The first time I heard her saying, "Daddy, can you stop singing" was when I sang lullaby to her at night (which I've been doing for many nights now). She also said, "please be quiet".
These two sentences didn't belong to our household. We would never tell her that. FYI, our 2-going-to-3-yo girl loved to sing.
My wife and I are guessing that she had picked up these sentences from her play school. It could have been from one of the teachers saying that to her when she was singing in class (while not paying attention).
It was sad knowing that she could pick up these sentences and used them at home. Probably she thought they were uttered for the fun of it. Fortunately, it was not because daddy's singing was bad.
I remembered the time I sent our girl to school when she started crying (pleading that daddy join her in the class), and one of the teachers said to her, "don't cry already", and immediately our girl held back her cry (but not her tears flowing down her cheek nor her muffled gasp for air). I was sad seeing her like that.
How could a teacher deprive a 3 yo from "free expression"? Teacher should encourage children expressing their emotion and thoughts; and try to reason with them if the expression is temporarily (or spatially) unsuitable/unfavorable. An example would be when our girl was in the library, and she said, "it's so quiet here". Then she made several loud shouts to enliven the atmosphere. Instead of calling her to keep quiet, Daddy said to her, "baby, we have to lower our voice here because it's a game. Whoever keep the quietest wins". Our girl then replied, "I lost, I lost!" (making a sad face).
In a calm voice, I told her she can still win if she can start lowering her voice. That was the first time she whispered that day. She learnt to whisper!
Of course kids can't keep quiet for long, and as parents, we should accommodate them and hasten our activities in the library so that our children can go back to their normal self of talking loudly and lively. Also, if children aren't paying attention in class, as teachers, we should be creative to engage them. E.g. sounding a funny horn to draw children's attention intermittently OR use a more lively tone to teach them (rather than being monotonous).
All in all, we never try to suppress our girl's feelings nor voice (or thoughts). Sometimes, she would drive us crazy that we are tempted to ask her to "keep quiet". Fortunately, most times we did not do that. Now that she is schooling, I guess she will have to learn the way the world really works and there is no better way that in school where kids are groomed to be adults.
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