Namita Das's Blog, page 72

Two Sisters from Mahabharat by Susheela Hegde

This book is a gem for anyone who loves Indian mythology and culture. It tells the story of two sisters, Kadru and Vinata, who married Sage Kashayapa and became mothers of a thousand nagas, and Aruna and Garuda in the epic Mahabharat.

The book explores their lives, choices, sacrifices and relationships with their sons in a captivating and insightful way. The author has done a remarkable job of bringing these ancient characters to life with her simple and elegant language.

The illustrations are beautiful and complement the story well. The book also provides some background information on Mahabharat and its significance in Indian literature and history.

I enjoyed reading this book immensely and learned a lot from it. It made me appreciate the complexity and richness of Mahabharat and its female characters. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Indian mythology, culture, or feminism.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition.

The Secret to Healthy Parent-Child Relationships: Practice CLAPS

Nothing shapes your life more than the bond you share with your parents.

Parents can shape a child’s self-esteem, identity, values, and future relationships. However, not all parent-child relationships are healthy or positive. Some parents may be abusive, neglectful, controlling, or emotionally unavailable to their children. These behaviours can have lasting negative effects on a child’s well-being and development.

What makes a parent-child relationship healthy? It’s all about the CLAPS! The CLAPS are not only helpful for identifying healthy relationships but also for cultivating them. By practising CLAPS, parents and children can strengthen their bond and foster mutual understanding and appreciation.

In this blog post, we will explore the meaning of CLAPS in parent-child relationships.

CLAPS stand for Communicate, Listen, Apologise, Praise, Set Boundaries. Master these 5 essentials in the ways you act and talk – the core of a healthy relationship that shows respect, trust, and support between parents and children.

Let us see how they can benefit both parties.

*** Communicating clearly – Parents communicate clearly and honestly with their children.

They do not lie, manipulate, or hide information from them.They express their feelings and needs respectfully.They do not use guilt, threats, or insults to get what they want from their child.Communicating clearly with your child shows that you are transparent and reliable in the relationship.It also helps you avoid misunderstandings and confusion with your child and establish clear expectations and rules for both parties.By communicating clearly, you can also model effective communication skills for your child that they can use in other relationships.

*** Listening actively – Parents listen to their child’s feelings, opinions, and concerns.

They validate their child’s emotions and empathize with their struggles.They do not dismiss, criticize, or invalidate their child’s experiences or tell them how they should feel or think.Listening actively to your child shows that you value what they have to say and that you are there for them when they need you.It also helps you understand your child better and build trust and rapport with them.By listening actively, you can also help your child cope with difficult emotions, solve problems effectively, and develop critical thinking skills.

*** Apologizing sincerely – Parents apologize when they make mistakes or hurt their child’s feelings.

They do not blame or justify their actions.They take responsibility for their behaviour and try to make amends.Apologizing sincerely to your child shows that you are humble and accountable in the relationship.It also helps you repair the damage caused by your mistake and restore trust with your child.By apologizing sincerely, you can also teach your child how to admit fault, learn from errors, and forgive others.

*** Praising genuinely – Parents praise their children for their efforts and achievements.

They do not compare them to others or put them down.They celebrate their strengths and acknowledge their challenges.Praising genuinely to your child shows that you appreciate them for who they are not what they do.It also helps boost your child’s self-esteem, motivation, and resilience.By praising genuinely, you can also reinforce positive behaviours, and encourage a growth mindset.

*** Set and Respect boundaries – Parents respect and stand by their child’s set boundaries and autonomy.

They do not invade their privacy, control their choices, or impose their expectations on them.They allow their child to make mistakes and learn from them.They do not micromanage or interfere with their child’s decisions unless they are harmful or unsafe.Respecting your child’s boundaries shows that you trust them and acknowledge their independence.It also helps your child develop self-confidence, responsibility, and self-control.By respecting boundaries, you can also avoid conflicts and power struggles with your child and foster a healthy sense of self-worth in them.

So, how do you know if you have a healthy relationship with your child? Start giving CLAPS! Show you care, respect, and support your child by being curious, listening well, setting limits, talking, saying sorry, and giving compliments. CLAPS can make your relationship stronger and happier. And the best part is, you can get better at them with practice. The harder your CLAPS, the stronger the love and trust you build with your child. 

Remember: the secret to healthy parent-child relationships is not what you do, but how you do it.

The Most Fantastic Crayon by Liz Fletcher

I have read a lot of children’s books that have agenda to teach something valuable. But this one is my favourite.

The Orange crayon thinks it is the mightiest colour and that everything in the world should be orange. All the other colours gather and explain the importance of their presence. It is truly a great book to teach kids inclusion and diversity in a fun way.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition and Paperback.

Three Stories and Ten Poems by Ernest Hemingway

The Kindle edition is poorly edited. It took away all the essence of reading even though a short one, I had to spend some time to join the disorganized parts.

Also, I didn’t find the stories interesting. The last one ‘My Old Man’ still had something going on but the other two were just notes from a diary. The first one may have been bold writing during those times but now it doesn’t seem appealing.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition, Audiobook, Hardcover, Paperback and Audio CD.

Bedtime Stories for kids by Alex Fabler

It has everything for sure, dragons, unicorns, fairies and everything fantasy but it needs a lot of work and polishing to be presented as a book.

Some nice illustrations would be a good feature to be added to a children’s bedtime book. Also, a few stories end with just a parent narrating a story and asking the child to dream about the ending. This style suits more to a podcast. If available in audio form, maybe give it a try or just skip it.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition and Paperback.

The Railway Gang by Ruskin Bond

I am a bit scared of stray dogs and never imagined how life is for them.

I loved this book. It is about a cute dog Chotu who lives at a railway station. It shows the life of Chotu and his group of dog friends at the railway station, how they find food and how people treat them. It was interesting to read a story from a dog’s perspective, how they feel when people care for them, or just shoo them away.

Definitely, a good read for early learners to teach empathy towards stray animals.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition and Paperback.

The Best Idea of All by Varsha Seshan

How many of you have grown up listening to – ”When I was your age”? And I know it was irritating to the core.

But Antara, Tarini, and Saira have had enough and have decided to do something that the adults in the house had never even thought of doing in their growing days. They aren’t happy with all the save water gaga during Holi, so they have an excellent idea to save the Holi for everyone.

The illustrations are cute.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition and Paperback.

Magical Stories for Children by Ruskin Bond

What is the best part of Ruskin Bond’s stories? They are realistic and relatable. A point that he mentions in this book as well is that his stories are based on observations.

If you are far away from nature this book will help you connect with it. If you are nearby nature this book will help you rejoice in it. I loved all the short stories in this book, they aren’t the typical moral stories for children but are just entertaining. A feel-good read.

My favourite ones are the python story, monkey Tutu’s story and Pret’s story.

This is a book I can read again.

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition, Audiobook, and Paperback.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

This is that kind of book, where you say – one more chapter, again and again, and again. You will be pushed to pull an all-nighter as it will keep you on the edge.

The story starts with Millie who is out on parole looking for a job. Luckily she finds one at the Winchesters as a full-time maid. On the first day at the job, Millie realizes that it is hard to work for Nina Winchester as well as her daughter Cece. But she is determined to make her life right and not go back to prison, she puts up with everything that crazy Nina sends her way. It’s tough to impress Nina but Andrew, Nina’s husband gives Millie some hope. He is the only one in the house who is easy and understanding. Millie is already walking on eggshells when Enzo the non-English speaking gardener at the Winchester’s warns her of danger. What danger? No one knows.

The characters are so finely developed that you would start sympathizing with Millie and Andrew and start hating Nina as you go. But what comes next will blow your mind. When you just start to feel that you have guessed it, BAM! A new twist will drop in. Truly, unputdownable. The easy language and short chapters make it a smooth read.

Although I am not convinced with the ending, especially the police’s and Andrew’s mother’s reaction. It was just a convenient ending and not on par with all the buildup in the whole book. Yet, I will ignore it because the book kept me on edge throughout.

There is a part-2 and I am looking forward to reading it.

Some lines from the book –

There’s something about this room that’s making a little ball of dread form in the pit of my stomach.Do you know those movies about the scary cult of, like, creepy kids who can read minds and worship the devil and live in the cornfields or something? Well, if they were casting for one of those movies, this girl would get the part. They wouldn’t even have to audition her. They would take one look at her and be like, Yes, you are creepy girl number three.Is there something wrong with me that I am scared this nine-year-old girl is going to murder me?I’d say there’s at least a twenty-five percent chance she’s going to murder me in my sleep if I get this job. But I still want it.There’s something in his expression that sends a chill down my spine. And then he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Almost like he’s trying to warn me. But he doesn’t say a word.I wonder if she would feel the same way about me if she knew I spent the last ten years of my life in prison.As I shut the door, I notice marks in the wood. Long thin lines running down the length of the door at about the level of my shoulder. I run my fingers over the indentations. They almost seem like… Scratches. Like somebody was scraping at the door. Trying to get out.I was never locked in the room after all. Nina didn’t have some crazy plot to trap me in there. The door was just stuck. But I can’t seem to shake that uneasy feeling. That I should get out of here while I still can.Haloperidol is an antipsychotic medication, used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, and acute psychosis.“Sei pazzo!” he yells at me. He rakes a hand through his black hair. “Che cavolo!”

Available on Amazon Kindle Edition, Audiobook, and Paperback.

How important is knowledge of Child Psychology for a Teacher in classroom setting?

Every child is a complicated individual. As they grow, they interact with a variety of people and are exposed to countless social settings. The wider the exposure gets, the more complicated the process of learning.

The learning process of a child is diverse from that of an adult. Child Psychology – is a branch of psychology that deals with the mind and behaviour of children. It is the act of observing a child’s behaviour patterns, which helps understand their learning abilities, likes, dislikes, emotions, etc. Growing children have complex emotions and they need to be understood at each stage of their development.

The study of child psychology is essential as it can help the caregiver possess a good understanding of how the child copes and also strategise new ways to support them in their growth from infancy to maturity. It is beneficial for both parents and teachers to comprehend the behaviour and aid children in their care.

Why Child Psychology Knowledge is important for teachers?

After a parent, the maximum time a child spends with is a teacher. A school, or daycare, is kind of a second home for a growing child. The school, especially nursery and playgroup is the place where the child gets an education which is not limited only to academic subjects but also learns how to function as a person in our day-to-day life.

Every child coming into the school has got a unique background and upbringing in their initial years. The conduct of one child in the class will not be similar to all others. Some may be very shy while some may be aggressive, a few might not want to talk whereas a few will be outspoken. The learning patterns of each of these children will be different.

A teacher who deals with children is also occupied with their complex thoughts every day. If the teacher is trained not only to teach children the subjects but also to observe and understand them, it helps ease the curating of the teaching process for the teacher as well as the learning process of the child.

The knowledge of child psychology helps to examine essential principles of human behaviour that can shape learning. Hence helping teachers assess a child’s needs correctly to gauge where the child stands in the learning skills and then take the required measures to help the child. It will ensure that the children can learn better and grow well. 

Another subset of psychology that is intimately related to education is called educational psychology. This involves the knowledge of how people learn, including teaching systems, instructional procedures, and individual variances in learning. The objective of this study is to recognize how people absorb and hold information.

Since educational psychology fairly focuses on children’s learning and development, it enables the creation of structured psychological and educational assessment techniques that can help children, especially the ones who have difficulties in learning or adjusting their behaviour in new social settings.

Suppose a child has mostly stayed at home with the mother or a babysitter or an old grandparent may not prefer to go to school considering their limited acquaintances. At the same time, another child who has been well exposed to a setting where they have got ample opportunities to gel with other kids and adults; like on playdates or daycare would not have a major issue adjusting to the school setting.

The goals of educational psychology are to understand the child first, then predict their behaviour and finally control the behaviour depending on the stage of the educational level.

A teacher having these skills can create separate learning methods that are relaxed, pleasing and exciting for each child with varying personality traits. No two children will cope alike with a single type of teaching method, hence this knowledge helps the teacher to segregate their approach depending on the observation of the child’s behavioural pattern.

Equally, it also helps figure out tactics for conflict resolution between kids as well as teacher-student relationships. A lot of times the child is dealt with differently at home and school, considering the personality of parents and teachers are different. The learnings from the strategies used by the teacher to manage conflict can also help a parent deal with the child similarly at home. This avoids the confusion of adult behaviour prediction for a child since the child will get a similar type of reciprocation both at school and at home.

E.g. A parent would be fine with feeding the child while they are roaming around the house but a teacher would focus on helping the child to sit in one place and self-feed. This difference in approach sometimes confuses the child hampering their understanding of acceptable behaviour. If the teacher has applied some methods to help the child self-feed, it would be better to relay the techniques to the parent. So the parent can use the same method at home, ultimately helping the child become independent.

Below are the common learning disorders seen in young children:

Note: If you have observed any developmental delay in your child, kindly refer to your paediatric development specialist for assessment and diagnosis.

Dyslexia – is a language-based learning disability that affects the processing of spoken and/or written language. Children with dyslexia usually have difficulty reading accurately and fluently.

Symptoms:

Late talking.Learning new words slowly.Problems forming words correctly, such as reversing sounds in words or confusing words that sound alike.Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers and colours.Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or playing rhyming games.

How a teacher can help –

Create a supportive and collaborative classroom culture.Use multisensory input and activities.Offer learners choices.Present new language in small and manageable chunks.Spend some time explicitly teaching exam strategies.Dyscalculia – Children with dyscalculia struggle with learning mathematical concepts such as numerical organisation and understanding quantity, place value and time. They may also face difficulty in following and/or using steps involved in math problems.

Symptoms –

Difficulty counting backwards.Difficulty remembering ‘basic’ facts.Slow to perform calculations.Weak mental arithmetic skills.A poor sense of numbers & estimation.Difficulty in understanding place value.The addition is often the default operation.High levels of mathematics anxiety.

How a teacher can help –

Create separate worksheets for word problems and number problems.Highlight or circle keywords and numbers on word problems.Allow extra time on tests.Give step-by-step instructions and have the student repeat them.Provide charts of math facts or multiplication tables.Dysgraphia – refers to difficulty with the physical act of writing. This includes having a cramped grip when holding a pencil, illegible handwriting, inconsistent spacing, and poor spelling (unfinished words or missing words or letters).

Symptoms –

Difficulty forming letters or numbers by hand.Slow handwriting development compared to peers.Illegible or inconsistent writing.Mixed upper and lower case letters.Difficulty writing and thinking at the same time.Difficulty with spelling.

How a teacher can help –

Allow extra time on written assignments.Allow speech-to-text tools, or teacher or peer scribes for written assignments.Allow students to write numeric formulas as opposed to math word problems.Provide a written copy of whiteboard notes.Dyspraxia – is associated with delayed neurological development that makes it difficult to plan and coordinate physical movement. A child with dyspraxia struggles with fine motor skills (hand-eye coordination, holding a pencil), or gross motor skills (running, jumping). 

Symptoms –

Problems with movement and coordination are the main symptoms.Children may have difficulty with: playground activities such as hopping, jumping, running, and catching or kicking a ball.They often avoid joining in because of their lack of coordination and may find physical education difficult.

How a teacher can help –

Pay attention to writing utensils and paper.Consider alternatives to activities requiring handwriting.Teach dyspraxic children touch-typing.Provide breaks in the schedule.Emphasize directions in step-by-step form.Autism – Difficulty mastering certain academic skills can stem from pervasive developmental disorders such as autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Children with autism spectrum disorders may have trouble communicating, reading body language, learning basic skills, making friends, and making eye contact.

Symptoms –

Not responding to their name.Avoiding eye contact.Not smiling when you smile at them.Get very upset if they do not like a certain taste, smell or sound.Repetitive movements, such as flapping their hands, flicking their fingers or rocking their body.Not talking as much as other children.

How a teacher can help –

Establish a routine with them.Consider the learning environment.Manage changes and transitions.Integrate their interests.Work with their parents/carers.Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – Children with ADHD have trouble paying attention to and focusing on a single task. They are easily distracted and often struggle with learning in traditional classroom settings.

Symptoms –

Being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings.Constantly fidgeting.Being unable to concentrate on tasks.Excessive physical movement.Excessive talking.Being unable to wait their turn.Acting without thinking.Interrupting conversations.

How a teacher can help –

Instruction and assignments tailored to the child.Positive reinforcement and feedback.Using technology to assist with tasks.Allowing breaks or time to move around.Changes to the environment to limit distraction.