I must say my initial feeling is along the lines of.. "Wah lau eh, am I that bad a mother?"
But then I decided that I perhaps needed to find out more before I make any unfair judgements on myself or my son.
And so because it was raining, I went to fetch Ace home and decided I will talk with him when I saw him.
As I walked, I was going through in my mind what I will say to him and what sort of prep talk I will give him.. I decided I will give him a chance to tell me and not say anything first.
Just as I was about to reach school, my handphone rang.
Someone realized that he is in deep shit cos his teacher said he will tell me and so he thought he better let me find out from HIM than from his teacher first..
So in his fluster, he actually used the public phone.. and forgot that he brought his phone along to school that day.
Our conversation over the phone went like this...
Ace: Hello, mummy.. sorry sorry sorry.
Me: Huh... why you say sorry to me? (I geh siao a bit see what he say...)
Ace: Sorry sorry sorry... I just want to say sorry to you lor..
Me: Say sorry to me for what?
Ace: Erm... I want to say sorry to you... because I cheated in the ting xie...
Me: Why did you do that?
Ace: I was very desperate...
Me: Ok we talk later. I already on the way to your school.
Ace: But I already put 20 cents into the coin phone...
Me: But you brought your phone to school.. why you dun use your phone to call me?
Ace: Erm.. I....
Me: You were too jing zhang cos your teacher said going to call me and you wanted to call me before he does.. so you use coin phone cos you forgot you have your handphone with you right?
Ace: Ya, I thought I better call you first... Better I call you and give you a heads up...
Me: But you are too late! Your teacher already messaged me. Haha!
Ace: Aiyah...
And then when I finally met up with him... I told him i wanted to hear his side of the story and see what he has to say for himself.
So he told me that he missed out on writing 习字and forgot to learn his spelling. So he did not know how to spell. Then he recalled once that I asked him if he traced out the words when I was giving him spelling cos i was surprised at how fast he mastered the words... so he used a paper to put over his spelling book and write hard on the paper so tat he can see the lines and trace it out later when teacher gave him spelling.
His teacher saw and asked him to come over and asked him if he cheated. He initially said no and his teacher reminded him that lying is a grave mistake... and so he admitted that he cheated.
His teacher said at least he is remorseful lah. I agree lah..
I explained to Ace that some mistakes cannot be undone. Even though everyone makes mistakes.. he is already 10, so it is good time for him to learn to make good decisions on his own even when we are not beside him. As some mistakes cannot be undone.. some mistakes can lead to another mistake when people try to cover up the first mistake... sometimes, people go so deep into the mistake, it is difficult to try to make it right again..
So I am very glad that even though he made a mistake, he was brave to admit his mistake and put a stop to the mistake there and learn from it. And Ace promised me he will never ever do this again.
Anyway, I asked Ace if he knew why we have ting xie in school.. he said it is so that the teacher will know what we know and what we don't know. I explained to him that if he cheated... his teacher will not know wat he don't know and cannot help him.. come exam time, he will be in deep trouble..
I told him I might be upset he forgot to learn his ting xie.. but I will be even more upset that he cheated in ting xie. because it is a big thing... it is something that will not just make me sad.. will make daddy sad.. make popo, gonggong, zeng popo, Yeye, nai nai, shushu, shen shen, ah yee, nett nett... all very sad.
It is very important to do the right thing than to do this wrong thing. I told him next time he forget to learn ting xie, he should go to the teacher and admit that he forgot and ask teacher to give him a chance and re-tingxie tomorrow... OR just live with a 0. Really better than cheating.
"Oh yeah hor..." Ace replied. "I didn't think of that.."
Hai...
Anyway, I certainly hope I wun get messages from his teachers anymore this year about anything "bad" he has done!
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