On a moon lit early morning I happened to notice this Sunbird perched on top of the Bell fruit tree in our front garden and groom the body! It was a cold morning and the there were occasional bird calls in the air. The sunbirds are more ritualistic and have a rigorous routine of grooming. The smaller the bird, the more is their need to be fight ready with feathers and wings well groomed for easy flying.
The way it attended to this process was from the general to the specific. It shook its body a few times to spray the dust off from its body to the receiving air. Then it was giving attention to each part of the body and oiling its feathers.
As I watched this detailed grooming process, I got a sense of the place of routines of the avians.
Almost every day the theme of conversation with a few families is about the routines in the life of pre-school children. Most parents struggle to change the acquired habits of their pre-school children. The family would have inadvertently introduced feeding their nine months old son while the TV was put on when the weaning food was introduced. Since then at two and half years he still insists on watching his favourite cartoon while being fed. They then tried to feed him carrying and showing his sights in the garden. That too was not helping.
Once a habit is created, to change it will be difficult as most infants and toddlers would resist it.
In the child development language, feeding a pre-school child is a family activity. A child from the time he or she has attained the trunk and head control, is ready to be at the family table in a high chair. Feeding a chid is an active process, where child sees the food, smells it, feels the texture of the food by feeling with the hand, tasting it....! All these and more steps associated with feeding is to turn feeding into a voluntary activity, in which a child participates. It is hunger which turns a child towards food. It is pleasure of being with others to listen to stories, which makes a child wanting to be at the dining table. It is when a child sees food being prepared in the kitchen and taken to the dining table, a child is drawn to experience eating. Some mothers would even ask a child to take the ingredients like tomato, from the fridge, and involve the child in washing it before cooking. A child who got involved in kneading the dough to make chapati, would want to eat what he was involved in to make. The ritual to make a child want to eat has several such preceding steps. For parents to think of it as chore to be completed for him or her to move on to the next activity, is a denial of the pleasure of a feeding time to a toddler!
I looked at the following bunch of flowers photographed at noon time. It is an overexposed photo. It is while looking at it, I recognised that it did not have the photographic quality that is ideal. It is not a fulfilling sight for a photographer ! I wish I was more attentive to monitor the exposure factor!
I have a sense that many parents live with unfulfilled dreams about parenting. Most parents have fallen into a trap of expecting children to grow up with good routines and practices without investing to make them happen. For good part of the first year of an infant in our tradition in this state of Kerala, is spent with mothers' family where she would have come during the last months of pregnancy. The husband comes into the picture when the mother returns with her baby few months after the delivery. The mother having got used to the routine of the baby continues with little or some help from her husband.
The major milestones of development related to mobility, language, social skills and behaviour develop during the first year. It is during this time an active involvement with a child is needed to introduce healthy habits and routines to a child. In most homes, it is the 'third parent' the visual media, which engage the child and not the father or mother. Even the grandparents often are not good substitutes.
To make parenting a fulfilling experience, parents ought to recapture the vision of parenting. I like the way a couple told me their story. The father and mother took one month of leave from their work, before the arrival of their baby to have greater readiness for the arrival of the baby. They decided to invite wife's parents for a month to be present immediately after the baby arrived to support them. The father took one month of paternity leave to be present in the care of the baby. He took part time job for the next three months to be at home for the most of the day.
This conversation arose when they came visit with their eighteen months old child, who was a well settled child happily relating socially and engaging in play activity meaningfully. When they joined us for the evening meal, the child fed himself from the food served in his plate. What a delightful sight! From nine months the child was used to be at the table for food along with others.
The avians are introduced to their routines from the time they are born. They practice them diligently thereafter.
I wonder whether parents would take themselves to a new level of consciousness about childhood routines! They originate from parents and the childhood has a smoother transition when parents facilitate children to practice the routines that are good for them!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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