Knowing your child- 16

A juvenile Barbet was perched in the Rambutan tree under which is the feeding table in our garden, where one of its parents was feeding on banana fruit. It moved towards the feeding table after descending from the tree by short distance flights. 

The feeding process was that the parent bird waits with a mouthful of banana fruit and the Juvenile bird reached out to take the food from the parent's bills

This cycle of feeding continued for a while. The pattern was similar. 

At one stage the parent bird turned away from the habit of offering food from its bills, prompting the juvenile bird to feed from thefeeding bowl on its own.

The parent bird returned to allow the juvenile bird to feed from its bills after a while. This process of transition to make the juvenile bird to feed in its own directly from the feeding bowl was the turning point in this feeding cycle. 

The parent bird beside, realised that the juvenile bird needed more help to complete the feeding, which it provided subsequently. 

Then came the surprise! The Juvenile Bird flew away to be perched in the tree. 

The parent bird waited for the juvenile bird to return to the feeding station with food between its bills. It turned in all directions, but the juvenile bird was safely perched in the tree above. 

Later at noon I noticed the parent bird and the juvenile Barbet once again in the feeding table to continue the next round of feeding! This time the juvenile Barbet was more habituated to feed by itself with occasional help from the parent Barbet!

 

The three patterns I noticed in this transition of feeding education of a Juvenile Barbet by its parent were:

The parent bird offering the food.

The Juvenile bird taking the food.

The Juvenile bird in the early stage of self-feeding. 

The food was offered and the juvenile bird actively reached out to the bills of the parent bird to take the food. The juvenile bird was not fed by offering the food into its open mouth. The Juvenile Barbet had to take the food unlike receiving passively in the open mouth. 

That stage was already over, as the juvenile bird crossed the fledgling phase of its growth. 

I wonder whether it points to three possibilities for human parents to consider, while being involved with their infant who is growing to be a toddler!

An Infant receives.

A toddler finds.

A pre-schooler chooses. 

I wonder whether parents get used to the quick transitions in the life of their child who is growing up ! 

When I see a parent or care giver chasing a toddler or a pre-schooler to feed by going after the child or feeding a child while making the child watch the TV screen or the mobile, I suspect that parents miss behaving corresponding to the transitions of a child in the first three years!

I also suspect that parents wanting to make their task easier, resort to do for a toddler or a pre-schooler many self help steps, which a child is able to do, but prevented to do by parents taking over to do for them. That indicates that the parenting practices do not change corresponding to the independence parents are required to offer to children for their children to continue the natural transition in growth and development!

For parents to grow up.  they need to affirm the transitions taking place in a toddler, pre-schooler or early school going child !

I wonder while, we monitor the growth and development of infants, toddlers and pre-school children in a systematic manner, whether we  monitor the growing up skills of parents in their parenting practices!

The children grow and develop from infancy! 

How much parents grow up correspondingly to adapt the parenting practices to correspond with the changing cognitive, emotional and social needs of growing up children!

I wonder whether we educate parents enough on the science, art and aptitude in parenting skills!

I wish parenting practices become a serious conversation topic between parents!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)