Knowing the child- 11

The three birds above are visitors to our garden during short periods during their flight path or for feeding purpose. 

All three have different behaviours.

The Barbet is socially comfortable with our presence in its visual field. It is not intimidated by Dulcie, who barks gently on sighting birds.

The Loten's sun bird is uncomfortable with movements around. Even the presence of other birds makes it unsettled. 

The Parakeet feeds privately and will not let any bird come near to it during this time. 

The other birds who visit us regularly also display different behaviour moods. 

The response of many birds to fear is flight!

The Bulbuls and Barbets are survivors of fear! They behave differently to sounds and sights around. 

Fear is an emotion related to a sense of helplessness. 

I remember noticing how infants are comfortable with strangers when carried by the father or mother. But even when carried by a brother or sister, the infant would turn crying to the father or mother in sighting a stranger!

By about 18 months, having known that strangers can also be friends to play with, the stranger anxiety is mostly overcome even if father or mother is not around. 

The strange behaviour of adults is to want to carry an infant even when he or she is meeting the infant for the first time. If only the stranger can be comfortable seeing the baby and not wanting to carry, we can avoid instilling fear in the infant. 

The strangers cause fear because the infant has limited experience of physical nearness with strangers. 

It is the environment that instills fear in infants. A cat or a dog or anything else that an infant is not aware of can generate fear. 

I noticed an interesting phenomenon. When an infant notices a dog while visiting a home can have two responses. One is wanting to stroke the dog if the infant was already used to a pet dog at home. The other is that infant turns the face away from the dog. In a few minutes, the infant looks comfortable watching the dog while seated in the mother's or father's lap. The  infant might even want to touch the dog if the adults did not interfere in any way!

The fear is an externally induced emotional state! The fear is a healthy emotion to avoid risks, harm and danger. It is an unhealthy emotion if it is imposed upon an infant to condition the infant to compliance. If the message to the infant while trying to stroke a dog, that it would bite, then we have conditioned the infant to be fearful. Instead if we were to say that 'you can stroke the dog in our neighbour's home', one  is consenting to the interest of the infant but educating him or her to  avoid to stroke an unfamiliar  dogs. We can protect the infant from a fear prone orientation. At the same time, we introduce a difference between familiar and unfamiliar dogs. 

How unfortunate that adults live fearful of cockroaches or lizards or ants! In such situations, fear that was introduced in childhood stays on creating a sense of unsettled attitude to relatively harmless creatures around us. 

I wish parents would avoid installing fear of any sorts to get compliance from infants and toddlers!  Instead, introduce experiences to infants and toddlers to be aware of danger and therefore be cautious and yet not fretful or fearful !

We often modulate our behaviour conditioned by fear!

Instead what is desirable is to create wellness and awareness when we relate to infants and toddlers! 

Infants and toddlers thrive emotionally and socially when they are introduced to the environment realistically!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)