Adverse Childhood Experiences and long term health effects

How to Get Back into Routine after the School Holidays

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 05:16:41 GMT

How to Get Back into Routine after the School Holidays

The school holidays are coming to a close, and it's time again to welcome a new school year! Returning to school can be challenging for both parents and children, but there are ways to make this transition a seamless one. Start this transition at least a week before school starts.

Practising the IB PYP Learner Profile at Home

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 05:43:44 GMT

Practising the IB PYP Learner Profile at Home

Parents can support their child's development of the IB Learner Profiles at home. Now that it is the school holidays, this is an opportune time for families to engage their little lights in IB practices and mindsets.

Here are a few activities and opportunities to encourage IB Learner Profiles development even at home:

Communicator

- Encourage your child to communicate with their relatives near and far through written messages, letters, video calls, or online messaging.

- Communicating with your child positively can help improve listening skills. Being a good listener is an important part of communicating with others.

Open-Minded

- Encourage your child to try new things, food, games and activities.

- Expose your child to different festivals, celebrations and traditions and be a role model for open-mindedness, giving a positive perspective towards different cultures.

- Explore cultures through books or the internet. You can read the source in advance to ensure a positive perspective has been put in place. Remember to accompany your child and discuss as you explore the internet.

Thinkers

Some questions that you can ask your child when he/she is facing challenges:

“Do you have any ideas about how we might begin?”

“How can we show this work in a different way?"

“I had never thought of that. Tell me more about it.”

Caring

- Role model the caring behaviour you want to see in your child always.

- Using kind words, helping people without being asked, and being an active listener show your child that you care about people.

- Smile.

Knowledgeable

- Encourage your child to read books at home that correspond with the topics covered in school.

- Encourage your child to become familiar with current events, read the newspaper and watch the news when appropriate.

Reflective

- After an experience, ask your child what went well, what he/ she liked the most during that experience, and what the points were.

- Ask your child to talk about how he/she felt before, during and after the experience.

- Ask your child to think of what will allow him/her to perform better next time. What new strategies does she/he need to adopt, what new learning he/she needs etc.?

Inquirer

- Encourage areas of your child’s interest by visiting the library to borrow books that explore these topics.

- Model being an inquirer. Admit when you don’t know the answer to a problem or a question, and seek answers together with your child.

Balanced

- Encourage your child to participate in a wide variety of structured activities.

- Exercise and play

- Discuss the food groups with your child. Spend a few minutes during mealtime deciding if what your family is eating is balanced.

- Role model this attribute. Spend time as a parent or family doing many different things.

- Practising self-care is essential. Allow cool down time or soothing activities for you to enjoy with your child.

Principled

- Involve your child in deciding on the rules for a game or activity and then ensure that they stick to the ones that have been decided upon.

- When playing a game, don't change the rules or let your child win. Losing graciously (such as by celebrating the winning team) is just as important as being a good winner.

Risk-Taker

- Cook something different for dinner together

- Try an activity as a family that you haven’t tried before.

Learning at home: Inquiry through Play

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 04:50:02 GMT

Learning at home:

Inquiry through Play

Play is an essential aspect of a child’s healthy development. Through play-based learning , children develop and nurture fundamental knowledge and skills.

Children are curious and capable learners with a sense of agency, rich in potential, bringing valid skills, preferences and understandings of learning. Through play, children actively create meaning from their interactions with people and their environments. These meanings are revisited and revised in light of new experiences and further learning.

Encourage learning through play while the children are at home during the school holidays! Here are a few inquiry through play ideas to try out at home:

Role-play dress-up

Put a box of clothes and shoes out and see what characters your child decides to become. Help them to make any ‘accessories’ they need from cards or paper.

Characters from recent stories you have read with your child might well pop up, or ones they have seen on the television. This can lead to a storytelling or drama session.

Treasure sorting

Go around the home with your child and a box and ask your child to choose 15 or more objects from different rooms. As you go, hat about some of their choices and have your child sort them into groups in whatever way they want.

Play "I Spy" but better

Ask prompting questions such as

"What do you notice about _____?",

"Can you spot anything different in the _____?".

Plan a special theme night for the family

Planning a party takes a lot of planning and preparation. Decide on a theme with your child. There are a lot of tasks that can be done while your child is learning such as: writing invitations, gathering supplies, creating a snack menu, cleaning up the party areas, and becoming the photographer.

Making forts or caves

Old cardboard boxes, pillows or blankets can make a great cave or playhouse for children. They can be used to make tunnels too.

Caregiver Play

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:01:28 GMT

Caregiver Play

It's not just child's play: The importance of caregiver's play with children

Why is caregiver-child play important?

Play between a caregiver and child in the early years creates opportunities to establish a trusting relationship and lays the foundation for healthy child growth and development. Through play, caregivers can help their children to learn and make sense of the world around them with fun, positive and meaningful engagement.

Good-quality interactive play between a caregiver and child in the early years lays the foundation for healthy child growth and development.

Interactive play helps infants and children build trust in their caregiver while learning how to make sense of the world.

Early play interactions help promote the development of the child’s brain. Children who spend time playing with their caregivers tend to have fewer mood and behavioural problems, have better social skills, and are better able to communicate. As adolescents, they are also more able to empathize with others.

Infants whose caregivers were more ‘sensitive’ (able to recognise and respond promptly to the child’s needs) during play had better stress coping skills at age three and showed faster development of brain structures involved in emotion.

Good-quality play does not require long sessions or expensive toys. It can occur during everyday interactions, such as during bath time, and involve everyday objects in the house or outdoors , or it can even be imaginary.

Mobile device use by caregivers during play can negatively affect the quality of play with children. It distracts the caregiver from picking up and responding to the child’s signals, reduces the amount of talking and new words spoken to the child, and may increase child stress.

Read the brief of the importance of caregiver play at https://bit.ly/CHILD-CaregiverPlay-EBrief .

What You Do At Home Matters - Parental Engagement at Home

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 05:40:01 GMT

What You Do at Home Matters

Parents play a crucial role as a child's first teacher in their formative years. What parents do at home matters - what they do leaves a big impact on children's learning throughout life.

Children learn by doing, and they share what they understand by playing and talking. Parental engagement must be present during these foundation years to help children believe in themselves and enjoy learning new things.

The key things parents can do to help their children learn are:

1 Play

Play with your children wholeheartedly and involve yourselves whenever you can.

Encourage them to switch off to play and explore. Your kind of play can be anything - fun languages, physical play, using things at home or creative games!

2 Talk

Talk and listen to your children every day.

You can talk about anything under the sun - how their days went, what they're doing now, or what they see around them. It's okay if they don't talk back at first, but they will eventually.

3 Learn

Children should learn with and from their parents. Present them with different opportunities for learning by involving them in everyday family activities.

While BRMC Little Lights Preschool equips our little lights with the essential foundation they need to be effective contributors to society, it won't be successful without the parents' engagement in their children's early years.

Creation C.A.R.E 2023

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 07:56:26 GMT

Creation C.A.R.E 2023

BRMC Little Lights Preschool is joining the 2023 Christian Preschool Alliance 's initiative, Creation C.A.R.E (Children's Action to Rescue Earth) 2023 - Orang Utan and Its Rainforest Friends.

What is Creation C.A.R.E?

Creation C.A.R.E (Children’s Action to Rescue Earth) is a community project that endeavours to inspire, encourage and empower children to care for creation and the environment.

We want to teach children the importance of creation care and simple actions they can take to make a difference.

Why Creation C.A.R.E?

It is important to care for God's Creation as His people.

Through Creation C.A.R.E, we hope to cultivate in the children an appreciation for God's Creation from a young age.

Orang Utan and Its Rainforest Friends!

In conjunction with the Mandai Zoo's 50th anniversary, we would like to raise awareness about the need for conservation for animals such as the Orang Utan, whose habitats are threatened due to human activity. The Orang Utan has been the Zoo's flagship animal who has always been popular amongst the crowds since their opening!

Other rainforest friends include the two-toed sloth, the red-ruffed lemur and the pygmy hippopotamus.

Actions and Participation

The Creation Story gives children a biblical

background how it all began.

Relive how God through His command

created you and me, and every creature big

and small.

"There's a Rang-Tan in my bedroom"

This story is about how a little girl meets an orang utan who came to live in her room.

She finds out the reason why - his home is being destroyed though deforestation to make way for new oil palm tree plantations.

The story evokes compassion and a need for championing change.

Knowing how human activity affects animals like the orang utan is not enough. We have to engage the community and those around us to educate them and champion for change! One way to do it would be to help to raise funds that contribute to the conservation of these animals.

We encourage you take on a fundraising project. Find out more here:

https://bit.ly/zoofundraising

We will be showcasing children's artworks in a public space to spread awareness about Creation C.A.R.E.

The theme will highlighting the plight of the orang utans. The aim is to raise awareness and champion change for the topic of deforestation and the loss of habitats for rainforest animals, with a focus on the orang utan. Other rainforest animals will also be featured.

Parenting – Getting IT Right (Session 6)

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 01:39:32 GMT

Parenting: Getting IT Right (Session 6)

The last session of 6 weekly sessions on Parenting – Getting It Right by Andy and Sarah Stanley – “How to pass your faith to your child to follow Jesus so that he/she will have his/her personal faith and trust in Jesus”

What is your win when you consider the faith of your children?

The win is to inspire our kids to trust God and follow Jesus and accept His Salvation plan.

Inconsistent “Heaven-someday” faith is easy to deconstruct and abandon. “Heaven-someday” faith rarely survives the rigor, distraction, and disappointment of young adulthood. Jesus did not preach this model of faith but a living active follow me version

What happens at home is far more catalytic than what happens at church If your faith doesn’t make a practical difference, odds are your kids are going to grow indifferent toward all things religious. If believing doesn’t impact living then belief just amounts to needless guilt and nobody has time for that. Your faith expressed in your daily interaction with your kids will help them influence decisions and shape relationships and you are the best model for your children to demonstrate the sustaining power o faith in God during difficulty.

The authors then proceed to provide a list of practical tasks to inculcate the enduring faith:

RELATIONSHIP IS EVERYTHING. THE SUCCESS IS WHEN THEY STILL WANT TO BE WITH YOU WHEN THEY DON’T NEED YOU WHEN THEY ARE ADULTS.

Parenting is not easy and there will be times when the relationship will be broken. Do you turn to God in prayer in such difficult times? The Lord has promised “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will b opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:5-10. God knows the role and responsibility of a parent. He is our Father and will be an effective partner in our parenting. Go to Him in prayer when the journey is tough.

God bless you all in your exciting role as parents.

Parenting – Getting IT Right (Session 5)

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 02:02:30 GMT

Parenting: Getting IT Right (Session 5)

In this week's Parenting: Getting it right (session 5), the topic is about Establishing Rules & Consequences – Discipline vs Punishment

Discipline is a very difficult aspect of parenting. The key to discipline is to restore a broken relationship due to the action of your child. It is not about taking off his toys or so confrontational that you are encouraging the child to tell a lie in defense of his wayward action.

Rules and discipline often reflect the personalities of the parents who create them. Some parents have many explicit rules, while others may have only a few that are more implicit. Some parents leap by default into a power struggle with their kids, while others may be more laid-back or even lax in enforcing rules and discipline.

Intentionally or not, some moms and dads take approaches that fall into the good cop/ bad cop routine so that one parent ends up being the angry enforcer, while the other is the compassionate comforter.

Regardless of your personality, consistency in your approach to rules and discipline is an essential element for by default into a power struggle with their kids, while others may be more laid-back or even lax in enforcing rules and discipline.

Process Your Parenting

Nearly all parents want to invest in their kids' lives rather than getting them merely to conform to rules to avoid conflict. As a parent, you want to influence your child's character and instruct them so they can mature into a self. sufficient, emotionally healthy adult.

After identifying your north star for parenting, allow it to guide your approach.

The video takes you through 2 Rules:

Parenting – Getting IT Right (Session 4)

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 01:46:23 GMT

Parenting: Getting IT Right (Session 4)

In this week's Parenting: Getting it right (session 4), we note that:

Your marriage has a great impact on child development.

Your relationship with your spouse matters a lot. How to ensure that our marriage is optimal:

A healthy marriage is not a perfect marriage, it is not a relationship where conflicts, struggles and grief are absent, it is a relationship where mutual respect and mutual submission to each other are identified goals even in the midst of the conflicts, struggles and grief. The selflessness in mutual submission will be the foundation that cast security now for your children but also the vision and foundation for the future marital relationship of your child. Let's understand therefore the significance of our marital relationship and how it provides the optimal safe and secure environment for the wholesome holistic development of our child and the benchmark of his/her future marital and family relationships.

Parenting – Getting IT Right (Session 3)

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 02:41:24 GMT

Parenting: Getting IT Right (Session 3)

This week session 3 focused on “ the role of word ” with your child.

You've probably heard that actions speak louder than words. But within the context of your parent-child relationship, words are abnormally loud--sometimes even louder than your actions. While most words carry some weight, parent-to-child words carry extraordinary weight.

Every time you speak to your children, 3 dynamics determine what your children hear and feel regardless of what you say:

Parenting: Getting It Right (Session 2)

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 02:02:53 GMT

Parenting – Getting IT Right (Session 2)

Sandra Stanley presented the 4 stages of parenting based on the various stages of age development:

0-5 years - the Discipline Years
5-12 years - the Training Years
12-18 years - The Coaching Years
18+ years old - The Friendship Years.

Perhaps these stages seem fairly intuitive, even basic. But kids move from one stage to the next without thought or effort, but their parents don’t. If you don’t evolve your parenting as your child develops, you undermine your influence with your child. The four stages of parenting provide a road map to help you navigate the challenges you’ll face and the celebrations you’ll enjoy in the years to come.

Screen time exposure and learning ability

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 03:34:53 GMT

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACS) and long term health effects

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 06:32:57 GMT

ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

These are stressful or potentially traumatic events that children experience before the age of 18 years. Exposure to ACEs has negative health, developmental and behavioural outcomes. Toxic stress affects gene expression via epigenetic modifications and is associated with long term brain changes and stress regulatory system.Childhood adversity is a common societal problem that increases the risk for mental and physical health problems in one’s life. ACES are stressful or traumatic events such as being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused, neglected, the death of a parent or parental divorce. The impact of ACES on health is due to toxic stress resulting from exposure to these adverse experiences in childhood. There is a strong co-relation between the number of ACES experienced by an individual and the chance of poor health outcomes later in life including high risk of heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, depression, substance abuse, poor academic achievement and even early death. There is a dose dependent relationship between ACES score and adult mental health outcomes, i.e. the higher the number of ACES, the poorer the long term outcomes.

Prevalence of ACEs - Singapore Mental Health study -2016

Singapore residents aged 18 years and below were recruited as part of a nationwide cross-sectional epidemiological study
Face-to-face interviews for adverse Childhood Experiences with international questionnaire and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview.
Total of 6,126 participants and the lifetime prevalence of ACEs was a staggering 63.9%
13.1% had 3 or more ACEs
A dose-response effect of ACES on mental illnesses
Presence of even 1 ACE was associated with higher odds of having any one of the mental disorders
Presence of 3 or more ACEs - MDD, bipolar, generalised anxiety disorders, obsessive- compulsive disorders, alcohol abuse and suicidality.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

There are 3 types of ACS - Abuse, Neglect and household dysfunction

The effect of multiple ACEs on health from a systematic review and meta-analysis that was published in the Lancet Public health 2017:

The effect of multiple ACEs on health from a systematic review and meta-analysis that was published in the Lancet Public Health 2017

Individuals with at least 4 ACEs were at increased risk of all health outcomes compared with individuals with no ACEs
Weak or modest associations for physical inactivity, overweight or obesity and diabetes
Moderate association for smoking, heavy alcohol use, poor self-rated health, cancer, heart disease and respiratory diseases
Strong association for sexual risk taking, metal ill health and problematic alcohol uses
Strongest association for problematic drug use and interpersonal and self-directed violence

There are now screening tools at Development Child Centres for ACEs that allow for early intervention to prevent progress of negative health effects with early treatment and support.