Raising A Child With Empathy & Reason

To facilitate this, Sarah also takes the time to simply hang out with Zara and be as present as possible. Activities will often include things like going out for walks, blowing bubbles in the park, doing arts and crafts at home, and spending a good amount of time in front of books.

“Zara is obsessed with Disney’s Frozen storybook—that’s her go-to book every single night, while my favorite is reading and singing from baba baa’s Rasa Sayang book,” she mentions. “Because of this, I now like singing traditional songs to her such as Rasa Sayang and Burung Kakak Tua!”

And not only does Zara enjoy the music from the book, Sarah loves the childhood nostalgia that she experiences while listening to and singing the songs.

“The Rasa Sayang book takes me back to music class in primary school, learning how to play the tunes on the recorder!” she quips. “It also reminds me of my own mom singing these traditional songs to me when I was younger.”

As for TV time? Sarah allows it, but only in controlled amounts when there’s a need to keep Zara occupied while the parents are busy.

“We always try to make sure that she watches something educational like Blippi or Cosmic Kids, and we use Apple TV so we can stream YouTube over the TV,” she says while explaining screen-time management at home.

“We’ve also only just introduced her to the iPad since we started working from home—we’ve purchased an educational app just for it and she’s usually over it in 20 minutes.”