This bpost is mostly for communication with counsellors or law enforcement.

1. — half ranked by severity and frequency
2. punching .. First of all, stop punching younger sister (almost every month), esp if in a rage, like after she says “Go to hell”
3. slapping.. should never strike back if mom slaps him (arm) in anger.
4. smashing .. stop smashing hard objects in a rage, esp. other people’s personal properties. This is a form of violence.
5. (offensive) hugging .. stop using physical force to hug mom (every week) when she protests and resists, or starts crying, or displays signs of disgust/distress. He has to respect her personal space (and modesty).
6. allow mom/sister to sleep after 11 pm (every day).
7. .. If they have to resort to physical force to get him out of their bedroom, he should never use his superior physical strength to frustrate them, and remain in their room for 10 minutes.
8. .. He ought to respect their right to close their door, and not use physical force to block it.
9. .. Once they lock their door, he should not pound on the door from outside, even if for 3 minutes “only”.
10. shower room .. when mom is taking a shower inside, stop pounding on the door (every month) even if for 1 minute “only”.
11. music volume .. (every week) Any time after 11.30 pm, he needs to let others sleep in quiet
12. snatching .. never again rob another person’s phone and use force to keep possession, esp. when owner is smaller in size.

Note on #2 “punching” .. He sometimes gets outraged and punches his little sister on the shoulders and bum, in front of parents. He explained that she had (with intention) messed up his belongings, and his punches were little more than a rough play like in his pre-teen years.

Related to “punching”, Yixin has no authroity to, but did, smack little sister’s buttock, acting as a disciplinary parent. I say this even though Yixin may feel justified.

Notes on #10 “music” .. If any family member is unable to sleep, he needs to give them priority. He should go into his room, or put on an earphone, or otherwise lower his volume sufficiently. This is esp. tricky with light sleepers like dad, who happens to be a heart patient.

Notes on #11 “furniture” .. Sometime in Sep 2024, Dad once grabbed and pulled his laptop with force, demanding that he put away the screen and answer Dad’s questions (rather than ignoring Dad). Yixin got up and smashed a chair on the floor and then threw another chair on the floor.

Among these 10 items, police singled out “punching” as an actionable item for police. Even without evidence, we can lodge a police report, and we can then apply for PersonalProtectionOrder.

“Snatching” is a borderline offense. Police may or may out take action.

“Music” doesn’t sound like an action item for police, if neighbors unaffected. A light sleeper may have to negotiate with her family members to get her quiet, rather than calling police.

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Above are the first level the basic level i.e. what we expect of every teenager. Next, Level-two changes I want to see in him:

• Whenever parents demand his phone, he should hand it over without a tussle. Parents always have a justification.
• Leaving others wait on street … After we agree to rendezvous for a family outing, Yixin should not make us wait 30+ minutes beyond mutually-agreed timing. Yixin should stop assuming that other people “don’t mind waiting” indefinitely. We had already told him our irritation. Yixin must not turn a blind eye
• put food into fridge.. He has to bother to refrigerate unfinished, clean food, which Mom cooked and put on table for him. In recent months, he sometimes left dishes spoiled overnight, despite (nagging) reminders. He needs to show some responsibility and stop ignoring the (real) risk of wasting these precious foods. He needs to stop assuming these dished are low quality, cheap and easy to cook.
• .. Sometimes, family members would queue up for a special delicacy, but we decided to leave 1/4 on the plate for Yixin. In the end, he didn’t eat or bother to refrigerate. The delicacy went to waste, and he didn’t care.
• Buying and discarding packaged snacks .. He can stop buying full packages of snacks if he has no commitment to finish more than half. He has often left 80% to be discarded. Nowadays he seldom cares. (Loose or tiny packeges are better.)
• pick up, not ignore, calls … During family outings, Yixin would frequently ignore all incoming calls. He needs to show some respect. On any group trip, everyone is expected to be contactable.
• When going out with family, he should feel the responsibility to remind them “I have no phone” due to flat battery or no-SIM. A few times, Yixin didn’t bother to inform us. Therefore, we would call him, hit radio silence, and become anxious. Afterwards, he showed no remorse, no sympathy and no motivation to change.
• balcony window .. next time when (by his mistake) a stick falls out of the window, then ( he needs to stop what he is doing and go pick it up immediately. A 10-minute deliberate delay reflects irresponsibility.

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To counselors and other people concerned:

I want to bring to your attention something easy to neglect. It is the severity of violent destruction of a victim’s electronic/communication devices.

* Singpass .. I was unable to log in to Singpass after my old phone was destroyed. Somehow my Singpass password is incorrect. I was locked out of Singpass on a weekend.

* banking .. Every banking APP requires special set-up when you migrate to a new phone (Phone_2). Some banks (HSBC as example) absolutely require the old phone (Phone_1). You must log in on Phone_1 to deregister before you can use Phone_2 to register. If you have Phone_1 destroyed (by violence), then you must visit the branch. I’m lucky that I am able to visit a branch. (Some users are immobile or overseas.)

PSBC (Postal Savings Bank of China) requires branch visit to set up any phone (I have no hardware token).

PNB (Philippines National Bank) requires a lengthy authentication before a replacement device can be onboarded. During the authentication, I found some personal details outdated and forgotten, so I was unable to proceed.

* immigration/medical records .. like thousands of citizens, I use my laptop and phones to keep essential pictures, approval letters, previous application/petition data, appointments, prescriptions, diagnostic reports, and other historical records. Best practice is cloud backup. I do back up some but there are too many of these digital assets that I sometimes rely on local backup.

Is it realistic and reasonable to ask each individual to back up every immigration document to cloud, 100%, all the time? There could be a name that you never thought essential and don’t save to cloud.

* essential software with expensive license.. For example, BeyondCompare is an essential windows application I bought years ago and installed on my old laptop (destroyed). I need BeyondCompare on the new laptop, but I misplaced the license (my bad). I rely on BeyondCompare to detect thousands of changes in hundreds of important data.

Beside this software, there are other software products we installed over the years and are now unable to set up. Luckily, I had very few of these.

* chat history .. wechat/WhatsApp incoming/outgoing messages can count to thousands a week. Millions of messages over a few years. Among these past messages, there are gems of valuable data. Most people, like 9 out of 10, find themselves relying on chat history. Admittedly, individuals should avoid over-reliance since we can lose our phones. However, there is a difference between phone loss “due-to-own-action” vs “destroyed-by-violence”. (Think accident-injury vs injury-by-attack)

A similar thing is email history. (I am lucky with web-email .. reliable cloud backup.)

* chat APP log-in .. If you visit or work in China, you would know that for many individuals wechat is as essential as Singpass + WhatsApp + email combined. After my old phone was destroyed (by violence), I had difficulty logging in to wechat on my new phone, because Wechat system changed log-in protocol, and also because for a few years I have remained logged-in continuously and forgot how to log in. Partly my fault, but it happens to most wechat users. As far as I know, WeChat the vendor doesn’t provide hotline support.

Note “dumb phone” is not a personal communication device in this context. Neither are television, video/audio systems… because they don’t contain _essential_data_unavailable_elsewhere_. Losing a television due to violence would be traumatic and costly, but it would be “fixed” within days. For me, I would hate losing my laptop (destroyed) more than losing a television. The latter doesn’t disrupt the essentials in my life such as paying bills, finding contact details, transaction surveillance, fund transfers…

“Essentials in my life” refer to essential services and routines in our digital lives. These personal electronic/communication devices are becoming essential to individuals’ lives, including their social lives, their financial lives, and their work.

A curse of modernity? No. Singapore and other governments are investing in, advocating, and promoting digital ecosystems. There is a side effect — The widespread and deep dependency on personal digital devices tends to increase the severity and pain of loss when it occurs.