Curious kids Or parents at test 😲 -Part 12 (Brassiere, Mamma's banyaan!!)

By now my kiddo had started reading books. He was growing and he was very observant. That's why he used to get so many questions. Encyclepedia used to give many answers. But Mamma was the ultimate solution when it came to little odd questions. 

One night I found my kiddo in little thoughtful mood. He called me, "Mammaaaa...." I immediately went into attentive mode. He seemed little hesitant to ask question. Mamma's sixth sense had already sensed that something odd or awkward was coming. I said, "Fire away your querry"

Kiddo: Mamma why you are fat in chest? Look at me and Daddy. We have such flat chests.

For a moment I felt little awkward. In my mind the reflex action was wrapping my hands around my chest and thinking why my kid asks me such questions. But my experience had taught me that any reaction which would suggest that there is something abnormal/ odd/ awkward about the question would surely invite some drama or some kind of mention in public. Kids are very adept at sensing this. They read our body language much better than our words. So without betraying my true emotion I answered.

Me: That's because the body of man is little different than the body of a woman. Woman's body is supposed to perform few different functions. So the shape is also little different. You only tell me who carries the baby in womb??

Son: Of course a woman.

Me: Then in that case only a woman will have womb and not man, right?

Son: Right!!

Me: The nature has designed bodies very carefully. All types of living creatures are bestowed with the instinct to provide food to babies till they grow. Now look at birds. Normally the mother bird remains with babies and father bird brings the food and and feed babies. Though in some species it may be little different. You remember the cat at Nani's place who had given birth to kittens??

Son: Yes. 

Me: You remember how the kittens used to drink their Mamma's milk??

Son: Yesss

Me: Same is the case with puppies. Mamma dog feeds the babies with her milk. Cow feeds calves with her milk. Normally all these animals feed their babies with their milk till the babies grow and they are capable of finding their own food.

Same is the case with humans. The Mamma feeds her baby with her milk.

Son: what?? Mammas can produce milk??

Me: Yes. That's why women have milk glands in their breasts. Men do not have milk glands. That's the reason why her chest shape is different than man's chest.

Son: Did you also feed me with your milk?

Me: Yes.

Son: But then how come we have a photo of me drinking milk from bottle?

(Gosh! This boy is so observant!!)

Me: That's because my milk was not sufficient to feed you. So first you used to drink my milk then I used to give you milk formula or cow milk.

Son: Mamma, even now you have milk??

Me: Nope. The nature has done its own magic. The milk production starts after baby's birth. As the baby grows we start giving babies other foods like rice, kheer, fruits etc. Automatically the baby starts drinking lesser milk. Slowly the milk production stops.

My son was listening carefully. After all this conversation all he remarked was "Oh! That's why your banyaan's shape is so wierd..."

Afterall boys will be boys!!

My last word to my son was "By the way this kind of ladies banyaan is called as brassiere or simply bra." He rolled his eyes and turned his face.

Friends, why we feel awkward about such questions is may be due to our shyness or culturally we are not used to discuss such topics. We are not taught to talk freely about body. Curiosity about the anatomy is very natural. So let's talk about our bodies freely at least when kids demand information. Discretion is definitely required while talking to kids. But try to open up with kids and keep their question bank going!! As I said in my earlier blogs reiterating again let the kids come and ask you rather than depend on friends or Internet for answers!!

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Curious kids or parents at test 😲 -Part 11 (When curious kid tells a story..)

In my last blog we read about how my kiddo started handling encyclepedia since the age of 2. Encyclopedia was his most favorite book. Just imagine a kind of story he would narrate.

Once we were going out with our kiddo in our car. One of our acquaintances joined us. My kiddo was very talkative. So he was very happy to have new company and insisted on sitting with this new aunty. They started chitchatting. Suddenly he said, "Aunty I will tell you a story" Aunty was very delighted. Normally small kids demand stories from elders. But here the kid was volunteering to narrate a story. She happily consented. My kiddo started, "I will tell you a story of carnivorous plant"

Aunty: Wh...what?

Kiddo: Carnivorous plant aunty. Carnivorous plant...

Aunty (exasperated): What is this carni... thing??

Kiddo: Carnivorous plant aunty. It means meat eating plant.

Aunty: Meat eating plant?? (Making disgusting face)

Kiddo: Yes aunty. But I am telling you full story. Please listen...

Aunty: Ok ok.. tell me.

Kiddo: There are carnivorous plants. They eat flies, insects. They have bright, nice colors. The insects get attracted by these colors. There is one plant called sundew plant. When insect sits on that plant it's hair curl. The insect sticks and is not able to go away. Slowly the plant curls around insect and absorbs nutrients. The other parts of the insect just stay outside.

Aunty: Where do you find these horrible plants??

Kiddo: They are found where the soil is thin or it is poor in nutrients..

Kiddo had finished telling his story and he was now busy looking outside the car window.

The aunty was still quiet with shock. She had expected any story but this. Finally she said, "What kind of story is this? Can't he talk normal?" I laughed my heart out. I told her that the kiddo keeps reading encyclopedia and this was one of his favorite stories. She just said something "umm..ok alright"

Now whenever my kiddo is around she goes in attention mode and proceeds cautiously!! Because if she is not cautious he has huge stock of stories ready ranging from nebula, tornadoes, volcanoes, dinosaurs, Titanic to penguins and Mangalyan!!

All this was there when he was a small kiddo. As the kids start growing the difficulty and awkwardness level of questions starts increasing. Their self body awareness starts developing. Let's try to tackle one of such questions in the next blog.

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Curious kids or parents at test 😲 -Part 10 (Survival of reading habit in digital age)

In last blog we saw how reading habit was developed. But nothing is constant in this world. The reading journey which had begun so well faced rough waters. Now internet videos, mobile games were giving tough competition. There came a time when my kiddo had almost stopped reading and was not interested in doing anything apart from watching videos or playing mobile games.

My little kiddo was a big boy. And the big boy had a string of endless arguments in favour of games and videos. I had already realized that arguments and mere discussions are not going to be of much use. Nor complete ban on internet and mobile would work. It was time for direct action.

My son is a big fan of Harry Potter movies (like his mother 😜). I took advantage of this fact and told him that most of the movies had deviated from the books and they had changed couple of plots in each movie. So I set him a task of finding out these differences. This move met with some success. My son read first 3 books and that was something because he read the books in the first place and moreover he read fiction books which he had been refusing to do hitherto.

My kid loves competition. And if that competition is with Mamma and he can beat his Mamma at it then he loves that competition even better!! Now I decided to have reading competition between mother and son. He readily agreed and  we started reading Harry Potter series again. This time he completed all 7 books and one play. The competition spirit had  haunted him. Every day his lead was increasing by more than 100 pages. At one point I started suspecting that he was skipping pages and cheating me. But how to find out??  Again I had simple idea. We started having Harry Potter quizzes. I was glad to know that my son had not skipped pages!! In fact he enjoyed these quizzes so much that even when our competition is over we continue to have these quizzes during dinner time, during traveling or even in restaurants waiting for food.  

Similarly, Enid Blyton'e riddle series was completed. I started keeping tab on newly published Gerenimo Stilton's books and buy him latest book. 

My son is studying in IGCSC curriculum school where they don't teach local history much. I wanted him to read about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his history. But it was not his favored topic. One day I got opportunity. My kid saw saffron flag gifted to his cousin and demanded similar big saffron flag. I agreed to buy the same with a precondition that he would read biography of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who established Maratha empire under saffron flag. And yes, he read.

That's how the reading came back!! If we had not eliminated internet and mobile completely we had at least curtailed it to some extent. Now mostly we try to have reading hour before going to bed.

One needs to be really clever while dealing with such situations. Merely telling or scolding does not work. There is no one solution that fits all. Every kid is different. You need to understand your own kid and then plan activities. We knew that competition works well with my kiddo and I simply used this fact to my advantage. My last mantra is try to bring some challenges/ activities based on reading so that it becomes a game rather than purely boring activity. Happy Reading!!

As we have seen in the earlier blogs my kid was interested in stories where he could correlate rather than fiction and particularly in science. Follow my blog to know more about when the kiddo decides to tell a story!!

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Curious kids or parents at test 😲-Part 9 (Nurturing reading habit)

In my last blog we just saw how my kiddo started handling encyclepedia since the age of 2 years and how reading hour became our favorite pastime.

Slowly this picture watching game converted into question answer sessions. Now instead of merely reciting captions of the pictures my kiddo started asking "Mamma, what is nebula??" "What do you mean by tornado" "what does this train do?" 

Being a commerce student I didn't know answers to many of his questions. But I would typically read the information from the encyclepedia and tell the same to my kiddo in easy language. If that was not sufficient I would google or would ask someone.

Gradually my kiddo started telling stories of nebulas, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, solar system, trains to all of us. 

Me and my kiddo were regular visitors to the books fairs and book shops. In one of such fairs I found one more trove of treasure - it was a set of books with names "From oil to petrol", "From milk to cheese" "From shoot to apple" and "From wheat to bread". They were very small books of around 25 pages consisting of good illustrations and short description in 1-2 sentences about the process. These books were the turning point. The teacher had just started teaching different types of words with phonetics in school. But my kiddo had enjoyed these books so much that he attempted to read these books on his own. From Oil to Petrol was the first ever book my kiddo read independently. Wherever he would stumble he would ask "how to read this word Mamma?" Eventually he started reading even complicated words. Soon he started reading all the books.

Considering his liking we amassed encyclopedia on various topics like Mighty machines, Space, Mother Earth, Oceans, Human Body, Explorers tales, Backyard Scientist over a period of time. He was crazy about Titanic. So we collected many books and stories on Titanic. 1001 days which changed the history of the world was his another favorite. In school he came across Gerenimo Stilton. This is the only fiction where my kiddo was attracted. So we had Gerenimo Stilton series books as well.

From our journey all I am trying to suggest is try to judge the inclination of your kid and try to collect books accordingly. Your kid may like fiction or fairy tales or comics or superheroes or adventures. Give them what they like. It is just possible that your kid may not like reading at all. But what's the harm in trying??

In my previous blog we read the first mantra that was to start early and spend quality time with your kid. My second mantra is judge the inclination of your kid and try to collect books on topics your kid enjoys the most. Do not rely entirely on the typical books available books meant for kids. My third mantra is when we are starting the books from early age concentrate on attractiveness of illustrations rather than written content. Correctness of written content needs to be ensured. But little kids get attracted by attractive pictures rather than written content. Initially books with attractive illustrations and brief information are sufficient.

Today is a digital age and mobiles and internet videos are in vogue. Read my next blog to find out whether invasions by mobiles and internet on books were successful.

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Curious kids or parents at test 😲-Part 8 (Inculcating reading habit in kids)

Many times we hear parents complaining to each other that their kids do not read books. They have got so many books but their kids are not ready to look at them. Here I have one question for parents - do you read books?? Do you read with your kid??

Today I will share with you how our journey of reading began. Our kiddo was around 1.5- 2 years old. We had typical picture books of animals, vehicles, vegetables etc. My kiddo used to enjoy vehicle pictures the most. 

One afternoon one salesman rang the bell. He was selling encyclepedia named "Ask Me Anything" The book had very nice, colorful and attractive illustrations and brief description. I liked the encyclepedia very much and purchased the same thinking that one day my kiddo would grow and read the same!

All my family members thought that the kiddo  was too young to read the book. Even I agreed with him. Anyways I kept the book on the center table in hall and went inside for my work. 

After some time my kiddo went into the hall. Something red and silver on the center table caught his attention. He tried to lift it but it was too heavy for him. He opened the red and silver book and started turning pages. Ohh!! There were lots of pictures in this book. When I came into the hall my little one was already engrossed in turning the pages and watching new pictures. When he saw me he came running to me and dragged me near the book. He told me to show the pictures in this new book.

I sat cross legged on the floor and he sat comfortably in my lap spreading the new picture book. We started flipping pages of encyclepedia. When he used to find something interesting he would simply ask "what is this?" I used to tell him the name of the object.

Slowly Helix nebula, cartwheel nebula, tornado, hurricane, volcanoes, maglev and fernicular trains, solar system, milky way and Andromeda galaxies became our favorite pictures. The ease with which other children could narrate names of various fruits, vegetables, animals my kiddo would recite the names of various nebulas, stars, planets, trains.

Every day when I used to come back from office first we would have our dinner and then he would sit in my lap and we would see various pictures in encyclepedia. My kiddo was immensely enjoying this new picture book. When I used to go to office kiddo would show various pictures to his Dada and Dadi. Even they were amazed by how easily the kiddo had grasped knowledge about so many things. 

You may wonder being a working mother how did I manage to spend so much of time with kiddo. Where there is will there is a way. I will share my secret with you. Firstly I appointed maids for cooking, cleaning etc. So very little was left for me to do. Plus my support system consisting of in laws was very strong.

Secondly for me it was strict "No No to TV" Others would watch TV. But me and kiddo would occupy our bedroom typically he sitting in my lap and having "Ask me anything" as our constant companion. I believe that this is the age when the kids require parents the most. Once they grow up the nest would be empty. Sometimes I used to be tired after busy day. But I rarely said "No" to our reading time. Spending this quality time had done all the wonders. It may not be possible for all to implement same ideas. Have it your own way.. but spending quality time with kids is very important.

The book which I had purchased with assumption that one day my kiddo will read this book had become hit on day one itself. My unintentional shopping had done wonders!!

Friends, "start early and spend quality time free from any kind of gadgets" is my mantra. We have seen the beginning of the reading hobby in this part. In next blog we will see how this hobby was further nurtured. Stay tuned!!

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 https://motherlab.blogspot.com

Curious kids or parents at test😲- Part 7 (Sun doesn't rise, but earth rotates!)

I many times hear people say that this is not the right age to tell kids about this.. he is too small... I wonder is there really anything called as right age? Kids have amazing grasping powers and for that matter much better than adults. Kids are very receptive. They do understand. Why not try them?? I will quote one such incident.
My kid was in Junior KG. It was Saturday afternoon. It was lunch time. I was feeding my kid. He was feeling very lazy and he was trying to lie down while having his lunch. I was tired of telling him to sit straight.
I was racking my brain to engage him in some interesting conversation so that he would sit straight. I just asked him conversationally, "Just tell me what time of the day is it?? Morning, afternoon, evening??"
Kiddo: afternoon...
Me: Correct!! Now tell me what people do at this time??
Kiddo: I am having lunch. Then Nani is serving the food. Aunty is cleaning utensils (He answered looking around the room)
Me: So tell me during day do people sleep or they do work??
Kiddo: Work
Me: Should I tell you something funny?? At this very hour Dada, Dadi and Bua are sleeping.
Kiddo: (Now sitting straight and with a look of wonder in his eyes) how come??
Me: Do tell me where are Dada, Dadi and Bua these days?
Kiddo: U-S-A ( he answered stressing on each syllable)
Me: And all of them are sleeping right now because it's night in USA at the moment.
Kiddo: (with disbelief) but we have a day here.
Me: Absolutely right!! We have day here in India and they have night in USA.
Kiddo: How is it possible Mamma?
Me: it's quite simple actually. What is the shape of the earth??
(My kiddo already had encyclepedia with very nice illustrations. So Pat came the answer)
Kiddo: it looks round like a ball.
Me: Do you know the Sun remains constant and our earth rotates around itself. How you turn around yourself while playing Ring-a-ring-a roses. Earth also rotates around itself.
Suddenly my Kiddo's football became the earth. And the torch became the sun. I switched on the torch which was now Sun and the football earth started rotating. Then I showed him the portion of the earth which was facing the Sun. There it was a day. Then I showed him the portion of the earth which was away from the Sun and where light could not reach. There they had night. My kiddo was totally entrapped in this demonstration. Later on we purchased the globe. And my kiddo showed me India which was facing the Sun had day and USA which was exactly behind India had night. After this demonstration my Kiddo's face was shining with excitement.
After few days I had been to my Kiddo's school for parent teacher meeting. His teacher informed that she was teaching children about how sky appears during day and night. After she had finished teaching my kiddo had exclaimed, "Teacher, actually sun does not rise. But our earth rotates." My kiddo had explained full day night cycle to his teacher in his Hinglish. The teacher had recorded the full explanation on her mobile phone and showed the recording during teachers meeting. The teachers were deliberating on whether to introduce the concept of solar system in Seniors KG. My kiddo's teacher told them that if a Junior KG student can explain full day night cycle then why can't we just introduce the kids with solar system.
What more satisfaction a mother could get than her kid's appreciation for such good reason. Mother's efforts had shown fruits!
In formal curriculum the kids learn about day night cycle in third or fourth standard. But I just tried to explain it to Junior KG kid with the resources easily available at home. He understood. If we parents take little efforts the kids can do wonders.
Explaining day-night cycle was only a small portion!! Encyclepedia has played a major role in building and increasing a knowledge bank of my kiddo. In next blog I will take you through our favorite pastime - reading hour!!
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Curious kids or parents at test😲-Part 6 (Rendezvous with the Thalaiva)

Read Part 5

In last blog we read about how my kiddo witnessed baby delivery scene in the "Robot" movie accidentally and how the little one asked questions on delivery.

My little question bank was of course not done with what he had witnessed on the TV. Pat came the next question.

Kiddo: Mamma, do women die while giving birth to the baby??

Me (emphatically): Of course not.

Kiddo: Then why did she say - she is dying??

Me: Women do not die while delivering babies. In some very very rare case due to some complications a woman may die.

Kiddo: But that woman on the TV died...

Me: Not at all dear. On the contrary that woman was saved. 

Kiddo: Then why did she say she is dying??

Me: That doctor thought that if the complications were not solved immediately the woman's life was in danger. But that woman was saved. Plus, this is movie. So people don't really die in movie. They just act like that.

Kiddo: Act means??

Me: Nattak...(Drama)! They just pretend to die.

Kiddo: But why did she say she is dying even in drama??

It was clear that he was very much shaken by that scene and he was not able to take this question out of his head whatever I answered. So I tried to give him some real life examples.

Me: Look I gave you birth and I am still there. Right??

Kiddo: Yes, but she said..

I cut him short and said

Me: Look at Dadi. She gave birth to Bua and Daddy. Both were normal deliveries. She is still there and she adores you. Doesn't she?

Kiddo: Yes, but...

Me: Look at Nani.. she gave birth to Mamma and Mausi. She is still alive and gets lots of toys for you.

I had to give him many such examples of Buas, Mausis, Mamis, grannies... Finally the truth dawned on him and he got convinced. The Thalaiva Rajanikant has inspired many people in many ways but he has inspired my kiddo to ask endless questions!!

You may also feel why am I entertaining my kid so much?? Is it really necessary to discuss these things in this much detail?? I feel that these days the kids have a lot of exposure compared to what we had in our time. In the given instance itself my kid had accidentally stumbled across this delivery scene and was shaken. It was very much necessary to remove his anxiety. With this kind of exposure I think these kinds of conversations are unavoidable.

Secondly these days they have lot of avenues of getting information like Internet, encyclepedia, books. If we do not satisfy their curiosity then there are high chances that they will turn to these other media. Imagine what sort of material will be available to them!! Instead it's better we give them sensored information. Let them hear what you want them to hear.

Lastly let them build confidence that they get right answers to all sort of questions from their parents. Let them turn to you instead of their friends or seniors. Curiosity is not a sin. Then why kill it? Try them with correct information and you will be surprised by their amazing capacity. 

Friends, let's meet again next week with story about amazing grasping power of kids. Sometimes when we say he is just a kid and avoid anwer his questions probably we are underestimating them. Stay tuned!!

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