WHEN my 12-year-old son walked up to me, handed me a contract he had drafted, and asked for my kind endorsement, a light suddenly dawned on me.

I realised that bringing up children today is truly a whole new ball game - one that's played according to very different rules.

When Joshua started hinting to my wife and me some months ago, as to what he wanted as a reward if he scored well in his upcoming Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), we assumed that he was just trying to gauge the level of expenditure we were willing to commit.

We did not know he was "setting us up" to be served an unusual writ of summons.

I looked inquisitively at what was in my hand. It was titled, "Contract for PSLE results, between (a space here) parents and (another space here) son".

These are the terms he specified:

"The participants of this contract shall pledge to do the following:

• If 215 to 234 points are scored: MapleStory Prepaid Card
• If 235 to 249 points are scored: Sony PlayStation Portable
• If 250 to 269 points are scored: Apple iPhone
• If 270 points and above are scored: All of the above."

The document was accompanied with colourful pictures of the products he wanted. I have no legal background, and I profess unfamiliarity with contracts of any kind. Therefore, I was amazed to see my son put together such a document.

My wife and I collected our wits and praised him for his initiative. He showed us that he clearly wanted exciting rewards in exchange for the effort he had already started to put into his revision.

More importantly, he showed us that he had set his own benchmarks for measuring his performance.

I am quite convinced that Joshua will do well in his final exams.

I can tell, not from the instances I'd seen him quietly practising his test papers at his desk, but more from the number of times he has rattled the complete lyrics of every hit song on the American Top 40.

If he could do that so effortlessly, then there's a good chance he can apply the same memorisation skills to his studies.

Moreover, children today are definitely much better at multitasking than we ever were.

I am baffled by their ability to juggle four to five different tasks.

I've seen this with my own eyes: They can do their school projects on their laptops while communicating with their friends on messaging systems, listening to their iPods, sending SMSes intermittently, and watching their favourite TV programmes - all at the same time.

Just thinking about the many tasks is enough to stress me out.

I suppose that is why parents suffer anxiety attacks more often than their kids, during the run-up to school examinations.

Back to my son. My wife and I plonked our signatures onto Joshua's official-looking document, and displayed it prominently on a door we frequently pass through in our home.

And I have decided to play it cool and not bug him any more about his studies.

Now that he is motivated by his stipulated rewards, and is focused on doing his best for what lies ahead, I have time to tune in to MTV and memorise some lyrics too.

The writer is a senior vice-president of the SPH marketing division and the general manager of SPH NewMedia for Zapcode.

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