A new observation !

I returned after a week of travel yesterday night. It was after a long time I was away from home for a week at a stretch.

It is the longest time, since I posted my reflections in this blogspot in the recent years. 

I missed being with Anna and felt lost without the habits and rituals that we are used to every day, from the time we get up each day, beginning with  coffee and reading time at day break. It was a joyous occasion of being together again when I returned at night. 

On my return I realised that Dulcie and Daffny were also waiting for me to return, seeing their body language and friendly gestures.

When I got up this morning, I had walk in the garden and found the lawn was fresh and green looking refreshed, by a few showers since I left. The plants and flowers looked festive. Some trees had blossoms readying for the fruits and the cashew tree had new nuts and some fruits ready to pluck

A week is long in sensing the changes in the plants and trees that one is the near to and is fond of. They looked different and changing their profile of colour and appearance with a few summer showers of rain. 

I paused to consider what changes have occurred to me within myself,  when I was on this travel. 

One experience might summarise that. 

A child, little older than a year was being fed. The mother brought her phone to show the screen activity of animations in a cartoon, while she was being fed. This girl pushed away the telephone and kept looking towards her father and mother. The father knowing her discomfort with the screen, started singing some rhymes. All this happened for about twenty minutes, while they were seated opposite to me. The child turned to the father to watch him singing and turned to the mother to receive the next spoonful of food. This was a day after I spoke in a meeting about protecting infants toddlers from screen time and allowing only about an hour in a week for older pre-school children.

To see this toddler, preferring to listen to her father sing than watch the screen, brought immense encouragement about the natural instinct of a toddler, when she was growing up in an environment of stable attachment behaviour between herself and her parents.  

I suspect that parents impose the screen time on infants and toddlers, because of which, they drift to want it more. If parents were to bathe the visual and hearing environment of children with activities which bring cheer and encouragement, they would resist the pressure to stay screen passionate. It is not the child who begins this deviation of childhood behaviour, but the parents. 

This new consciousness was indeed a lesson for me to reccaiberate  my thoughts on screen time for infants and toddlers. 

Coming to the garden around our cottage, it receives attention to allow the plants, trees and the grass to grow and flourish. Our domestic helpers have a fondness for them. Anna takes enormous interest and gives regular attention for their upkeep. 

A nourishing environment brings life into its fullness!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)