Care for your loved ones on carenearn

Kadam Chhota, Change Bada. Every change begins with a small step, whether it’s a change within your family or the whole country! India’s hero, Padman, had its digital premiere on ZEE5, on 11th May. Don’t miss this inspiring true-life story, only on ZEE5.  Download the app and subscribe now .  For every subscription, ZEE5 will donate Rs. 5 towards the personal hygiene needs of underprivileged women.   It was about ten years ago when there was no judicial immunity to the people who were helping the accident victims. I was driving in my car with my mom for shopping towards Lajpat Nagar market in Delhi. As I approached the major crossing, called the Moolchand Crossing, I saw three boys in early twenties driving the motorcycle recklessly. Suddenly the bus in front of them applied breaks and these three without the helmet bumped into the bus and two of them got the head injury. The state of the two boys was really grave and needed immediate medical inter...

Past two months I was off the writing and got busy with the school of great repute! This time it was class X and IX! This is the first year when the board exams start for class X after a gap of good seven years. This is a panic situation for the parents and teachers who have not dealt with the board exams earlier. Teaching these classes was an eye-opener for me. In these ten years when I left school teaching to coaching the class XI and XII students made my perception different. There are few inherent weaknesses that have cropped in in these few years! Many issues have cropped up. In my opinion, it is initiated with the status symbol- a full-time maid! Well, many a time the maid is responsible even for feeding and making the food for the child. The child grows more in the shadow of the maid who is hardly educated rather than parents or grandparents. The most impressionable years of the life and the age of maximum rate of learning is molded by an uneducated person. Next, as the ...

I was getting ready after an hour of the refreshing swimming and got into the conversation with a lady who was probably in her late sixties. She was wearing a sad grey colored suit and was apparently unhappy looking after her granddaughters. She was almost dragging herself to complete the chores. I could only feel sorry for her. I think she was a lonely widow. But the swimming pool is an area for the encounter of many, the next one was a lady in a happy mustard collared suit and taking a keen interest in her granddaughter. She was enthusiastic and excited to see the progress of her granddaughter. As I got into the conversation with her I was in awe for the strength she has. She had a grandchild who was physically challenged and had lost a 26-year son to cancer. The source of her happiness was clearly the healthy relationship between grandmom and the grandchild as well as rest of the family! I believe the happiness has a lot to do with the strength of relationships in life. But with...

I recollect one of the most intriguing memories of my life when my four-year-old son would always ask me almost infinite questions to the limit that I used to get tired of answering. So one evening we were in a shop busy looking at certain items and my son, as usual, was full of questions and I was trying to reply. So one event set the things right. The shopkeeper suggested to my son, why don’t you think over this and find the reason. This was my ‘Eureka moment’! Initially as a respite from a volley of questions and later I realized that he will use his brain in finding the reason rather than a no-brainer spoon fed information. Now, what is essentially science? In a simple language, I would say it an observation made which is legitimized by logic and reason. So what is it that we can do imbibe the scientific nature of our kids? As a basic step, the children should be encouraged to observe as much as possible and give them a conducive environment. Let the childr...

The Digitalisation of the classroom Today most of the schools have computer-aided teaching aids and I personally is a big fan of these methods of teaching, but still, somewhere there are issues in the learning outcomes. This bothered me and I researched on the reasons.  I will quote a personal experience. Teaching the chapter sound, it was almost impossible to explain the meaning of pitch, quality, loudness, and timber etc. The best would have been an alive experience. But the next best is the reproduction of the qualities and their graphical representation using computerised teaching aids.  All this sounds perfect!  But, there is a glitch? The students did not recollect or analyse and synthesis the learnings. So looking for the reasons I stumbled upon research done by Prof Pauk Walter, Cornell and many more. Here I am giving the simple outline of a bit of his work. Let's see what happens when one write...

Childcare by grandparents or the daycare or the Nanny/maid MAKE INFORMED CHOICE: Leaving your precious baby with a caregiver can be an anxious time for mothers/parents.Read our tips on finding a provider you can trust and avoiding separation anxiety. Let’s explore the options do we have and what is the expected result of the action we take. We will generally have three options. Leave the child, 1. in the day care homes. 2. with the grandparents. 3. with the maids at home. Daycare centers There are daycare centers with a limit of 10 to 25 children, all mixed up age group. Types of daycare facilities • The daycare centers may be like an organized school where the caretakers are well-trained people. • The other type is more personalized where the childcare is run out of the provider's home, often as she cares for her own children at the same time. Steps to choose a daycare center: • Do your research. Get recommendations from other ...

How to save your child from a sex predator? The Gurugram murder of the child has again thrown open many fundamental questions. Now, what is it we can do as parents? So the lesson number one do not think only girls are venerable, even boys are. What are the solutions to ensure that your child is safe from the sexual predator? Child abuse is something which always existed. The fundamental difference which has come is the spread of the news. Earlier such things were kept under the carpet and the attempt was made to hush the matter. A bit of this still is true. People will generally not like to share such experiences for the fear of the stigma. Such an experience feels self-implicating. This is the greatest strength of the predator. As we bring up our kids we all come across such situations. We are lucky if we could see the intentions of predators otherwise it is a hidden dark spot.Today when I look back I can make few observations which I would like to share with you! For ...

Who brings up your child? Class X Board exams Class x board exam Past two months I was off the writing and got busy with the school of great repute! This time it was class X and IX! This is the first year when the board exams start for class X after a gap of good seven years. This is a panic situation for the parents and teachers who have not dealt with the board exams earlier. Teaching these classes was an eye-opener for me.In these ten years when I left school teaching to coaching the class XI and XII students made my perception different. There are few inherent weaknesses that have cropped in in these few years! Many issues have cropped up. In my opinion, it is initiated with the status symbol- a full-time maid!   Well, many a time the maid is responsible even for feeding and making the food for the child.The child grows more in the shadow of the maid who is hardly educated rather than parents or grandparents.The most impressionable years of the life and ...

Screen time and children —The effect on brain and development Recent research confirms t hat the first five years are particularly important for the development of the child's brain, and the first three years are the most critical in shaping the child's brain architecture. Early experiences provide the base for the brain's organizational development and functioning throughout life. They have a direct impact on how children develop learning skills as well as social and emotional abilities. In today’s time, as I am writing this or you are reading this blog, both are using the screen time. We simply cannot go back to the old times and simply say ‘NO’ to the video screen.But all of us are worried and think what will be the result? I think most of us do need to use screen some way. But in any case, many of us are not sure of the effects it may have on the infant & kids. How much of time is OK and what content is OK? In past ten years, a lot of research has ...

The first five crucial years of your child I will quote a study: “Between birth and the age of ten or eleven, the nucleus basalis is permanently ‘switched on’. It contains an abundance of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and this means new connections are being made all the time. Typically this means that a child will be learning almost all the time — if they see or hear something once they remember it.” The first five years are especially crucial for physical, intellectual, and social-emotional development. I observed an interesting behavior when my family went to a restaurant with my three-year-old grandchild to a restaurant in London. At the end of it, the waitress asked, if you care for coffee. All of us simply said, “No Thanks”. Well, it is a normal response for any Indian to say ‘No’ straight away. But my granddaughter brought up in the UK says, “I am good, thank you so much”.   So obviously, kids learn vocabulary, language and the way they conduct from their s...