why parenting is optimised

As parents, we are almost always receiving a steady stream of urgent advice that is individually reasonable but collectively difficult to reconcile: Screen time is harmful, but educational content may be beneficial. Let children struggle, but protect them from stress. Set firm boundaries, but be responsive.None of these statements is inherently wrong. But do they help at 7pm on a weekday when your child is cranky, you are exhausted and dinner still needs to happen?Scientific insights are meant to help us understand broad patterns of risk and protection at a population level, but in a culture of optimisation, they can become a checklist of behaviours to optimise. The result is not greater confidence in parenting abilities, but greater anxiety.As Singapore’s total fertility rate fell to a record low of 0.87 in 2025, it intensified a national conversation about parenthood. Much of this discussion has focused, understandably, on the cost of living, housing and caregiving support.But for those who become parents, or are considering becoming parents, another less visible pressure emerges: the sense that raising a child has become a high-stakes exercise in optimisation. Sleep routines, screen exposure and enrichment and childcare choices can start to feel like variables to be calibrated. This pressure is sustained by a broader ecosystem of educational incentives, commercial interests and public health messaging that can make parenting feel like a continual exercise in managing risks and maximising outcomes. As a parent of two young children and child development researcher (Huang), and as a practitioner guided by child development checklists in clinical care (Tan), we have often wondered how science shapes the experience of parenting.Science has certainly transformed our understanding of child development and empowered parents with access to information.However, science rarely reaches families in its original form. Research findings are synthesised into guidelines, headlines and algorithm-driven content, losing nuance in the process.An ecosystem thriving on parental anxietyParenting anxiety does not arise in a vacuum. It emerges from a culture that values metrics and success, and is further amplified by a commercial ecosystem that benefits from uncertainty about whether parents are doing enough.Social media platforms are built on engagement, and parenting content engagement specifically is amplified when it taps into insecurity – highlighting mistakes, risks, and critical development windows. The algorithms do not discriminate between evidence-based guidance and content designed to provoke reactions by targeting parental anxiety.The industry of enrichment providers, tuition centres, developmental applications and parenting coaches has grown substantially. These businesses have a commercial incentive to emphasise unmet needs: another skill to build, another gap to close, another advantage to secure.Science has great value in guiding healthcare policy. In the parenting marketplace, however, the language of child development science has also been recruited to lend authority to commercial claims. For example, we have seen advertisements claiming that a child’s right brain stops developing after a certain age. Scientific language gives such claims unwarranted authority, turning a questionable premise into urgency: act now, or risk allowing your child to fall behind.This is especially potent in Singapore, where parents are well socialised to the concept of early achievements leading to opportunities. Schemes such as Direct School Admission, while well-intentioned, can inadvertently reinforce the belief that portfolio building should begin early. Enrichment providers ride on this to sell their services as a way to get a leg up. Kiasu parenting may therefore be less an individual pathology than a rational response to signals and incentives embedded within our educational and commercial systems.Parenting under constraintsThe optimisation model of parenting assumes that parents have control over time and caregiving. Many Singapore families instead balance two working parents, long working hours and caregiving constraints. Children are often raised within wider caregiving networks that include grandparents, domestic helpers and centre-based childcare. Under these conditions, parents make trade-offs every day. Screens may be used to create breathing space, long hours in centre-based childcare reflect work demands rather than parental preferences, and parents may respond more sharply under exhaustion.These moments are not poor parenting, but adaptations to competing demands with limited time and bandwidth. Yet, broad parenting advice typically focuses on what parents should do, while paying less attention to whether parents have the capacity to do it. When parenting advice assumes ideal conditions, it risks becoming another source of guilt.More on this topicParenting in the modern age – a battle for attentionHow to reduce your child’s screen time without straining your relationshipParenting under public scrutinyThere is another layer to this burden: parenting in Singapore often happens under watchful eyes. A 2021 Ipsos survey found that 92 per cent of parents in Singapore reported feeling judged, tying with the United States as the highest among 28 countries surveyed.Many parents will recognise the experience. A child having a meltdown in public may draw stares or judgment. What the parent does or doesn’t do subsequently is also judged.This tendency reflects a culture of treating outcomes as the product of individual choices and effort. Applied to parenting, a child’s behaviour can be seen as a reflection of parenting decisions.The more we believe that child outcomes can be optimised through the right parent-level decisions, the harder it becomes to tolerate unpredictability or imperfection. Everyday decisions become public signals. Parents do not only feel pressure to make the right decision, they also feel pressure to be seen making the right decision.What science actually tells usTwo of Singapore’s largest longitudinal studies – GUSTO, or Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes, and SG-LEADS, the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study – have tracked thousands of children over many years using different methods. Across these studies, a consistent message emerges: the quality of children’s relationships with their caregivers is closely linked to their developmental outcomes.Positive maternal well-being is associated with warmer and more supportive parenting practices and better outcomes for children. When parents experience symptoms of depression or anxiety, parenting may become harsher or less consistent. Parents’ economic, psychological and cognitive resources shape their ability to provide positive parenting during periods of stress.Research findings in areas that generate intense parental anxiety, such as screen use, often reveal the limits of an optimisation mindset. Early screen exposure may matter, but so does context: research increasingly suggests that the quality of caregiver-child engagement and co-use of screens help shape outcomes in ways that simple screen-time limits alone cannot capture.The irony is that much of our public conversation about parenting focuses on correcting parental behaviour, when the evidence repeatedly points to the importance of supporting parents’ well-being. Children benefit from caregivers who are supported enough to be present, responsive and emotionally available. Parental well-being, time and support are central to healthy child development. More on this topicStudy finds that over half of 8-year-olds in S’pore have used AI; most popular tool is ChatGPTHow growing up in Singapore shapes young people: New $150m study aims to find outThe way forwardIf parenting has been turned into an optimisation project sustained by an ecosystem that profits from parental insecurity, then the answer cannot simply be to give parents more information. It is to actively change the conditions that manufacture and amplify the anxiety in the first place.We should stop framing child development challenges primarily as matters of choice. Parents may know what good practice looks like but lack the time, energy or support to sustain it.Public-health messaging should acknowledge uncertainty and real-world constraints, while workplace policies should treat parental well-being as central to child development: Flexible work, predictable schedules, caregiving leave and family-friendly workplace norms are part of the infrastructure that supports children.Consider the incentives that have normalised this optimisation mindset. If educational pathways and commercial messaging all suggest that opportunities must be seized earlier and earlier, parents will naturally be compelled to do more.Services using scientific language to promise developmental advantages should be closely scrutinised. Science and its findings should not be used to exploit parental insecurity.Singapore could benefit from a more generous social culture around parenting. The old idea of kampung spirit contains an important insight: children develop not only within families, but also within communities willing to extend practical help, patience and kindness. This includes resisting the impulse to judge parents based on brief public moments.Parenting is not a test with a single correct answer. Children are not projects to optimise, nor should parental worry become a product to monetise.They are people who develop through relationships, and relationships rarely thrive under constant measurement and scrutiny.Science should help us recognise what matters, not turn parenting into a checklist. We already know a lot about how children thrive: the challenge now is not simply to instruct parents, but also to build a society in which good parenting is easier to practise, and parents have the time and support to do what we already know matters most.•Huang Pei is a neurodevelopmental scientist, and Rhea Tan is a scientist and primary care practitioner.Are people not having children because of PSLE stress and the education arms race?The Usual Place | The Straits TimesWatch onMore on this topicHow I supported my children through major exams, World Cup or notParents, stop complaining about your children. Do it for the future of Singapore

arm race education

When Education Minister Desmond Lee announced his ministry’s Education Conversations recently, one phrase gave the exercise its real weight: the education “arms race”.The Ministry of Education (MOE) can review examinations, admissions and pathways. Yet an education arms race is sustained by social behaviour as much as by policy, and policy alone cannot fix it.MOE has recognised this directly. At this year’s debate on his ministry’s budget, Mr Lee warned that the fixation on grades and achievements “diminishes the joy of learning”, “takes away time from character building”, and “pits our children against one another”. He also said MOE is prepared to review milestone examinations, Direct School Admission (DSA), and secondary school posting.That is a significant opening. The harder question sits with all of us.Stress over PSLEA 2017 study by the Institute of Policy Studies found that while many parents valued character education and believed every school is a good school, they still placed weight on academic results. Some 70.8 per cent cited helping children with tests and exams as a source of stress or anxiety, and close to three in four saw high Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) scores as an achievement-centred indicator of a good school.More recent data points in the same direction. A 2024 CNA survey of 1,000 parents of Primary 5 and 6 pupils found that 99 per cent said good PSLE scores were important, 85 per cent said their children were stressed about the PSLE, and 64 per cent said they themselves were stressed. It also found that 60 per cent sent their children to tuition classes. Among them, 65 per cent sent their children to three or four classes.Each family may feel it is acting responsibly. Collectively, these choices intensify pressure for all children.This is not irrational. Parents compete because the stakes feel real. Popular schools are oversubscribed and balloted. Property listings and housing fliers routinely advertise proximity to sought-after schools as a selling point. Many parents believe that doing well early keeps more doors open later, from school placement and subject choices to future admissions pathways.A recent National Institute of Education study reported how advantage can compound: even among students with similar PSLE scores, those from better-resourced families made greater academic gains later. This is how meritocracy risks hardening into what then Education Minister Chan Chun Sing has called an ‘inheritocracy’ of privilege: when inherited resources shape who can convert effort and ability into recognised achievement. A family that eases off alone may worry that it is disadvantaging its own child. The arms race endures because stepping back feels risky unless others do so too.The pressure can returnMOE has already seen how policy changes can be blunted by social behaviour. When mid-year examinations were removed to reduce the overemphasis on grades and create space for more engaging learning, some parents turned to tuition centres that offered mock mid-year examinations. While the formal pressure point was removed, competitive behaviour reappeared elsewhere.The same culture is reinforced beyond the home. Relatives shape what children hear. Alumni networks influence how schools are spoken about. Employers signal which credentials count. If society professes support for multiple pathways while treating some schools as clearly superior, policy change will be quietly undone.The real question for the Education Conversations, then, is not only what MOE should change. If they are to embody a We First approach, they must also ask what schools, families, employers and the wider community are prepared to do differently. How can Singapore keep high standards while giving children more room to develop the curiosity, character, creativity and confidence they will need beyond school?When policy meets realityDSA reflects the challenge. It was designed to recognise talent beyond exams and broaden merit, giving students room to develop their strengths. But it began with a small group of highly sought-after Integrated Programme schools, and those roots still shape how it is seen. If families read DSA mainly as an early entry point to the most sought after schools, expanding it will not ease the arms race – it will only add lanes to the same race.The issue is not a lack of interest. Applications from Primary 6 pupils rose from 9,000 in 2018 to a record 16,000 in 2024. Yet, in 2023, only about 11 per cent of pupils entered secondary school through DSA, well within the 20 per cent that MOE set aside. Some of that capacity went unused even as applications climbed.Fierce competition and unused capacity can coexist only if demand is lopsided – possibly suggesting that it is concentrated on a familiar handful of schools while places elsewhere go unfilled. If that is the pattern, the binding constraint is not the number of DSA places. It is how narrowly families define a place worth wanting. Adding places would not relieve the squeeze unless parents and students also gain the confidence to choose schools beyond the established names, including those without the history of the original Integrated Programme schools. The shift required is as much in public imagination and confidence as in policy.Expansion must also keep DSA true to its purpose, and here a cleaner principle helps: two tracks, kept distinct. Singapore already has an academic route into secondary school – the PSLE. DSA should be the other: grades-blind, and focused on talent.More on this topicMOE considering changes to PSLE to slow down education ‘arms race’Inside Singapore’s education ‘arms race’: Stress, inequality and the push for change However, Primary 5 results are required for DSA applications. This means the same instrument may end up serving two objectives at once: recognising talent while also signalling academic standing. That blurs the purpose of DSA. Schools may reasonably want assurance that students can cope with their programmes, but that assurance should come through PSLE and posting-group eligibility, rather than folding academic records into the talent route.The aim should be to help more children flourish in schools suited to their strengths, including schools that may not carry the strongest public prestige. That requires broadening DSA in two ways: making it more accessible as a pathway, and giving families confidence that choosing a school for fit, not prestige alone, still keeps doors open.PSLE remains the perennial challenge. Since the early 2010s, Members of Parliament across party lines have returned to the same question: can Singapore reduce the weight of one examination at age 12?Full subject-based banding addresses part of this challenge after posting. It gives students more flexibility in secondary school, so PSLE need not define their learning level across all subjects. That helps, but posting still sends a powerful signal to families about school environment, peer group, programmes and future opportunity.Through-train pathways ask a sharper question: should some children be able to continue to secondary school without sitting the PSLE at all? Mr Chan explained the trade-off clearly in Parliament at his ministry’s budget debate in 2025. Removing PSLE alone may not reduce stress if competition simply shifts earlier to P1 registration, or later to the O and A levels. Such pathways may still deserve serious consideration, but they raise hard questions on selection criteria, late bloomers, and social mixing.PSLE and Through-Train Programme – Minister for Education Chan Chun SingMOE SingaporeWatch onSo, the issue is not simply whether Singapore keeps or removes one high-stakes exam. It is whether reforms can give families confidence that children can still be stretched, grow strongly and keep good future options open beyond the most sought-after schools and routes. That weighing cannot be MOE’s responsibility alone. It belongs to all of us.Arms races rarely end because one party steps back. They end when enough people trust that others are also prepared to change. In education, that means parents, schools, employers, community groups and students talk not only about what MOE should do, but also what each is prepared to stop doing, start doing, or value differently.Citizens, employers, students, parents and non-parents should be asked, and should ask one another, what they prefer, what they can live with, and what they are prepared to give up.From feedback to collective actionThe next step, then, is shared action. The Conversations should ask more than what MOE should do next. They should ask what the rest of us are prepared to do.First, MOE could convene Singapore’s first students’ panel on the future of education, involving upper-primary, secondary, post-secondary and special education students from diverse backgrounds. Unlike a focus group, it should not simply ask students for reactions. Students would examine balanced evidence, question resource persons, hear from peers with different experiences, deliberate on trade-offs, and produce a short report setting out where they agree, where they differ, and what they wish society better understood. If the Education Conversations are about students’ futures, they should be held with students, not only for them.Second, add a call-to-action phase. The Conversations should invite each segment of society to make a tangible difference.More on this topicSingapore’s education reset has started well. Now for the hard partWhy many won’t admit they took the direct school admission routeEvery Primary 5 child and parent could be encouraged to visit at least five secondary schools, including some they would not otherwise consider. Like the National Day Parade National Education Show, this would create a common rite of exposure: families could see different school cultures, programmes, student journeys and forms of excellence for themselves, instead of relying only on reputation and recommendations.Alumni networks could support clusters of schools, not only their own alma mater, so that mentoring, donations and opportunities do not accumulate only where they are already strongest. Employers, community groups and industry partners can widen students’ exposure through mentoring, partnerships, internships, service opportunities and school-based projects.The true test of the Education Conversations is not whether they produce policy recommendations, but visible commitments from society that endure.MOE can adjust admissions, reduce assessments and widen pathways. Yet education culture is shaped in quieter places: at dining tables, in WhatsApp chats, at alumni gatherings, and in how we speak about “good” schools. That is where the education arms race often finds new life.If we want children to have room to grow, adults must help create that room.That is how the Education Conversations can become more than another consultation. They can become a step toward the We First society we say we want to build.•Nicholas Thomas is research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore.

good question

Some professions are defined by questions. Detectives ask them, and suspects have the right not to answer them. A phrase like “I’m the one asking the questions” sounds appropriate when coming from a journalist, and pretty weird from the lips of a plumber.But questions are crucial in every organisation. They sharpen thinking and extract information when things go wrong. They are central to forging relationships: According to research by Karen Huang of Georgetown University and her co-authors, people who ask more questions tend to be better liked.Questions are a crude way to measure career progression. As you get more senior, you spend less time doing the work and more time asking about it. By the time you reach the boardroom, your principal output is questions.An absence of questions may indicate a culture that does not brook them. Even easy questions can be a warning sign. A paper by Elliott Ash of ETH Zurich and his co-authors trawls through interview reports posted to Glassdoor, a workplace review site, and finds that candidates are more likely to turn down high-wage job offers when they rate the interview process undemanding. By analysing free-text posts about interviews, the researchers find that candidates view softball questions as a signal about the quality of future colleagues. Tough questions are not just a way for employers to screen for able candidates; the reverse also applies.What makes a good question obviously depends on the context. The “five whys”, a succession of “why” questions that are meant to lead to the root cause of a problem, originated in Toyota and has spread from there. But what works well as an investigative technique in a specific environment is not going to help with forging relationships. (“Why were you absent yesterday?” “I was at a funeral.” “Why?” “What do you mean, why?”)Still, some rules of thumb work across different settings. Paying attention to the answer is always a good idea. Lots of people ask questions in order to supply their own piece of information, a phenomenon christened “boomerasking” in a recent paper by Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School and Michael Yeomans of Imperial College London.If you ask someone where they are going on holiday in order to tell them that you are heading to Bhutan for the trip of a lifetime, you are boomerasking. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t land well: The researchers find that questioners are seen as insincere if they are not interested in the other person’s answer. (Some people don’t even bother with an interlocutor, conducting a Q&A session with themselves while others watch in puzzlement: “What kind of questions do I like? Rhetorical ones. Do I want anyone else to answer them? No. Do I struggle to make friends? Yes.”)If you are making comparisons, the consistency of questions matters. Unstructured interviews make it harder to judge between candidates and easier for bias to creep in. Take, for example, the funding gap between male and female founders. Investors tend to ask different questions of entrepreneurs depending on their gender: men are more likely to be asked about their start-ups’ growth potential and women are more likely to be quizzed about risks. By systematising the evaluation framework used by an early-stage investment platform, Amisha Miller of New York University and her co-authors eliminated, and even reversed, investors’ preference for all-male teams over female-founded ones.Yet asking the same bad question of everyone is not particularly useful. Another paper, by Nandil Bhatia and Wei Cai of Columbia University and Sameer Srivastava of the University of California, Berkeley, identifies the ingredients of a good question.The authors trained a large language model to identify what they call “curveball” questions, which they define as questions that are difficult to predict, and therefore hard to prepare for, but also relevant to what has come before, and therefore tough to dodge.They then analysed earnings-call transcripts at listed American firms, and found that curveball questions from analysts were associated with larger share price movements and rating changes, presumably because they were likelier to elicit new information than other questions.The researchers also found that star analysts and analysts who were new to covering the firm were more likely to ask curveballs. The stars can draw on expertise. The newbies are not yet immersed in conventional wisdom. Both lead to better questions. © 2026 THE ECONOMIST NEWSPAPER LIMITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.More on this topicThe secret reason bosses want everyone back in the office every day of the weekSingaporeans’ disengagement at work may be a saving grace

underpaying taxes for about 400k per year

Sign up for ST InvestMe and unlock full access to exclusive insights and financial literacy courses today.SINGAPORE – A doctor declared monthly salaries of around $5,000 and $6,000 from his companies, but did not pay any personal tax on additional payouts averaging over $2 million a year.He claimed there was no need to declare the additional income because the sum was received as tax-exempt dividends and “shareholders’ loans” after his companies paid the standard corporate tax of 17 per cent on their profits.This doctor, a private specialist, thought he had a foolproof arrangement that would shield him from higher personal income taxes. Income beyond the $1 million mark would have hit the highest personal tax bracket of 24 per cent.But it was the taxman who got the last laugh.After scrutinising past assessments between 2013 and 2018, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) deployed its most powerful weapon – Section 33 of the Income Tax Act – which can shoot down any arrangements that are created mainly to avoid tax.It imposed additional taxes on the doctor’s overall income, which the High Court upheld despite the doctor’s challenge.Under the personal income tax regime, someone earning $6,000 monthly would have been taxed less than $3,000 a year, but taking home $2 million could entail over $400,000 in taxes annually.The decision has likely sent shockwaves through the league of high-income earners who have been using company structures to avoid paying more personal taxes.The doctor was among 279 high-income earners IRAS has caught to date for using sham arrangements to avoid paying more taxes.An example of such an arrangement involves setting up companies to receive income but paying owners salaries below market rate so that they can pay lower taxes.As companies enjoy various concessions to encourage entrepreneurship, the owners will end up paying less tax on their profits than individuals earning the same amount.The companies then channel the after-tax profits to the owners in the form of dividends, which will not be taxed again. In some cases, the payments are given out as “interest-free loans”, which are not taxable, provided these are debts that have to be repaid.In the current case, the doctor received over $9 million in dividends and another $3 million in interest-free loans during those six tax assessments.But IRAS invoked Section 33 to disregard his arrangements and assess the payments as the doctor’s own income.The doctor appealed against this decision, but the court dismissed his case and upheld the use of Section 33, noting that no taxpayer can escape assessment of tax on income resulting from his effort by assigning his income to another party, such as his company,As the income was deemed earned by the doctor, IRAS could claw back the appropriate tax amounts that should have been payable over the years, while providing some adjustments for the companies which had paid taxes for its “profits” before the avoidance scheme was discovered.Here are three important lessons that all taxpayers should know so that they do not run afoul of the law.More on this topicIRAS nabs 279 high-income earners over sham arrangements to pay less taxHow a dentist tried to hide $765,000 in income from IRASHard to avoid detectionThe tax regime in Singapore is largely self-reporting, and all income earners are responsible for accurately complying with their tax obligations.For many employees here, the tax season is a non-event because their employers report their income directly to IRAS, which calculates the taxes due and informs the taxpayer.The self-employed file their own returns. For this group, it does not pay to under-report your income because you can end up losing more, or worse, be prosecuted for tax evasion for hiding income.As all income data through the years is stored digitally, it is very easy for IRAS to detect any anomaly in your returns.For instance, the doctor in the current case used to draw a monthly salary of over $45,000 when he was working at a government hospital.When he left to set up his own clinic, he paid himself a monthly salary of only $5,000, claiming that the business had yet to take off. A few years later, he paid himself a monthly salary of $6,000 through another company, but received large dividend payments and loans on the side.When IRAS flagged his case, he did not explain why his salary remained way below his government pay cheque even after the practice had become more profitable, or why he paid himself huge dividends and shareholder loans.This led the court to find that he did not increase his salary because he had used his corporate arrangement to pay himself huge sums of additional income through his companies to avoid more taxes.Setting up companies with no commercial purpose   Besides a relatively low corporate tax rate of 17 per cent, companies here enjoy various tax concessions so that they can reinvest profits into their businesses to pursue growth opportunities and business ideas.These concessions aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship are not meant to enrich those whose sole purpose in setting up companies is to avoid personal taxes.The court found no evidence that profits from the doctor’s companies had been used to pursue new ideas or expand the business, and that the companies had instead been used just to receive income and shield against liabilities.Another doctor probed by IRAS in the same audit had even used her company to invest in a commercial property.More on this topicAvoiding ABSD with sham 99-to-1 deals can cause you to lose the propertiesIRAS catches 422 landlords for not reporting rental income properly As a result of the court’s ruling, IRAS might take a closer look at the doctors’ corporate expenses, because it found that the fees for providing administrative and support services for one of the companies appeared disproportionately high when compared with the amount paid for the medical services provided by the doctors.Hiding behind professionalsWhen things go wrong, people may push the blame to others, saying they acted on the advice of their lawyers or accountants.In this case, the doctor claimed that he had followed his accountant’s advice on the set-up of his companies and that he was unaware of the specifics of the tax advantages he gained.The court noted that if the arrangement had a genuine commercial purpose and was not aimed solely at avoiding taxes, the doctor could have asked his accountant to testify, as showing that his arrangement was done in good faith would have exonerated him.But the doctor did not ask the accountant to give his side of the story.High Court Judge Alex Wong noted that he found it concerning that the doctor had been in contact with his accountant but did not clarify how the arrangement could impact his liability.“At best, (the doctor’s) evidence shows that he turned a blind eye to what his tax obligations could be in the hope that legal consequences would not follow. I fail to see how this approach can be used to justify the position that the arrangement falls outside the ambit of Section 33,” the judge added.Clearly, the lesson here is that it does not pay to create an artificial scheme just to avoid taxes, because the taxman will pick up on your paper trail sooner or later.•Check out The Straits Times InvestMe microsite for exclusive content and courses to boost your financial literacy.More on this topicRethink wealth and build a meaningful life at the July 18 InvestMe eventRetire with more money? Learn how to grow $1m in your CPF from the first InvestMe event video

how to support your child in e small minor ways

SINGAPORE – The FIFA World Cup 2018 kicked off a few months before my firstborn sat his PSLE.As a die-hard football fan, he was far more enthusiastic about tracking every score than tackling his revision.He would pore over sports sites and devour newspaper coverage instead of working through the practice papers.Navigating a national exam for the first time as a parent, I was concerned that he was watching matches when he could be brushing up on, say, his Chinese.“You’re taking the PSLE this year,” I cautioned him. “Are you sure you should be watching the match?”His matter-of-fact reply: “How can I not watch? The next time the World Cup happens, I’ll be in Secondary 4.”He reassured me that he would buckle down to study after the tournament ended.Realising that stopping a strong-willed child from watching would likely backfire, I simply reminded him to make sure he did not drop the ball when it came to his exams.Creating the conditions for successWhen my two older children, now 20 and 17, were in primary school, I was more involved in guiding them through an exam.While I avoided sending them for tuition until they asked for help with Chinese in upper primary, I supported them in other ways.From the time they started having school exams in lower primary, I got them a simple monthly planner. I taught them to mark out the exam dates and plan out revision topics.I encouraged them to start revision early, but left them to decide what and how much they wanted to tackle each day.Occasionally, they left revision until the last minute and faced the natural consequences of their results not meeting expectations.Having the autonomy to plan their schedule gives them a sense of control, which in turns helps to improve motivation. Learning from natural consequences is also another source of motivation.While I do not send them for academic enrichment lessons, I believe in setting them up for success. For example, I got them practice papers and helped to organise them into labelled files, so they knew where the resources were when they needed them.A child may not be organised by nature, but having things easily accessible makes starting revision easier. So I help where I can.I often remind them that it is not about the quantity. There is no point rushing through practice papers without learning from mistakes. I would rather they take the time to go through the errors so that they do not repeat them.More on this topicIs it too late to help my child do well in the PSLE?September school break: How to help your children manage exam stressAt home, I tried to ensure their study space was free from distractions and reminded their youngest sister, now 10, to lower her volume when it came to exam periods.We also set goals together, discussing secondary schools they were keen on and could likely qualify for. Having a clear aspiration gave them the impetus to work harder.Different strokes for different seasonsBy the time my teens moved on to secondary school and beyond, the support I gave looked quite different.I no longer knew their exam schedule or syllabus by heart and had to trust that they had internalised the habits we built in primary school.It seemed to work. They would do their own planning, filing and scheduling.I continued to provide support, from getting them a tutor for the subjects they needed help in to buying them 10-year series.More importantly, I provided moral support by checking in with them regularly, and often, just being a listening ear when they felt stressed out.My words of advice didn’t always land the way I hoped.When my son was in junior college, I shared with him that I quit TV the year I took my A-level exams, and suggested that he delete his games and social media. He didn’t.So I did the next best thing and supported him in whatever way I could.He would study at the library daily until closing. When he got home late at night, I would greet him at the door if I wasn’t asleep.On weekends, I would cook him a hearty lunch before he went out to study, to make sure he got at least one nutritious meal a day.Support looks different for every child.When my daughter sat her O levels in 2025, it meant buying her favourite treats and simply being home in case she needed to talk. I also reassured her that as long as she tried her best, her papa and I would be happy with whatever results she got.Knowing that she had our unconditional support helped her stay motivated, she told us later.More on this topicExam guide for parents: How to better support your anxious teenagersJC or poly: How I guided my daughter to make a choiceManaging expectations, finding a balanceChildren’s needs vary, so it helps to be attuned to what is required.A self-motivated child might need reminders to prioritise sleep and mental well-being over marks. Conversely, a child struggling with motivation might thrive knowing that progress is still possible in the time remaining.Making time for hobbies is also vital. For my son, the World Cup was a powerful incentive to finish his work early. It provided a necessary break and something to look forward to.There is a lesson here for us parents.Much like in football, we are like the coaches. We lay the groundwork, provide the resources and offer unwavering belief.But ultimately, the pitch belongs to them. Whether they score or miss, our job is to remain their biggest supporters from the sidelines.More on this topicMaking memories that matter during the June school holidaysPSLE, DSA scheme, among topics raised at MOE engagement session

being rich is successful

Sign up for ST InvestMe and unlock full access to exclusive insights and financial literacy courses today.SINGAPORE – Should success be rated based on the amount of money you have?The majority of Singaporeans who took part in a recent survey did not think so, but about 40 per cent of them still felt that wealth equals success.As a result of such a stereotype, those who worship money more often end up stressed and unhappy when they feel they are still far from achieving their financial goals, such as accumulating more than $1 million.Ironically, the regional “Rethink Healthy” survey by insurer AIA is not even focused on financial matters but on how people can improve their lifestyles so that they can live healthier for longer.The survey also covered China, Thailand and Malaysia, but only those polled in Singapore linked personal well-being to financial success.As a result, AIA noted that “many in Singapore continue to feel pressured by the expectation of equating personal worth with wealth”.To make matters worse, those who hold this view are at risk of making financial mistakes, because they tend to believe they know better than others and are doing the right things.For instance, 63 per cent of them do not believe in seeking advice from financial experts, and 72 per cent would actually dismiss verified and accurate information as fake news.This explains why many people continue to lose their savings to investment scams, as they probably think they can make more money than others.Instances of stereotypical thinking are also seen regularly on social media whenever there are new reports on how some Singaporeans are building up large CPF balances or when they receive high monthly payouts from CPF LIFE.Those people would dismiss such reports as fake news or government propaganda, when the reality is that many prudent Singaporeans will top up their CPF accounts after learning to plan for a higher retirement income.If you are stressed over money while you are still working, imagine how difficult it can be when you no longer have an income.This is why all of us need to consider having a solid backup plan like CPF LIFE, which can provide a good and stable income for life, because it is certainly not easy to plan for a decent retirement income on your own.Here are three findings from the survey and what you should learn from them.Wealth and successBeing a high-income earner does not mean one is wealthy.There have been many cases of high-income earners going bankrupt after overspending or taking on excessive debt to support businesses that ultimately failed.In a stark reminder that no amount of money is enough if you spend like there is no tomorrow, the High Court heard a divorce case recently involving a top executive who drew a monthly salary of over $88,000.When the court combed through his assets, he was found to have only about $13,000 in savings in his bank accounts. This sum was certainly not enough to pay for an outstanding personal debt of over $300,000.He could not accumulate any savings because he needed at least $50,000 for his own monthly expenses, while his former wife and children needed another $30,000 every month.What this means is that you won’t know whether people are wealthy just by looking at their lifestyles or the type of car they drive.More on this topicGen Zs less hardy than their parents, regional survey findsHow three S’poreans lost their savings by investing in unsuitable financial products Someone driving a big car might have bought it with a huge loan, which is still outstanding.In contrast, those who drive small cars could well be cash-rich, simply because they are prudent enough not to spend $100,000 to $300,000 more on a bigger car.All of us would be poorer if we started to rate a person’s success based on wealth alone, because it would mean that the group of foreign criminals recently jailed for money laundering would be regarded as highly successful for amassing wealth of over $3 billion.Instead, these crooks faced public condemnation for flaunting their ill-gotten gains by buying multiple luxurious properties and expensive cars.Indeed, the ones who are truly successful and deserve admiration are the hardworking law enforcers who work tirelessly to prevent criminals from abusing Singapore’s financial system.Finally, legendary American entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie believed that rich people cannot be described as successful if they kept everything to themselves only.He famously said the “noblest possible use of wealth” would be to help lower-income workers who are keen to improve their life skills, such as by contributing to their “enlightenment and the joys of the mind”.More on this topic‘I feel poor’: S’pore’s young professionals are earning good money, but feel financially inadequateJourney to a million: Young Singaporeans on the fast track to ‘financial freedom’ bare all The price of filial pietyMany seniors are less well off than their children, perhaps because the older generation was less savvy about planning for their own retirement.Many people in China believe it is the children’s duty to ensure their parents are well taken care of, with the AIA survey noting that those who do not support their parents financially are usually branded “ungrateful”.While Asian culture leans heavily on filial piety, there is no denying that financial pressure is heavier on the sandwiched class – adults who have to take care of their parents and children.To make matters worse, a past survey by AIA Singapore found that many parents here tend to sell themselves short by prioritising their children’s expenses, leaving little for themselves.This probably explains why many parents in their 70s or 80s end up having not enough money to even take care of themselves.Instead of counting on the next generation for your retirement and blaming them for failing to support you, first prioritise planning for yourself so that you can be financially independent.Doing so means you will not have to rely on others, and can even provide some assistance to your children if they encounter cash-flow problems.The cost of staying healthyWhen it comes to staying fit, the prevalent thinking in Malaysia suggests that it requires “big financial investment” to do so.This is because many young people do not mind signing up for gym membership or paying substantial sign-up fees to take part in high-impact fitness activities.Many people also spend top dollar on health supplements and special diets to boost their intensive training.While there is nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself feel better, you should never use cost as a reason to stop you from leading a healthier life.For a start, having a balanced diet, reducing salt and sugar and eating in moderation can go a long way towards improving your health.Of course, it is never too late to plan for free and regular outdoor activities for yourself, such as brisk walking or jogging along park connectors near your home.All of us have read stories on how seniors in certain countries such as Japan can still work in their late 80s and 90s because they have led a healthy and active lifestyle all their lives.They certainly do not need to spend on fitness activities or a special diet because they have been eating healthier meals from a young age.Finally, having enough money is important, but the most valuable thing in life should not be our wealth because life is certainly better when we are always happy and healthy for as long as we live.After all, the happiest people often do not have everything, but they always make the best of what they have.•Check out The Straits Times InvestMe microsite for exclusive content and courses to boost your financial literacy.More on this topicJuly 18 event: Invest to Live, Not Live to InvestRetire with more money? Learn how to grow $1m in your CPF from the first InvestMe event video

wealth inequality is creeping up

Here’s a statistic on wealth inequality in Singapore that might make you sit up: The average wealth held by the top 20 per cent of households is about $5.3 million per household, more than 18 times that of the bottom 20 per cent, which is $293,000.The average wealth of the top 20 per cent also dwarfs the average wealth held by all the percentiles of the bottom 80 per cent added up, which totals around $3.5 million. This does not mean the top fifth owns more than the other four-fifths combined, since the latter group is far larger. But it signals a meaningful and troubling disparity in wealth per household.The source is an Occasional Paper on Income Growth, Inequality, and Social Mobility Trends issued by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in early February. The MOF candidly acknowledges that the wealth of the richest group may be underestimated because people tend not to disclose sensitive financial information or have difficulty recalling details – which means inequality may actually be higher than the estimates suggest.Singapore’s overall Gini coefficient for wealth stands at 0.55, meaningfully higher than the income Gini coefficient of 0.38 after taxes and transfers. (The Gini coefficient runs from 0 to 1; the higher the figure, the greater the inequality.) The shift towards higher wealth taxes seen in recent budgets is, in that light, entirely logical.Capital Is pulling away from labourBut there is a deeper structural force at work, one that wealth taxes alone cannot address. The mainstreaming of artificial intelligence since 2022 has accelerated a trend that was already under way: the returns on capital – financial assets in particular – are running far ahead of wage growth or even economic expansion.Since those who are already wealthy hold the lion’s share of financial assets, they are compounding their advantage compared with the rest of the population, which depends primarily on earned income.The economist Thomas Piketty, in his landmark book Capital In The Twenty-First Century, captured this dynamic in a simple but powerful formulation: r > g. When the rate of return on capital (r) exceeds the rate of economic growth (g), inequality will inexorably rise. The data from the past three years show that this is exactly what has been happening.In the US, where AI first took off, the trend is dramatic.From 2023 to 2025, the S&P 500 – a reasonable proxy for returns on capital – rose by 86 per cent. Over the same period, nominal wage growth came to around 12.6 per cent (less in real terms, after accounting for inflation), while real gross domestic product (GDP) grew a cumulative 8 per cent.In short, the S&P 500 outpaced wages by almost seven times and GDP by more than 10 times.In Singapore, a similar story played out, if less dramatically. Including dividends reinvested, the Straits Times Index (STI) rose a cumulative 62.8 per cent from 2023 to 2025, while nominal wages grew 16.5 per cent and real GDP 10.5 per cent.Capital returns from the STI outpaced nominal wages by roughly 3.8 times and real GDP by almost six times.What is happening, in essence, is a massive redistribution – not from rich to poor, but in the opposite direction: from labour to capital, from wages to profits, from workers to shareholders.And this trend may accelerate in the AI era, which, despite its promising long-term benefits, is likely to displace many workers in the short term, compress wages for white-collar workers transitioning to new roles, and concentrate the astronomical profits of technology companies in the hands of those who own them.A floor is not enoughOne policy response commonly advocated to deal with technological disruption is Universal Basic Income or UBI – a regular cash payment to every citizen regardless of employment status. Silicon Valley executives have been among its most vocal champions.But UBI, whatever its merits as a safety net, does not address the problem of rising inequality. As Nobel laureate Michael Spence put it: “It just puts a floor under incomes – so you get most people sitting on the floor while a select few capture the astronomical wealth generated by capital.”A more promising response is Universal Basic Capital or UBC – giving everyone, not just the wealthy, a stake in the assets that are generating outsized returns.As James Manyika, a senior vice-president at Google, has argued: “It’s crucial that we have more people participating in the capital income pathway because, while labour income remains the most important for the majority of people, capital income is a bigger and bigger part of where the value is going.”The distinction matters. UBI redistributes income after the fact. UBC builds wealth from the ground up – harnessing the power of compounding so that those who currently have no financial assets begin to accumulate them early, and over time. Critics will note that the benefits of UBC accrue over decades rather than immediately, making it a poor remedy for current poverty.That is a fair point – but it argues for UBC complementing, rather than replacing, existing social support schemes, not for abandoning the idea.More on this topicTo win the AI adoption race, Singapore must mind the social class and gender gapsAI gender gap at work: Are women being left behind in Singapore’s AI push? Putting UBC into practiceThe only fully operational example of UBC today is Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, which has paid annual cash distributions to every resident from oil revenues since 1982. But several other models are emerging.The US has proposed “Trump Accounts,” under which every child under eight would receive a US$1,000 (S$1,300) seed investment, with families able to contribute up to US$5,000 a year into an index fund. Withdrawals would be permitted from age 18 onwards, for education, a business or a home.Germany has come up with “early start pension accounts”, crediting children aged six to 17 with €10 (S$14.70) a month, which parents and later the beneficiaries themselves can top up and invest in diversified products such as exchange-traded funds; the funds can be withdrawn only at retirement, when decades of compounding would have made them substantial.OpenAI has proposed a Public Wealth Fund that would give every citizen a stake in AI-driven growth, potentially seeded with equity contributions from AI companies.Singapore’s opportunitySingapore is unusually well-positioned to act on this idea because the infrastructure for UBC already exists in embryonic form. The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a sophisticated, trusted savings and investment architecture. With targeted adaptation, it could serve as the vehicle for a genuine UBC scheme.The existing CPF structure could remain intact. But new accounts within the system could be created and opened to all citizens from an early age – not only those in employment, as is currently the case.For citizens without savings, the Government could seed these accounts via interest-free loans, repayable later from the account’s own returns or from future earnings.The forthcoming life-cycle investment scheme to be introduced in 2028, which adjusts asset allocation as the account holder ages, provides a further ready-made mechanism that could be extended to UBC accounts.The goal is simple to state, even if the implementation requires care: Every Singaporean, from as early as possible in life, should have some exposure to financial assets that compound over time.This would not be a handout nor a floor, but a stake in the same wealth-generating mechanism that has been working so powerfully, and so unevenly, for those already at the top.The wealth disparity will not close by itself. In the age of AI, it is more likely to widen. A UBC can help narrow the gap.•Vikram Khanna is a former associate editor of The Straits Times who writes on economic affairs.More on this topicNow you see it, now you don’t: Why data can’t capture the AI revolutionSingapore’s AI push needs a defensive shield to protect workers