Joyful memories

Anna and I was looking back at our life at PIMS and many pleasant memories returned  to  us. 

One such memory was the frequent visits of students to our home. This picture is of one group who came to our home carolling on 14th December, 2011. We used to have students meeting at our home for Bible study for a season. We had foster students dropping in regularly. There were some who offered to look after Delphine when we went away on week ends. Anna had a group meeting at home for Bible club. We had celebrations such as birthday parties at our home... our memories are flooded with gratefulness for many acts of kindness and love we received from many students during our time at PIMS.

We are getting to know the students at MOSC Medical college. We attend their weekly Bible study and look forward to having more contacts with them. Anna is already receiving acknowledgement from students for her creative teaching. We look forward to enhancing this contact with the student community. 

One challenge to all of us, who are occupied with our long hours of work is, 'how much of time we create to build relationships'! If we live by moving from one activity to another and not spare time to relate to people at a deeper level, we can suffer from an inner void of affection, love and kindness that others can add to our lives. This is one way of living with inner fullness- allow others to bring goodness into our lives.

We know of a senior couple who would have neigbours come home for post dinner coffee and cake to offer and receive friendship. 

Blessed are those who have time and space for others !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The origin of fear

I have have had a special interest in photographing children's faces, particularly of pre-school children. Their faces communicate their inner state. As adults, we have mastered the art of concealing or camouflaging our inner state.

As I watched this infant showing his anxiety when he was photographed I grew curious to enquire from the parents occasions when he shows such a facial expression. They mentioned to me several such occasions. 

One such occasion was when he watches the Television. He would cry, hold on to his mother or would insist to move away from the room. He is fond of music. So it can't be the audio in the TV that makes him anxious. 

The parents also noticed that when he saw police men on the street or in the television, he would scream. 

The mother used to tell him, when he was hesitant to eat food, that she would tell the policeman if he would not eat. He would soon cry and eat.

The mother confessed several such instances, when she would use threatening statements to make him comply with what she wanted him to do such as, 'the doctor would give an injection, if he diid not stop crying' . It was night a mare for her to take him to hospital as she would cry, the moment he sights the hospital or doctors with white coats or stethoscope.

It is likely that adults infuse fears or anxiety to children and they  stay with them. We need to present the world around us more pleasantly and consolingly to children. What freezes a child emotionally is anxiety. What liberates a child is confidence and clarity so that he or she grows up with a true estimate of realities around.

I know of a couple who would let their daughter stroke a pet dog, in order to allay any fear of a dog. However they would not let her do it to a stray dog. This the principle for childhood primary learning experience. To present the environment to a child in its true perspective.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)   

Think about our share

I often come across campaigns to promote ecological consciousness. There is a call for forestation, reducing emission of air or water pollutants, preserving lung space in towns and cities, planting saplings, recycling of waste, reducing use of plastic bags, etc. This is a timely reminder to a consumerist society, which uses the natural resources without pausing to think about the effects of mindless consumption on themselves and the future generations.

I come across its impact upon families and children who come to visit  for consultation. I enquire from families if they have sufficient space for children to play in the neighbourhood or at their schools. The commonest answer is 'no'. They mention that the available spaces are being used for building complexes for housing, commerce or adding to the school facilities.

The trees cut for widening of roads, construction, etc are expected to be compensated by planting new saplings, which is followed by some and not by others. We are gradually losing our tree cover  sometimes at an alarming rate. It is when we visit places that we were used to frequent, we would notice how bare the place looks without the trees, which were cut down.

I came across some examples of promoting the concept of 'green earth' in  a school. The teacher demonstrated how news paper can be used to make paper bags, which then can be given to provision shops to dispense goods to consumers. The school supplies bags to three provision shops and with the income form this project, the school is developing  a butterfly park.

The patients who stay in the hospital are encouraged to make a paper bags, which has almost replaced the use of plastic bag in the pharmacy.

The challenge is formidable. Le this not deter us form making a small start. Think of recycling; think of preserving the green earth form any more exploitation.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)      

I am waiting for you..!

I usually let children who visit me for consultation to play with my diagnostic kit if I am sure, that it will be safe in their hands. I have not had any accidents in the last thirty five years.

What engages me is that some children are insistent to have my kit than play with attractive toys which are prominently placed in a toy shelf in the room. I still have not figured out why this is true of only. 

I have had some more insights about it this week, when parents directed a three year old child to the toy shelf and sat with the child to play with the toys. The moment they stopped playing with him, he returned to my kit. He wanted to imitate the way I used the kit.

Between two and three years, most children have  a fascination for what the adults are fond of or use regularly. Children at this age would look for an opportunity to get hold of the make up bag, cell phones, pens, writing pads, etc which the adults use. Most children would explore the vanity bags of their mother and the brief case of the father. If denied an opportunity, they would defy and still do it.

This is an exploratory instinct driven to enter into the adult's world. Most children between two and three have fantasies, imaginations and dreams to be like their father or mother do what they do. They fulfil that aspiration by trying to do the way adults would do, to actualise their fantasy.  

An ideal way to let children grow into expanding their imaginations is to invite children in to share in the adult's experiences. However, if the adults think it is done by giving them the cell phone to play with or use computer indiscriminately, or watch the serials in the TV, meant only for adults, then we are skipping an important phase in their developmental process. 

What children need would be the time of adults for nature walk, outdoor games, picnics, visiting places of interests for children like science, park, beach, zoo,etc., read stories which can help children to be anchored emotionally and morally, engage them to make things that unfold children's imagination such as a tree house, swing, etc. This creates a shared experience through which parents and children learn and get to know each other. This is how children who are occupied experience their formation!

When the parents tried to stop the boy from playing with my kit, he retorted, 'I am waiting for you to play with me'.

Waiting children and missing parents!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)          

Memories are formative

This photo represents the facial gesture of a nine month old infant who is about to mouth his hands. I was captivated by the pleasure of  the anticipated self indulgence, this baby communicated for a few seconds on his face. With the mouth wide open and the hands about to reach the moth, there is a mischevious delight on his face.

Do infants at this age retain the memory of an earlier experience! This delightful expression suggests so. 

If it is so, there is a need to engage  parents to help them to communicate to infants soberly, lovingly, affirmingly and intimately. 

I have had three children brought for consultation recently, for some adverse effects following physical injury they suffered during infancy, due to angry outbursts of care givers. It is the first time in my clinical practice, I come across undisputed evidence of 'battered baby' state. I consulted senior and junior colleagues to confirm if this happens where I work now. They suggested that parental behaviour towards infants is changing as most parents go through stressful times. When a baby cries incessantly and both or one of the parents have had a difficult experience at home or work, it is not 'uncommon' to pinch or slap a baby. This has shocked me.

There is a need to bring the focus back to the psycho-social behaviour of infants. Their memories of experiences of first year of life are long lasting. A baby responds to affectionate ways of interaction with equal or more reciprocity. All the infantile experiences are first time experiences. We can prime an infant to have a happy or anxious predisposition depending on how and what we convey.

An eighteen months old baby is used to crying desperately when she watches a dog physically or in pictures. While probing into the past experiences, the mother confessed that, she used to frighten her daughter when she was hesitant to eat, by casually saying to her that the 'neighbour's dog would bite if she did not eat well'. This has stuck with her and any sight or mention of a dog provokes her into crying. 

Let us fill the lives of our infants with as many pleasant and affectionate experiences as possible. Not that we can eliminate painful events, but we can protect infants from being victims of our anger, irritation or impatience.

Parenting of infants (children under one year of age) needs further understanding and responsive action from all of us. They will become what we envision them to be!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)           

Make learning an interactive habit.

This is a greeting I received last year for the Teacher's day from one of the medical students. I have visited this quotation often during the last year. It is an inspirational quotation.

I have been a teacher in five  medical colleges during the last 25 years now. I look back at many events which have shaped my life for which I am grateful to my colleagues and students. 

A teacher is a co-learner with students. The students facilitate the learning journey of a teacher.

A student once came to me while I was at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medial Sciences, Sevagram to tell me that many children in the village that  he came from, suffered from Measles and some had died. It was the year 1976. The Measles vaccine was expensive and was not part of the National Immunisation Programme. I talked this over with Dr. Ulhas Jajoo, a class mate during my under graduate days at Nagpur, who was also in the faculty at MGIMS at that time. Jajoo was contemplating to start a food grain based insurance programme for village folks to help them to get subsidised health care at the hospital. Each family would have to give their premium of health insurance at the harvesting time as grains, which would be stored to sell back to the villagers at the cost price, form which the insurance premium in cash would be deposited to the hospital.  Jajoo was more than glad to include Measles immunisation as part of the insurance package. That was the starting of a life saver for children from Measles in some villages around Sevagram.  

It was a student who challenged me; it was his observation and social passion which set in motion an intervention plan. 

This form of student- teacher interaction is most critical to make medical education a corporate learning experience. Teachers need to be contextual, relevant and effective. The students, who are primary learners can lead teachers to make learning a growing and enlarging experience for students.   

Students influence the teachers to be thoughtful and gentle; teachers mould the attitudes and values of students. Both are interactive experiences, which alone can make medical education process life-centred and not just disease centred.  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)    

Conversations that upbuild

There are some special moments of communication between a parent and a child and this is one such occasions. It is a delight to watch such occasions. 

The mother was talking about going back home in the bus to play with his tricycle. This boy loved travelling in bus. While back at home he enjoys being pushed around in his tricycle. It is recall of memories of pleasant experiences between the mother and the child, that brought this joyful communication.

This gives an indication how relationships can be sustained and refreshed in a family setting. I have been making enquiries from families about their habits of family conversations. Most of the conversations are about events, difficulties or plans and much less of pleasant experiences or anecdotes. A lot of conversational times are around dining table, while watching TV or while travelling. 

There are few families who have dedicated conversational times during which times, each member of family shares memories of happy occasions, remembers others gratefully for their support during specific times of needs or narrates stories or anecdotes which brought encouragement. Such occasions contribute to grow in intimacy between members of the family  and create space for communication and upbuilding each other. One good story or pleasant experience invokes others to narrate similarly. 

We live and relate to a world of many conversations, presentations, arguments, accusations and conflicts. They unsettle, confuse or intimidate us. We need to speak to others to convey love, affection, appreciation and gratefulness. It is this which creates a fabric of character of mutuality and interdependence within  a family. This makes us more humble, less critical and grow in appreciation of others. 

We are under obligation to prayerfully seek ways to promote tolerance and collegiality in an atmosphere where competition, drivenness for success and self seeking have become acceptable social norms. 

It is children of today who would later decide the social character of communities. Let them listen to stories of gladness that would encourage them to flee from cynicism and trust the world to be their 'home'!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)