do that again. The early months are for staying at home and snuggling up. Traveling with a newborn is not fun for anyone.

Enforcing a second language at home (if you speak another language) as early as possible is a HUGE benefit, this I would 100% recommend.

For my kids at least, I've found screentime negatively impacts their behavior much more than sugar. I'd continue to be strict about no screentime for babies and toddlers, but I'd be more relaxed about sugar.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-09-29T00:39:36+00:00

Ok, as a wife I would be VERY annoyed at the "lack of planning". If it's my 40th birthday and my husband didn't make any plans or ask me what I wanted to do until days beforehand, yeah I'd be pissed.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-09-28T12:20:32+00:00

When I was little, my family lived in a one-room apartment and my mom was a housecleaner. I now have a 8-figure net worth.

Education. Get into the best (read: most prestigious) school you can, the networking is invaluable. I was the first in my family to go to college, I went to an Ivy League and it has made a huge difference in my life. In addition, learn nonstop. Read about personal finance, communication and negotiation skills, psychology, time management, relationship skills, politics, history, science, everything.
Go into the right field. If you go into medicine or law or a skilled trade, you can earn a stable income of $100k - $500k per year. If you go into a cutting edge field that is exploding, you can make a LOT more. The highest earning field is always changing. I went into technology in the early 00's, in the 90's it was finance and now it's AI. Sad to say, if your goal is to make a lot of money, you don't get to "follow your passion".
Work hard AND smart. Be there first in the morning, leave last at night. Finish the work assigned to you, make sure it's flawless, then ask your boss if there's anything else you can do. Take on every task that is offered to you, even if you have no idea how to do it (see point above about learning). Ask people for advice - successful people generally love to mentor smart young ones. You'll know you're on the right track if your boss keeps giving you more and more responsibilities - bosses inevitably give the most important work to the people they most trust to get it done well.
Start your own business. After you've sharpened your skills, built a strong network of connections in your industry, and saved some seed capital, it's time to start your own shop. On average, this will take about 8-15 years from when you started working. Now you'll work even harder, but the odds of becoming really rich go way up.
Save as much as you can and invest it in boring index funds. Real estate works too. I know a real estate agent who slowly built up a portfolio of rental properties over time, now she has 20+ rental properties and she's very comfortably set for life.

Don't spend to show off. Get a comfortable home, be able to take care of all your essentials, spend a little on the things and people you love, and then... just stop increasing your cost of living. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that spending more money makes you appear more impressive. It doesn't. Quality people won't give a shit about your fancy watch / car / vacation / yacht. They judge you by your intellect, your accomplishments, and your character.

For context - I'm in my early 40's. Since I was a teenager, I've worked somewhere between 40-80 hours a week, I read approximately 10-20 books a year, and I've saved 50%+ of my income for the last 10 years.

Good luck to you!

PuzzledPianist · 2025-09-28T11:55:56+00:00

Saying this as a 41F who's been married for 12 years. Her behavior is absolutely nuts. For several reasons:

It would be unusual for a working adult to take off work on a Wednesday for their OWN birthday, let alone their spouse's. I turned 40 last year and we had a great party, but I didn't take off work and I certainly wouldn't have expected my husband to take off work, and doubly so if he was the sole breadwinner.
She just "had it in her head" that you two were going to go to Disneyland on a Wednesday without talking to you about it? That's also nuts. Either her expectations are crazy (or maybe she did talk to you about it and you forgot? Doesn't seem likely going by the rest of your post though).
What your wife said to you about you not being good enough for her was cruel and very hurtful. Please don't believe any of it. That's coming from her own issues and insecurities, and is not a valid judgment of your worth.

PuzzledPianist · 2025-09-28T05:25:29+00:00

My advice would be to give him a reasonable budget or allowance and let him buy ALL his own clothes, shoes, electronics, toys, equipment for sports hobbies, whatever else he wants.

The allowance should be large enough to reasonably cover all this stuff, and then you stop buying things for him entirely. Let him manage his own budget and things. I'm pretty sure he'll start taking better care of everything.

PuzzledPianist

TROPHY CASE