善心从同理心开始

从小都一直看着爸爸妈妈做善事，很自然地也养成我们四个兄弟姐妹的善心。在组织了自己的家庭也想把爸爸妈妈的信念代代相传。

做善事是发出与内心，是一件很自然的事。所以，在教养孩子关于慈悲，我们并没有很刻意地教导。其实，父母只要善用机会教育，在日常生活中引导孩子，那已经很足够了。

我本身认为要引导孩子的慈悲心首先要培养他们的同理心。那是因为如果孩子能够站在别人的立场感受，用他人的角度看事，懂得同理别人后，慈悲心就很自然地被启发。

现今的孩子不但聪明伶俐而且才艺超群但是人缘且不佳。我觉得这是以同理心有很大的关系。打个比方，有些小孩会这样说“我不喜欢你，你好臭。”这样的一句话，孩子很显然地没有同理心。孩子懂得做自己是好事，但是父母应该教导孩子在展现自我的同时，也要对他人多一份的体贴，这样才不会伤害到他人的感受！

培养孩子的同理心，我们首先能带领孩子观察他人的情绪。通过观察他人的情绪可了解到自己的反应，可能对他人所造成的影响而顾及到他人感受。

再来，要求孩子参与家事。这可让孩子更了解到父母身心状况，孩子也会发现自己有能力照顾他人便给予付出及关怀。

最后，在慈悲心的培养，我们要给予孩子正确的观念 【行善并非要做伟大的事，慈悲必须行有余力，要从生活中的小事做起】记得，父母也须要给予鼓励因为当孩子得到善的回应，他的慈悲心更为滋长而会持续行善！

*此文的内容只供参考。须知每个小孩都来之不同的生活环境和家庭背景所以教导的方式也肯定因人而异。

Gula Melaka Jelly, a Malaysian Delicacy!

To me, this dish is like making MAGIC! You will understand what I meant once you try this at home (^^)

Ingredient

20g agar-agar strips

200ml thick santan

200g gula Melaka/palm sugar

80g sugar (my sugar measurement is 20g)

1200ml water (I didn't measure the water, I only make sure that all the agar-agar strips are all in the water)

4 pandan leaves

1/2 tsp salt

Methods

1.) Place water, sugar, agar-agar strips, gula Melaka and pandan leaves in a roomy pan and bring to boil. Lower the heat and simmer until agar-agar strips completely dissolves, about 8 minutes.

2.) Remove the pandan leaves.

3.) Stir in the salt into the coconut milk and pour this into the jelly mixture a little by little.

4.) Return the mixture to the heat and bring it to boil and turn off the heat immediately.

5.) Pour the jelly into a glass dish or jelly mould and leave undisturbed until set. The jelly should separate nicely into 2 layers (a clear gula Melaka layer and a coconut layer)! This is why I said it's MAGIC!

Simply love the aroma and the taste! Oh my, the aroma filled the whole house!!

Easy Banana Cake

My friend bought me some banana and it turned up to be too ripe so, I decided to use it to bake banana cake. Survey a few recipes and end up very very headache with the recipes as all the recipes are very very different. Didn't know which recipe to use but in the end, decided to use the easy recipe.

Ingredients

180g butter

180g sugar (I use 140g)

2 eggs

250g cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

220g  mashed banana (I use 320g)

50g evaporated milk

Method

1.) Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy.

2.) Pour in the eggs gradually and beat till creamy.

3.) Add in evaporated milk and mashed banana and mix well.

4.) Add in the cake flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and beat for a while.

5.) Bake at 180 degree for about 50 minutes or until cooked.