The formative family experience !

The cashew tree in our garden is now with fruits in different stages of formation of the fruits from the flowers. 

The tree started flowering in December unlike the normal time of March. The cashew fruits are normally ripe during the summer months. 

As I watch generations of cashew fruits in this tree, it became to me a symbol of family life !

Each family has people of all ages growing together and becoming people of their calling in the ambience of  family relationships. 

The fruits hang in the flower bunches, which the tree brings forth in the due season every year. 

The flowers and fruits find their shelter in the tree. 

I have had reasons recently to think about the way each family tree becomes a shelter for all its members !

A boy who found a packet of currency on the road side early morning while he was on his morning run in Bangalore handed it over to the police station near his home. It was a large sum of money. When he was interviewed for his conduct of honesty, by the police officer, he  said:  'I grow up in a home where honesty is a value which I see in my parents'!  

This is the 'shelter' that a family offers to younger generation. The family is a canopy over all those who belong to it. The family has its instructive, formative, protective and creative impact on all who belong to it. 

I know of a home where children do household chores at home including cooking, on Sundays so that parents can have some time for themselves. What a thoughtful way of being mindful of parents ! 

I remember a seeing a father who is an artist, carrying his pencil colours in a knitted pouch, which his pre-teenage daughter made for him as a birthday gift.  He spoke about it in immense admiration of his daughter.

I have come  across a family, where each birthday occasion is made special, when parents and children share family life experiences and feel grateful towards each other. 

A family is the soil in which children are rooted!

Our children are the fruits, each family offers to the community around them!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

  

 

The beginning time!

                       

Anna and I discovered the brochure above, while sorting out old files, which was made to welcome visitors to the new facility of the Developmental Paediatrics Unit in the Centenary block of the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 2002. The floor space was called as ASHIRVAD floor as ASHIRVAD contributed towards creating that space and the Unit came into being in 1997 with a Memorandum of Understanding between CMC and ASHIRVAD. The Child Development Centre at Chennai which was established in 1983 got incorporated into this Unit with all its assets of equipment, furniture, library and resources and four of us working at the Child Development Centre appointed by CMC to form the primary team in 1997.

Now we have the news that the unit will relocate in the Children's hospital, at the Ranipet campus of the college probably from 2028.

This was the first unit in any medical college in India in 1997. The speciality of Developmental Paediatrics was thus introduced to become an academic discipline in India. The post doctoral Fellowship  and the PhD programme in this speciality started in 2022 gave the lead to other medical colleges to follow on ! The new leadership of this Unit after my retirement in 2008 took this speciality to a new level of service and academic distinction. 

This Unit  shall enter in to its thirtieth year in 2027. I feel grateful to Dr Samuel P. Oommen and Dr Beena Koshy, the first two of the three paediatricians who completed the Post Doctoral Fellowship in Developmental Paediatrics. They stayed on to provide leadership  and developed this facility to have the potential to become an Institute of Child Development. 

For Anna and me, this journey into this speciality started in 1983. I stepped back form full time clinical work in 2023. During this forty years period, two concepts evolved as a foundation for this speciality. Developmental Paediatrics as a speciality is a confluence of Developmental Neurology, Developmental physiology, Developmental morphology, Developmental psychology and Developmental therapy. The second is the home based approach to the Neuro-developmental formation  of children in partnership between parents and professionals. 

Anna and I recall our experiences gratefully, of having been able to evolve and unfold the above two perspectives while developing services at Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry, and Kolenchery. The two publications, Vellore Experiences and  Developmental monitoring of infants and pre-school children which we were able to bring out during our time at CMC articulated this model. 

The other five recent publications, Bud to Blossom, Accompany your child, Parenting presence, Enable your child and the one due in March 2026, Engage your child  highlight the philosophy that evolved to be the heart of the speciality of Developmental Paediatrics in our understanding. 

We feel surprised at what all happened with that decision to move into child development in 1983.   

Anna and I spent one year at the Christian Fellowship hospital, Oddanchatram in 1982 as a gap year to discern the way ahead since we felt a sense of leaning towards moving into child development and rehabilitation. It was during that time we felt the opening to move to Chennai to start the Child Development Centre in 1983. 

As we were getting ready to move to Chennai, late Mr K.M.Cherian of the hospital visited us to wish us well as we were embarking on this initiative. He having been associated with the hospital from its early years told us: 'All beginnings are difficult. But God gives strength to those who want to respond to the needs of others'! He gave us a gift towards setting up the facility in Chennai. What he gave us was perhaps most of his one month salary! 

We began at Chennai by forming a charitable trust, ASHIRVAD. The first group of trustees were late Dr A.K.Tharien. Mr S.V. Waghmare and Dr Ray Thomas along with Anna and me as founder trustees. In its first meeting in 1985, one comment which Dr Tharien made was, 'Every beginning has a growth ahead...'! So here we are bearing witness to that growth process in our life time, well beyond all our expectations!

On this occasion of entering into the 41st year of ASHIRVAD on 30 March 2026, what moves us is the stories we hear from families whom we meet along this journey. 

The family above who sent us a photo recently through Dr Varghese Philip, remembering our contact with them in 1997, recollected that, that occasion was the 'beginning of a  recovery path' for their son. 

We have reconnections with some families which make us feel grateful for the opportunity we have had in making a difference in their lives!

Of all the surprises with which we live now is the willingness that CMC Vellore showed in inviting us back after we left the services of the institution in 1981. It is not usual for CMC to invite back a faculty to its fold after resigning from its roll. It was Dr V.I.Mathan who facilitated it in 1996 by saying, 'Now CMC is ready to have a  Developmental Paediatrics Unit '! 

The journey of forty years has many such surprises and turning points which brought us where we are now!

The flower above, from our garden is to remember and greet all those who blessed us in different ways during the last forty years along this journey into the unknown- parents, professionals, and well wishers ! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)