5 Sebab Anak Tidak Menangis Pada Hari Pertama Sekolah

Assalamualaikum all!

An article of ours have been kindly published by TheAsianParent Malaysia, an online community targeted at urban parents and parents-to-be, who live in Malaysia. So motivating, alhamdulillah!

Check out the article here, or you can read it below:

5 SEBAB ANAK TIDAK MENANGIS PADA HARI PERTAMA SEKOLAH

Musim sekolah kian tiba – sungguh cepat masa berlalu! Setiap tahun, anak-anak kita akan memasuki alam persekolahan dengan perasaan yang bercampur aduk – ada yang sedih berpisah dengan ibu bapa, dan ada juga yang amat gembira dan tidak sabar untuk memulakan fasa baru kehidupan bersama rakan sekolah.

Anak yang enggan ke sekolah bukan perkara yang baru dalam masyarakat kita. Mereka mungkin berasa takut kerana mengalami persekitaran yang baru dan asing. Anak juga mungkin sudah terlalu selesa berada di rumah dan keberatan untuk meninggalkan atau mengubah rutin, misalnya seperti menonton televisyen dan bermain game.

Ada beberapa faktor yang boleh mengelakkan anak menangis pada hari pertama di sekolah:

1. Pastikan anak rasa selamat dengan persekitaran sekolah
Perkara pertama ibu bapa harus mengenal pasti sebelum menghantar anak ke sekolah adalah keselamatan (sense of security). ‘Selamat’ di sini adalah dari segi fizikal (bangunan yang selamat digunakan, persekitaran sekolah yang ceria dan cantik) dan juga mental/emosi (anak berasa selesa untuk bermain dan belajar, anak tidak ragu-ragu untuk memberitahu guru jika sesuatu berlaku). Lebih baik jika ibu bapa melawat sekolah dan lihat sendiri sebelum memasukkan anak.

2. Ceritakan pengalaman hari pertama di sekolah
Anak sangat suka apabila ibu bapa bercerita tentang pengalaman kita dalam sesuatu perkara. Ceritakan pengalaman kita pada hari pertama sekolah dulu – bagaimana kita ke sekolah, baju dan kasut yang kita pakai, bagaimana guru di sekolah, kawan pertama kita di sekolah, apa yang kita buat pada hari pertama, dan macam-macam cerita lagi. Berikan gambaran yang positif kepada anak tentang sekolah. Boleh juga lukiskan atau lakarkan pengalaman tersebut - taktik bercerita yang lebih menarik :)

3. Kawan/adik-beradik berada di sekolah yang sama
Apabila anak kita tahu kawan ataupun kakak/abang mereka akan berada di sekolah yang sama, mereka akan lebih bersemangat untuk pergi ke sekolah. Ini akan secara automatik mempercepatkan proses penyesuaian anak dengan persekitaran sekolah tersebut (sense of belonging). Anak akan lebih yakin dan tenang apabila mereka tahu seseorang yang mereka kenal akan bersama mereka. Galakkan juga anak mencari kawan pada hari pertama. Sambil mereka berkawan-kawan, anak akan lupa ketakutan sendiri, inshaa Allah.

4. Anak seronok dengan aktiviti di sekolah
Kanak-kanak tertarik dengan aktiviti yang seronok. Sebelum hari pertama ke sekolah, ibu bapa boleh perkenalkan dan dedahkan anak pada aktiviti-aktiviti yang akan dianjurkan oleh pihak sekolah seperti program lawatan sambil belajar dan kelas tambahan seperti memanah atau taekwondo. Lawati sekolah terlebih dahulu, buat pertanyaan tentang program-program yang akan datang sepanjang tahun, dan ceritakan kepada anak supaya mereka berasa teruja dan ternanti-nanti untuk ke sekolah.

5. Guru sekolah senang didekati (approachable)
Guru memainkan peranan yang sangat penting di sekolah. Apabila anak di sekolah, tanggungjawab terhadap kebajikan anak tersandar 100% pada guru, dan anak akan berada di sekolah bersama guru selama beberapa jam setiap hari. Kita boleh lihat betapa pentingnya guru yang senang didekati (approachable). Pada hari pertama di sekolah, persepsi pertama (first impression) anak terhadap guru akan memberi kesan terhadap minat dan motivasi anak untuk ke sekolah. Contohnya; jika anak mendapati gurunya rajin bercerita dan bersikap peramah, dia akan lebih suka untuk ke sekolah.

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds, inshaa Allah :)

2017 Registration is OPEN!

Assalammualaikum all!

It is mid of December and I am sure a lot of mommies and daddies are excited to send their children to the next phase of life - preschool! Oh what fun and joy it would be to start school, especially when the school offers a conducive environment for learning in and beyond classrooms.

Not sure where to send your child yet? Now is the best time to register your child to enroll in Genius Aulad! Wait no more and register online.

Here's a step-by-step guideline for online registration:

Step 1: Go to www.geniusaulad.com.my

Step 2: Click on 'Online Registration' at the top-right corner of the website

Step 3: You will be directed to another page called ASIS. Choose which centre you wish to register with.

Step 4: Scroll down for more centres.

Step 5: Click on the centre of your choice.

Step 6: You will be directed to the 'Genius Aulad - Online Registration' page.

Step 7: Fill up all the relevant information. Do note that fields with asterisks* are mandatory fields to fill in.

Step 8: Once you have filled up the online registration form, tick 'Confirmation' at the bottom of the page

Step 9: Click 'Send This Application' to submit the online registration form, and you are done!

It. Is. That. Easy!

Still unsure on some matters pertaining to online registration? Check out some of our FAQ's below:

I can't seem to register online, there seems to be an error when I try to click 'Online Registration'. 

Oh dear, maybe the system was down. No problem - just email the centre you are interested in about it. Remember to provide essential information on the child and parents/guardians, and the respective centres will get back to you soonest possible. 

How do I know that my application has reached the centres?

Basically, once you have clicked 'Send This Application', the online registration form will go to the respective centre's email. For each centre, there might be lots and lots of application at a time. It takes time to go through all the online applications, but if you would like to find out, you can call the centre directly and inquire about your online application. 

Where can I find contact details of all the centres?

You can find contact details of all the centres from our website. Go to www.geniusaulad.com.my, go to Contact. You will see and interactive map. Click on the location of the centre you are interested in and the contact details will be displayed on the left side of the page. 

In the online application form, there is a section for both Father and Mother, but I am a single parent. How do I proceed?

No worries - just fill in both the Father and Mother sections with the same information :)

Well, hope this blog post will help Mommies and Daddies out there on how to register online. Hope to see your child at the nearest Genius Aulad centre soon! 

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds, inshaa Allah. 

Train Hard, Train Smart!

Assalamualaikum all!

How has the school holiday been so far? We hope you are having a beneficial and exciting holiday before starting school in January. Some of us are travelling to places near and far. Some of us are learning new things and taking lessons. Some of us are even catching up on reading that book we bought 3 months ago!

While we are relaxing and having fun during the holidays, our teachers at Genius Aulad are busy busy busy! Our dear teachers have training sessions lined up all month long, mashaallah. Not only are they energetic and hardworking during lesson time, they are also extremely dedicated in preparing and getting ready for their upcoming lessons. Go, teachers, go!

For Genius Aulad teachers, we have two types of training; one is professional training, and the other is in-house training. For professional training, we have professionals from all over the world to train our teachers, such as Mr.Roger Jenkins, the international award-winning storyteller, and the wonderful team from Red Bubbles who conducted the "Beyond Clowning" workshop.

"Beyond Clowning" - A fun workshop that teaches interactive entertaining techniques

For in-house training, our teachers are trained by HRDF-certified trainers to maintain our quality of teaching. This is to fulfill our teachers' goals to nurture children into becoming adventurous, bubbly, and confident young Muslims with English fluency.

There are several in-house training sessions this December, which includes Bijak Bahasa, English at Ease, Islamic & Arabic Funworks, and the exciting Circle Time & Assembly. All these training will provide the teachers with ideas and guidelines on how to conduct their classes to be as beneficial and fun to the students as possible.

Our cheerful Islamic Education Principal sharing great teaching tips in the Islamic & Arabic Funworks training session

Teachers super focused during the Bijak Bahasa training session

Alhamdulillah, training sessions are currently on-going as we speak. The whole planning and organizing of the training sessions is all thanks to our beloved Training and Education team. They have worked very very hard in making sure all teachers have the opportunity to go through the training sessions and apply what they learn in lessons to come. The team has also contributed so much in ensuring the quality of our teachings is maintained and inshaa Allah improved. Nice work, team mates!

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds!

Lunch & Learn Cyberjaya!

Assalamualaikum all. 

We are excited to announce our 55th Genius Aulad centre has opened at Cyberjaya! The centre is looking pretty good and almost done, alhamdulillah. 

As a introductory step, we are having a Lunch & Learn session at the centre TOMORROW! If you are a parent interested to send your child here, or if you are simply interested to know more about the centre or about Genius Aulad in general, come and meet us there! 

Two awesome reasons why you should go tomorrow to our Lunch & Learn session:

1. The Lunch & Learn session will be a sharing session with the Genius Aulad Founder and it will be based on the topic "Teaching at Home: Peparing Young Children to be THINKERS!", which is an extremely good topic for parents, inshaa Allah. 

2. FREE LUNCH! Now who would turn that down? :)

So come and find us. We are at Fiesta CyberSquare, Jalan Teknokrat 6, Cyberjaya. Inshaa Allah, see you there! 

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds :)

Let's Read! Mari Membaca!

Assalamualaikum all!

Not sure what to do during the school holidays?
We at Genius Aulad have exciting reading activities lined up for you!

We are having a one-on-one mentoring session for English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Little Qari. The program is a reading recovery program for children who need personalized help and coaching. Each child will explore the three learning styles of Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic learning through various reading activities.

For more details on the different packages, contact our Headquarters at 03-80512376 or 03-80655150 and book a slot now!

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds :)

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 5

Assalammualaikum all!

We have come to our fifth and final point of the "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" mini series, which explores what triggers the issue, and how can we as adults and parents help with the situation.

Let's have a look at the final point!

Play time is a crucial time for children's development as this is the time when they mix around with other children and practice social skills. It is especially important that children are given the opportunity to play outdoors and benefit from nature's unstructured environment. According to Kathleen Alfano, Former Director of Child Research at Fisher-Price®, playing outdoors allows children to explore their environment, develop muscle strength and coordination, and gain self-confidence. These are developments that are important in a child's well-being. 

Thankfully, developing social skills is not limited to outdoor play. There is also no specific 'guideline' to what a socially competent child should be. Nevertheless, children with better social skills tend to be better at making friends and communicating with peers and teachers around them. When children find it challenging to communicate effectively with people around them, they will get easily frustrated. 

What can we do to help with our children's social competency?

There are various ways that we can teach social interaction to our children. One important element in social interaction is the ability to have proper eye contact. A good, solid eye contact shows that we are interested in what the other person says and we are also listening confidently. Explain to your child the importance of eye contact, and then practice, practice, practice! Every time you speak to your child, look him/her in the eye and encourage them to do the same.

Another crucial social interaction skill is saying the magic words - 'please' and 'thank you'. Good manners is extremely important as this will shape our children into more polite and approachable people, inshaa Allah. Parents would need to be role models to children and demonstrate good manners. Encourage children to say 'please' and 'thank you' whenever they can, and praise them when they do - they will be motivated to continue doing so!

Alhamdulillah, this marks the end of our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?". We hope the series have given much benefit and enlightenment to all readers, inshaa Allah. We hope to continue this initiative and help our children develop into admirable future leaders.

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 4

Assalammualaikum all!

Praises to Allah, we are still continuing with our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" which explores the reasons to why our children get easily frustrated and what are the things we can do to help them.

Let's see what the 4th point says!

Here is something not all children would like to do - chores! Most of us perceive that doing chores means doing work, and children are calculative when it comes to performing chores. On the contrary, performing chores can actually help children in several ways. Research shows that children actually feel happier when they feel they have contributed to the family and would have a sense of ownership and responsibility. Without this sense of ownership and responsibility, a child is more likely to feel frustrated when they are asked to do something.

Monotonous work like chores may not seem exciting or give instant results, but it definitely has an impact on the child's development in the long run. Practicing chores from a young age develops the child's basic life skills. This essentially will make the child grow into a more independent and competent person later in life.

What can we do to encourage our children to do chores?

One effective way to involve children with household chores is by doing it together. Doing chores together will give parents the opportunity to spend time with children and provide first-hand guidance and help. This will also develop the children's abilities to work well with others.

Another thing to remember is to make the chores manageable and fun. This method will make the children associate doing chores with positive thoughts. A great example would be cleaning up their toys once they have finished playing. While putting the toys back into the boxes, parents and children can start singing songs or play a simple game like keeping the blue toys first, and then the red toys, and then yellow toys. The next time they are asked to clean up, they would not be so reluctant anymore, inshaa Allah :)

Hopefully this tip finds you well. Try it out and let us know how it goes!

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 3

Assalammualaikum all!

We have come to our third point in our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?". Inshaa Allah, we will keep exploring reasons to why our children easily get frustrated and what can be done to improve the situation.

Let's see what the 3rd point says:

Do you remember when you were little, Mom and Dad would constantly and consistently remind us of a lot of things, like finishing up our homework on time, or reminding us that we need to go to bed no later than 9 o'clock? As children, these may seem as instructions or orders from parents. However, there is actually a very good reason to why parents instruct their children to complete certain chores on time or be somewhere at a certain time; this is practice for self-discipline.

Self-discipline is an important element in a child's development. Children with self-discipline are able to control impulsive behaviour, cope with emotions in a healthy way, and are able to make healthy choices for themselves. Children who do not learn self-discipline tend to struggle with managing healthy habits, school work, and time management. This might result in parents and teachers getting angry or disappointed at them, making them feeling sad and frustrated.

What can we do to help our children with self-discipline?

A great way to train self-discipline is to place structure in our children's day-to-day activities. Have some household rules that must be followed by everyone in the house with no exceptions. Practice the same consequences every time the rules are broken. This will teach children to expect what is coming and aid them to make better decisions in future.

Placing structure comes hand-in-hand with education. Education here means letting them know the reasons behind every rule so that they are able to make better decisions. For example, children need to know they can only have one cookie a day because too much sugar is bad for them, not because "Mom told me to do so". In the long run, this encourages children to question things as they grow up instead of just blindly following something.

May Allah bless our effort and deeds, inshaa Allah.

Voice Away With DD Animation!

Assalammualaikum all!

Today was super exciting as we had a voice-over audition session. The voice-over audition is done by DD Animation, the wonderful animation house behind DIDI & FRIENDS was held at our Headquarters in Taman Tasik Prima, Puchong. The audition is meant to scout for voice talents for a new Islamic animation coming out soon.

The audition aims to look for talents who can speak Malay, English, and Arabic. Selected talents will fit the main characters of a 6-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and 2 parents (Mama and Papa).

By the time everything was set up for the audition, the atmosphere was positive and everyone was excited for their turn! :D

Several students (and some very excited teachers too!) came by to audition this morning, including 2 of Genius Aulad's Taman Tasik Prima alumni. Welcome back kids, and thank you for coming!

For most of us, this audition was our very first one. Teachers as well as students were all anxious and had butterflies in our tummies. However, the lovely ladies from DD Animation were so nice and friendly, everybody had fun during the audition. They calmly explained that we need to read some lines and sing some songs. Easy peasy!

Thank you so much to all participants today! It was a pleasant experience to have the voice-over audition today, and Genius Aulad is ever so blessed and privileged to be collaborating with DD Animation for this project. We hope it was a fruitful session for all of us inshaa Allah, and we look forward to having more educational collaborations like this in future.

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 2

Assalammualaikum all!

Yes, our mini series "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" is still on-going and we are on to the 2nd poster now. As we know, there are many different reasons to why our children can get easily frustrated. Let's see what the 2nd point says.

Imagine that your child spots a beautiful toy car in a store. And he is transfixed. He has temporarily fallen in love, and it scares you. You detect danger. He wants this toy car, and you know it even before he speaks the words "I want that car Mama!". Oh he wants the car badly. You know what will happen if you say no, and you do not want him to throw his tantrum yet again. So you succumb to his 'want' and gets him the car.

This, dear readers, is a form of instant gratification.

Instant gratification is becoming more and more significant in our lives these days. We now live in an era when everything can be obtained in a blink of an eye. Need to shop? Go online instead of queuing up at the mall. Looking for a mobile phone? Just purchase it now instead of waiting two more months for the big sale. It is hard enough for us adults to wait and be patient, imagine how challenging it would be for our children!

Why is delayed gratification important?

Delayed gratification is basically resisting a smaller but immediate reward in order to receive a better reward later. It is important for a child to practice delayed gratification as this will make them grow into a person who is less impulsive and more patient and adaptable in life situations. A renowned research by Walter Mischel in the 1970's called the "marshmallow experiment" shows that children who demonstrated delayed gratification grew up developing better emotional coping skills, higher rates of educational attainment, and lower rates of addiction.

How do we train delayed gratification to our children?

One way to practice delayed gratification is through avoidance. It is the embodiment of the saying "out of sight, out of mind" - if it is not visible, children will not be reminded of it. Start storing those cookies and chocolate at a 'safer', less reachable place. Put your phone away when you are with your child so that they are getting limited screen time.

Another way to impose delayed gratification is through positive distraction. Have you ever been in a situation where your child is screaming because you are taking too long to prepare their food? Try singing a song with them while you prepare the food, or get your child to tell you how their day was. Before they know it, inshaa Allah, their wait comes to an end :)

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Let's go for SPA!

Assalammualaikum all!

It is the season for SPA, and this will be the final round for 2016!

SPA, which stands for Students-Parents Activities, is an initiative done by Genius Aulad as an invitation for parents to become 'teachers for a day' in their child's centres. SPA is held every alternate month throughout the year and every SPA has a different theme.

Our latest SPA theme is My Favourite Things, which means parents get to relive their old hobbies and games that they used to play when they were little. How cool is that?

We are in the midst of having SPA in our centres all around the country. Alhamdulillah, participation from parents and students have been nothing short of amazing. Parents not only obtained the opportunity to experience being a guardian for a group of children; they also managed to spend quality time with their child at school.

Check out some of the activities they had in the recent SPA:

Assembly time before the games begin.

One of the games they had was teng-teng, equivalent to hop-scotch. In this picture, we can see the children are learning to compromise and practice queuing up as they wait for their turn to jump jump jump!

Seen here, a mommy is teaching the curious crowd to play congkak, a traditional game of marbles in a special board usually made of wood. Look how interested the children are to learn, masyaAllah.

This outgoing daddy is demonstrating how to play dam, also known as checkers. Notice how the blue and green pieces are made of plastic bottle caps? This is an excellent example of recycling and having fun!

How precious is this picture? A boy is trying to main getah, a game similar to jump rope. Two teachers are both holding the end of the rubber-band rope for the boy to jump over it. The little onlookers must be watching to see if they can jump higher!

So there you have it, some of the activities that we had during our recent SPA session. The children sure had a lot of fun, and we recognize that parents' involvement in their child's play time is crucial to the child's development. We hope to keep having this activity in years to come, inshaa Allah.

Watch out for our next SPA session next year at you nearest Genius Aulad centre. Announcements would be made in Facebook as well!

May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Why Are Children Easily Frustrated - Part 1

Assalammualaikum all!

Alhamdulillah, we have started a new mini series and we just posted our first poster on Facebook this morning! The mini series is titled "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" and it features on why it happens or what triggers the issue, and how can we as adults and parents help with the situation.

Victoria Prooday, an occupational therapist with 10 years experience, mentioned in her blog that over the years, she has witnessed a decline in children's social, emotional, and academic functioning. This is causing children to feel bored at school, unable to wait, and get easily frustrated.

Why are children easily frustrated?

In this technology-driven age, it is a norm for everyone to have gadgets. We use it a lot for leisure, work, and even keeping in touch with loved ones. The thing about technology is that it evolves every day; it becomes more and more user-friendly and caters to users of any age. That is why nowadays, children have no problem using gadgets.

Exposure of technology to children from a very young age may not be such a good idea. Why? Long hours of exposure to virtual reality makes it challenging for children to process normal information because their brains are used to the high levels of stimulation that the gadgets provide. Basically, they can process complex information but find it challenging to figure out the simple things, and that can frustrate them.

So, what can we do about this? How can we help our children?

The worrying part here is not whether they can or cannot use these gadgets, but it is about how much time they spend on the gadgets. Limit the use of gadgets and connect emotionally with our children so that they can learn to be more attentive and responsive. In the long run, the ability to emotionally connect helps tremendously in building relationships.

Connect emotionally by doing activities together with your children. It could be as simple as crawling together at home or dancing to a silly song, to learning how to ride a bicycle and flying a kite in the park. The direct interaction with children will help a long way in building their confidence and social skills.

In the end, it all boils down to how much time we spend with our children. Every moment we have with them is precious and irreplaceable. So let's start relying less on technology to keep our children company and spend more quality time with them instead. Let this be our investment in dunia and hereafter, inshaa Allah.

Stay tuned for the next "Why Are Children Easily Frustrated?" mini series. May Allah bless our efforts and deeds.

Well, hello there!

Assalamualaikum and welcome to the Genius Aulad official blog.

Inshaa Allah, we will be using this platform to better communicate and reach out to more people in future. We have so many activities and events going on at the moment, so we would like to document all that and share the excitement with you!

Stay tuned for more posts!

Meanwhile, do visit our official website here.

May Allah bless our deeds.