220. What has a Primary 3 school teacher & a 19-year-old boy got to do with puppies?

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

What has my research in puppy toilet training got to do with my son (a 19-year-old national serviceman) and a primary 3 school teacher? Puppies are 4-legged. They are not of the homo sapien species.

The young adult

The young adult was not keen to go to this Christmas Eve dinner with his parents as the invitation was for his dad. He had strained his left ankle during basketball and had an excellent excuse to stay back and surf.

"Would there be guest of my age group?" he asked me. I said I did not know. He went to surf the internet. Mum shouted for him from downstairs but there was no answer. Would he want to come? No, if you gave him a choice. Yes, if he obliged his dad. I felt that he should socialise with unknown adults but it was difficult to say so in words. He would not hear. He was at this age when he could be moody. A sprained ankle was painful and he was not in a good mood. So would he want to go? There was not much choice as I went to his room to ask him. He had this kind heart and went out.

The primary 3 school teacher.

The primary 3 school teacher in her mid twenties might have felt the same as she had to accompany her mother. She was with relatives. I remember her because she corrected somebody who said my son was "cute."

"Don't call him 'cute'" she reprimanded. "Young adults do not like to be called 'cute'. They would like to be described 'handsome.' Wow, I thought. This was something new to me.

I have very rare teacher contacts. So, I asked her, "How do you motivate your students to study hard?"

The same lady who described my son as cute said, "Use the cane."

The teacher retorted, "You are behind time. This is not the seventies. Corporal punishment is out of fashion."

So, I know she uses the positive reinforcement training method instead of the negative method. How does she apply the positive reinforcement? I repeated my question.

"I give them bookmarks or stickers if they have all spellings correct for 5 times" she replied. "The girls leapt out from their desks when I announce their names!"

So, are the primary 3 students interested in accumulating bookmarks or stickers? I imagine the young ones hopping out like rabbits when their names are announced.

"It is not the bookmarks or stickers," the teacher said. "They can afford to buy as many as they want." I can say that all Singapore students can afford to buy bookmarks or stickers.

So, what it is that movtivate them to excel academically?

"It is the praise from the teacher," I concluded. "This praise motivates the students to compete with each other to excel."

Toilet training the puppy.

What has the young man and the teacher have in common with the toilet training of the puppy?

A father is the role model for the young man. But the father has no time to teach him social skills because there are few networking opportunities. Teaching must start from a young age, but such time has passed. 19-year-olds seldom want to accompany their parents to adult functions. Yet, they do learn how to be sociable by participating. He needs more of such functions to make him more experience in making small talk. His father has to be a role model as his mum is rather quiet.

Talk to those people at the party about their job and what they like. Easier said than done.

But a young man learns a lot by listening to the experiences of older people. In this case, the teacher shared her experiences of her love for her profession. She was inspired to be a teacher because of a Chinese TV soap opera called "The Neighbour" or something. In this 1980's Mediacorp TV soap opera, for which she corrected me that it was not a Chinese movie, the main character was a teacher. So, she wanted to be a teacher since she was young.

We seem to be digressing. So, what has the puppy toilet training research to do with the young man and the teacher?

To successfully toilet train a puppy, one needs to spend time with the puppy in teaching him how to do it.

A busy father has to spend time with the young man in social functions to teach him how to be interact with older adults as his peer group are young adults. When he graduates to the real world, he will then be able to talk to older adults comfortably. Many of them can give him their hard earned experiences and mentor him.
A puppy owner who is knowledgeable is able to toilet train the puppy faster. A puppy owner must take the time to train his puppy. So must a father.

A good teacher knows how to bring out the best academic performance in students by using positive reinforcement training. In puppies, the owner uses lots of praises and food treats to train the puppy. This is also positive training. 3-year-old students have the "same mental development" stage as 3-month-old puppies. Both responds to praises and recognition of good work done.