Siblings in a home!

This papaya tree in our garden is always with blossoms. It is a tree with papaya ready to pluck and with fresh ones growing, along with successive generations of flowers. 

I have often looked at this phenomenon and viewed a family symbolically. A family is a generations of people born within its fold. 

The flowers of one generation are like sibling in a home!

The siblings are of different ages, boys or girls or teenagers or young adults or married adults. 

Let me share some thoughts on siblings who happen to be children!

1. Birth of a sibling

It is only when a sibling is born, the older child feels the difference it makes to him or her in the family ambience. The infant from the time he or she is born takes precedence in attention and care. The older sibling receives similar attention and protection. Most older siblings would not have a memory of such times as they were too young to register the experiences. The older sibling watching the way an infant is cared for, might become a partner with the family to welcome the infant or can express reactions towards the baby to indicate his or her displeasure. A horrible word that exists in literature- 'sibling rivalry' is an unnecessary judgemental statement about what is normal. An older child feels displaced on arrival of a brother or sister. It is the parents who would have to foresee from the time a mother is pregnant, to include the older child in the transition planning, to make the older child endear himself or herself to the child when he or she arrives. There are several ways this can be done and let me defer the details at this column. 

2. Sibling behaviours

An infant is on his or her mother's breasts on several occasions during the day. Any sibling less than five or so years can watch and would accept when his or her mother is a mother to another child, provided he or she also gets due attention and feel included in the transition in the family. But there can be some older siblings who  can interpret mother's nearness to his or her younger sibling as the mother 'being fond of a younger sibling'. It is this feeling of displacement, which creates a feeling of 'marginalised', which gets expressed by reactive behaviour from an older sibling. A four year old sibling who is used to eating his or her food by oneself now can turn to mother to be fed.  The older child can show behaviour of insistence which parents had not noticed thus far. It is this time which would have to be turned into a redeeming time, to restore the status of an older sibling to feel fully included in the family. There are several ways to do it. I will leave the discussion to a later blog.

3. Parental attitudes

The arrival of a new baby is an occasion of celebration in a home. Sometimes, parents inadvertently leave an older child to adjust,  rather than be a sympathiser of his or her feeling of being less important from then on.  He or she has to be helped to come to a 'shared' role as a sibling, by showing an equal priority for both children. I know of families when the father takes over the bed time story narration or reading to the older sibling, thereby not allowing the habit maintained by the mother to be lost, when the mother is otherwise occupied with a younger child. Parents alone can redeem the transition time of the older sibling to adjust to a new scenario, which an older sibling could  not have fully imagined. 

Siblings are not alike in behaviour, temperament or reactions. They need individual attention as well as joint attention. 

The parenting style would have to change when a baby arrives. 

One suggestion I might leave here is, that parents ought to have conversations about the new style of parenting which would be needed, while preparing to welcome the baby during the pregnancy period. This conversation ought to include many aspects of reorientation to a new family culture, which the birth of a baby would call for in our attitudes to other siblings!

Post  questions if you have, to expand this theme further!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A home for a child!

A butterfly emerges from a cocoon after a period of hibernation. It is by then it becomes elegant and colourful. The cocoon helps in the formative process of a pupa becoming a butterfly.

Let me say a word or two about our homes being such a place of formation for our children. 

During the recent campaign that we initiated through a You Tube video on Children's corner at home during the COVID time, https://youtu.be/1eONrsUbwkA, we raised a plea with parents to create a corner in every home for children for them to develop a sense fo belonging. 

What is a home for children !

A home is the first experience they encounter in their earthly journey. They having been used to the cocoon of a uterus, arrives with a longing for a full and abundant life! 

All  children are endowed with the prospect of entering childhood and  adulthood to become who they can be, if a home becomes formative and liberating. Let me share three functions of  a home:

1. Relationships.  

When children are immersed in an ambience of unconditional love and supported to live their lives, exploring the environment where they receive attention and affirmation, they have an experience of wanting to relate to others. When they feel enveloped in a setting of warmth, they usually gravitate towards wanting to be part of others. It is when they feel just accommodated, they drift towards wanting to have more to do with watching TV or Mobile phone. 

All adults have to be deliberately tuned towards children at home as they are the ones for whom a home exists. So making every opportunity to make children at the centre of our thoughts, responses and plans should take precedence if we as parents want to be formative in our orientation towards our children. The more we are with our children, the more we create them to become what is beyond our expectations or prescriptions. Children are like birds who are with us for a while and then to leave our home like birds from a nest. Till they are with us, they need nurture to make them become a unique person. 

2. Opportunities

All children need opportunities to expand their interests and abilities. An enabling environment is one, when a child is asked of his or her needs and provided for. A girl who requested for a toy piano at three years, recently completed her eight grade piano examination from the Royal College of Music, London. Most child express their aspirations quietly and in hushed tone. They are denied the prospect of tracking their instinct. To be supportive of children would mean being responsive to their instincts and interests. 

Home is a place where adults normally dominate and arbitrate with children.  Adults look for several reasons to deny children of what they seek after. Instead of parents seeking after children to make their home environment richer by allowing children to express themselves, we deny them their right to be heard. When we ask a child about what he or she would like to do on a holiday or week end, we are offering the child to think and suggest an interest he or she would want to explore. As adults we can crowd our time with our interests that we marginalise the needs or interest for children. I remember that our two children marked on the calendar that the week-ends belonged to them. As adults we could have anything of ourselves only with their permission. 

3. Encouragements

Children thrive on encouragement and appreciation. I asked a family to make a record of all the 'no' they say to their two children and the occasions of words of appreciation during a five day period. They listed 140 'no' or angry words or scoldings and just thirteen times  of complements towards one child during the five days. When the parents came with this report they were tearful and confessed that they are driven by what they experienced during their childhood.

It is not our scolding or punishment or reprimands which would help in the formation of our children but our love, affection, endearment and upbuilding. We do this by having conversations with our children and not just instructions or demands of all sorts. The conversation times are to hear and not so much to tell. We hear and feel the emotion when a child is narrational. 

A 14 year old child who complained of choking while eating food, had a mountain of emotion over the loss of his father two weeks ago, following the COVID pneumonia. He saw his father choke for breath before he was transferred to the hospital. He lives with the fear of that nasty and horrible sight. After a long conversation when we made him eat chocolate bars, he did not feel the choking. He came back after lunch with no choking expereince. His emotional overload choked him.

Our children live with enormous experiences and with emotional overload. 

Parents are their listeners. From being advisors to our children, let us begin by being intent listeners to our children. 

A home is a place for Children. Adults live as stewards of children. We are parents because we are given the role of being formatters of our children.

Make home a safe and cheerful place for children to grow up!

I send this bunch of flowers from our garden to all parents, who want to move closer to their children to give them a larger space in their lives and home. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

 

About this blog!

I work with a small group of professionals from different disciplines, but all of us focusing on child development in the department of Developmental Paediatrics and Child Neurology at MOSC Medical College, Kolencherry.

This blog has been infrequently visited with updates as I felt hesitant to write more than what I regularly write on: waymarksonajourney.blogpot.com 

But a colleague, Ms Shalini Shaji suggested that I revive this blog as it can be a good dialogue starter with parents on important issues on child development. Shalini has offered to co-ordinate and feed me with questions which parents ask and be in touch with parents and professionals to continue this communication process. 

Let me respond to a question that Ms Shalini Shaji sent me yesterday, which she heard from a parent: 

My child is three and half years old. Sometimes he uses his left hand to take something or when he gives a high five. I am not really sure if he is right handed or left handed. How can I confirm that? Is it alright for him to use either hands?

I was prompted to go back to my archives of photographs and came across this ballon play  during a children's party. 

In the second photo the child in the yellow shirt touches the balloon with the left hand and in the third picture he plays with the balloon with the left hand. He to me appeared to be between three and five years of age. 

We come across about ten percent of adults to be left handers. Usually there would be other members as well as in the family with a preference for using the left hand. But most adults having been forced to use the right hand even though they were natural left handers from their childhood, would end up using the right hand for eating, writing etc, but would prefer to use the left hand for other activities. I know of a child at ten years using his the left hand to bowl a cricket ball although uses the right hand to eat and write. 

When we come to study this in children there are three questions that surface in my mind.

1. Is she or he a natural left hander at 3-5 years!

This can be found out by finding out if there are other members in the family who are more comfortable with the left hand. Examine the thumbs and the great toes of a child and see if there is a difference between the right and left side. Whichever thumb or great toe is marginally bigger side, it  is likely to be the dominant hand or leg. 

One can measure the muscle girth at the calf muscle level and upper arm level at a fixed point in both sides and observe if there is a difference in the bulk of the muscle on one side. The muscle bulk might be larger by at least half a centimetre on the side which is a child's natural dominant hand or leg.

Another information that would be of  value  is to know from parents as to which hand the child used regularly for play activities. Usually by 2 to 3 years a child prefers to use one hand as the leading hand to do many activities such a bouncing a ball, holding a racket or for drawing  or reaching out to say bi! 

Many parents would insist on a child using the right hand for eating and writing. The history of parents or teachers forcing a child to change from the left to right hand ought to be enquired into. About fifty percent of natural left handers would have changed into using the right hand under such circumstances. This can be proved by making a child do activities with both hands and looking for original handedness based on the dexterity with which a child performs with the hands. 

2. What is acquired left handedness!

A child might have been born with a difficulty on the right side or weakness of the right hand, in which case from early childhood such as from six months onwards, when a child normally reaches out to receive objects in the hand, would use the left hand. He or she may under use the right hand.  In fact the the right hand might appear to be clumsy functionally. 

When a child under two years prefers to use the left hand most of the time, it is contrary to the natural pattern in childhood. Till three years or so most children use both hands equally. The cerebral dominance which gets established by two to three years determine as to which hand would evolve to be the dominant hand. 

All children till two to three years would be bimanual;  majority of children are natural right handers; only less than ten percent of children would be natural left handers; a child who is a natural left hander if made  to return to use the right hand, the child would show indications of his preference for the left hand for activities which require strength or dexterity.  

All children who because of weakness on the right side, resorting to use the left hand can come across some challenges.

3. What are those challenges!

When a child who was originally wired to be a right hander when using the left hand because of some weakness in the right side might still have the left cerebral hemisphere as the dominant hemisphere. It is the dominant hemisphere the language centres are located in majority of the situations. When owning to a difficulty in the left hemisphere the right hand of the child is waker, he or she would prefer to use the left hand. 

In such a situation it is likely that the left hemisphere might still be the language centre. If the left hemisphere suffered an insult the neuro-plasticity might repair the left hemisphere and still retain the left hemisphere as the language centre. But if the insult to the left hemisphere occurred before a baby is born or at birth or in the first year of life, it is likely that the brain might naturally shift the dominance of hand or speech or both to the right hemisphere.  These are questions which can be answered by careful clinical examination, developmental appraisal  and brain imaging studies.

So there are two scenarios: there are natural right handers, who form the majority. There are natural left handers which is a small group. A natural right hander would shift to left and when there is an insult to the left hemisphere.  

The second scenario is : A  natural left hander might have the left hemisphere as the dominant hemisphere, as against the norm of the opposite hemisphere being the dominant hemisphere locating the centres of handedness and speech. A natural left hander might have the right hemisphere as the dominant hemisphere in which case if an injury were to occur to the right hemisphere, it is likely that he might start using the right hand, in which case the left hemisphere takes over some functions of the right hemisphere. 

Let me conclude. 

The right handedness associated with left cerebral hemisphere dominance is likely to be more definitive. Where as in natural left handers, one is not sure whether the corresponding hemisphere is dominant or the opposite is.

How are we to respond to handedness!

I am inclined suggest that the child should choose his or her handedness. If the child has a weakness of one side of the body, then take an opinion from doctors, speech therapist, occupational therapist and teacher  to decide which way to proceed. 

Al children are proficient in using both hands for play activities till about 2 years and the shift to use one hand in preference to the other hand would happen between two and  three years. It is for parents to keep watching how the handedness evolves in children. 

There are ways to strengthen either of the hands or legs if weakness is the reason for the child to avoid using one side. This support ought to be offered as early possible, as limited use or non use of one side would lead to wasting of muscle, which a is a big disadvantage and difficult to overcome once it has occurred.

I have come across some instances when children fumble in language development when they were forced to use the right hand, although they wee natural left handers. This is unfortunate. 

Let me request parents to overcome the cultural inhibitions associated with the use of left hand and save children from having to struggle to use  the non-dominant hand. 

Let me suggest that readers can use e-mail to respond to or raise more questions or for clarifications by posting them on:  childdevelopment@moscorg.com

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)