Birthday celebration!

A wood pecker was back at its earlier spot, where it had earlier pecked and created an opening in the trunk of a coconut tree. 

Often wood peckers habitually visit their earlier flight stations. It is a morning ritual.

I usually encourage to revisit the photographs of children from their earlier childhood days to recall stories and events. Recollection of childhood is an important exercise to get a sense of continuity of life. Most children remember only a fraction of what happened during their infancy and toddler stages. It is a ritual that we followed in our home when our children were young to revisit the photographs of earlier years  and turn them into a story time. 

Two things can happen during such times. First, children get a sense of how they grew up from that period to be what hey are now. Second, we create a sense of gratefulness in them for what they have received to become what they are now. Such a sense of gratefulness is important as children enter teenage years when they become conscious of their abilities and skills and can sometimes become 'haughty' in perception and attribute every thing to their capabilities. The truth is that they inherited a lot and were given plenty of attention to grow up to possess the current abilities .

It is important that they remember that hey were nursed by a loving mother, taken care of by parents and others, taken to the play school..... the story of childhood begins from this stage when they were carried in the arms of their parents. 

Parents ought to bring this awareness to their children in a conscious way for them to live connected and grateful. 

Children ought to feel that their home was the emotional cradle, which created the scaffolding for their formation.

All birthdays are to be such occasions, when there is true celebration of parenting and children indicate there indebtedness to their inheritance. Ordinarily we celebrate the birthday of the children; it ought to be an occasion when children celebrate the parenting gift hey received. Children ought to give a gift to their parents on their birthday day as a token of their gratefulness to their parents. A birth day of a child is a joint celebration of child's life and parent's lives. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Physical distancing and social nearness !

This news report in the Times of India raised a serious concern about the way the spill over effects of shut down on account of COVID 19 is inconveniencing lot more domains of life and living. 

One of the challenges related to child Development is that children would need a stable environment in the early years. Now for over two months the normal daily rhythm of children are derailed. Now with only a few days left for the lifting of the locked down, we can look forward to some freedom for children.

But the increase in the number of people reported to have COVID 19, it is likely that the spread in the community is the stage of the disease, in which case any one of us can be a symptomatic carrier. 

I have had conversations with two epidemiologists, who suggest that we delay any avoidable travel or visits or outings outside the home for the next two weeks or so to break the chain of infection. The peek of the infective rate is proposed to be by the middle of June according to evidence based predictions, in which case we ought to be more careful during this period even more than when a full locked down was in place. 

The way to help children is to form conversation groups in schools with a psychologist or a counsellor or someone with experience in relating to children, to organise a set part time to listen and participate in sharing thoughts and information with children. This has to be a formal activity with the school taking the lead. Each class would need such a conversation time once a week and children join in according to their choice or interest. In fact if a theme is suggested for a week, those interested would join in. Two schools whom contracted showed interest to pursue it.

I know of a school who runs a humour club every week during this period.

Every situation opens up new avenues to pursue new ways of living above the circumstances. 

The family who was about to welcome the child in this news item, are disappointed. When we live with disappointments, we feel subdued. It is this which can take away 'normalcy' of mood and orientation. It has many effects on our body including altering the endocrine balance. 

I continue to dwell on this theme, the effects of 'social distancing' in human behaviour. Actually a better phrase would have been, 'Physical distancing' and ' "social nearness'!

M.C.Mathew(text)

About to be six months away from school!

I got in touch with thirty students over the last four weeks, mostly older children in the high school, with the intention of getting closer to them to get a sense of ow they perceive this enforced home stay on account of COVID 19. My neighbour who is a plus two student whose examination got postponed was my facilitator in this enquiry process.

When I saw the news item of artists and students gathering outside a government school to create this art work in the paper clip above, on the compound wall of the school, I was drawn by the spirit of aspiration of the artists about the future of students. Each painting of a child is worth studying. I have located the school in the google map and would soon want to visit he school to watch this painting.

What tells us about the gain and losses of this long absence from school is worth pondering upon! The angel in this art work carries in its wings an imagery of different professionals. The angel reminds the children in the ground of all that hey can be in their future. This is a message of hope and consolation. The artists brought in the element of trust and hope vividly.

But the loss too is evident. The children with their school uniform and bags are ready for school, but no school to go to! In fact, the child in the centre has an open book which is what we commonly see during the examination time. Children walk between places, trying to read while walking during the examination time. Even the examination was postponed during this COVID 19 pandemic season.

What captures in the painting is another dimension of two children with the Indian national flags. It is both revealing and restraining artistically. Revealing because the artists portray the triumphant spirit of the students and convey their spirit of allegiance to the cause of the nation in its struggle to endure COVID19! Restraining, because the pain, of several thousands suffering because of COVID19, migrant workers losing their lives and livelihood, over four thousand already losing their lives in India, etc is concealed in a  condensed way in the dark colours artists used to portray the countries of the world. 

My neighbour now waiting for his examination on 29th of this month, before he can go on to study computer science and visual art told me that, children have missed a lot and gained only little during this time. HIs reasoning is that the intensity of leaning and consolidation of efforts take place about two months before the examination. This time, they lost such an opportunity. The little gain that he refers to is about few extra things some students achieved during this time. He himself did a short course on visual art. But many in his class were not self motivated to plan well. 

I suggested to him to have a weekly group meeting to have conversation times, but that too did not materialise. He mentioned to me that students felt orphaned during this long time, when they neither had a sense of closure of the term of one year in the class nor a preparation to go into the next class! He wondered why there were no active efforts from the schools to help students emotionally during this time! I felt rebuked by his perceptive remarks. 

I wish we in the Developmental Paediatrics and Child Neurology were active to plan with at least one school to conduct a regular structured debriefing for students!  My neighbour friends reminded me of the lapse on my part!

But this painting on the school compound wall is a story of a caring response to enter into the world of students mindfully and consciously. Well done artists!

M.C.Mathew (text)

A beach experience!

At the Kovalam beach, near Trivandrum in the state of Kerala, Anna and I watched a spectacular and daring sight of a four years old child sitting close to the tidal waves on the shore! Every time a tidal wave approached him, he stood firm on the sandy ground. We noticed that with each wave some of the sand from under the surface of his bottom was washed away by the water.  He supported himself firmly with both his hands behind him, leaning back when the waves embraced him at his nipple level.

His parents were standing behind him fully alert and ready. Twice we noticed that they approached towards him when the waves seemed to reach above his shoulders. But they did not have to give him support. Both his parens are swimmers and this boy was introduced to swimming from his first year onwards. 

While standing and watching the turbulence of the sea with its vast expanse, I too wondered whether the parents were wise to leave him like this. What if a big wave dragged him with it!  It was a shallow beach and yet..!

It is here I came face to face with an important dimension in child development. Often the commonest feed back young children receive from parents or teachers are injunctions, 'don't do it... you will get hurt'!

A chil's experience is to explore and experience ! It is when there is a  first hand experience a child's knowledge base gets expanded. The risk of a behaviour like cycling is falling and injuring! Every behaviour they seek to explore might have a risk! By dissuading them to go through an experience we deny them the strength of an experience to grow in confidence and trust in his or her abilities. 

Anna and I returned amazed at the skills of a four year old child in steadying himself against the tidal waves! We marvelled at the attitude of his parents towards child development.

It is the confidence of his parents which gives him his strength!

We can either give a pre-schooler a fear producing injunction of  'No' from exploring or build his confidence by helping him to attempt and attain more than what we think of him!

M.C.Mathew(text nd photo)