Learning about God and Religion. What is the best way for parents to educate their children?

 Religion should ideally be learnt by ‘watching and participating’ with family members. That is why most religions have a baptism or name ceremony etc. early in life. This is the child’s first initiation into the customs of the religion and usually these are held in places of worship or conducted by priests. Religion like other important learning should be ‘known to unknown’ so the idea of religion should be given to children from the safe haven of ‘laps, hugs, bed time stories, celebrations’ etc.

Religion is understood in three ways by young minds, so be careful of what they are associating religion with, best to give kids a balanced view and perspective -

1.    Religion as a custom and tradition- so kids learn to touch feet of elders or do namaz or go to a temple and do aarti or light a candle etc.

2.    Religion as a moral police- kids learn about ‘God’ as the biggest ‘policeman’ so do not lie or god will be angry, or you will go to hell or heaven.

3.    Religion as a celebration- here kids look at the celebration aspect of the religion, so the festivals means social gatherings, material gains, food, money, and sometimes helping others as part of the celebration.

Religion and how a child is taught about religion can have a profound impact on the child’s view of the world and ability to respect others view points.

·      Positive impact of religion if taught correctly- then children grow up with a conscience, first governed by ‘pleasing god’ and then internalizing the process and making it a part of life and behavior.

·      If not taught correctly- then children grow up with biases against other religions, labeling others based on their religion. This can end up negatively impacting their life decisions both socially and emotionally. It can make them tyrants or bullies against people of another religion because they were brought up to think of them as bad. It can make them less empathetic and sympathetic towards people from these religions and can mar their ability to make friends, take wise decisions in life and even in their careers and jobs. It adds to the making the world a less tolerant place and will then lead to more religious terrorism.

Here are 8 simple things that parents should do to raise children that will grow up with a healthy attitude towards religion.

1.    Do not enroll kids in a school or educational institution that believes or practices only one religion. Even if it is your own.  This makes kids less tolerant and knowledgeable about other religions. Put them in religion classes if you want after school or Sunday school or Koran school.

2.    Expose kids to all faiths by telling them stories from all religions. The best way to do that is to celebrate all festivals that schools give as a holiday. Talk about the holiday, what festival is it, which religion celebrates it, how they celebrate it, why they celebrate, how it has evolved over the years and maybe a story related to the same. This will give children a healthy attitude towards all religions, cultures and celebrations and some basic knowledge about different gods and customs.

3.    Be careful about the myths and superstitions, as they should not be passed down, nor are they part of any religious texts.

4.    If you do not want the child to visit other religious places other than your own then make it clear to your child with the reason at the age that the child can understand. Till then make the rule clear to the adults taking care of the child.

5.    Do not use religion to create boundaries or teach morals or scare children into behaving. God should not be used for such things. When you use it like that with children then it can manifest itself as religious terrorism in adulthood. After all you used religion to terrorize into behaving then the learning will be used by children when they grow up to be young adults.

6.    As children become old enough to use social networking sites teach them not to ridicule, laugh, criticize any religion or comment or participate in any unhealthy posts, likes or forwards to do with religion. Religion is a private matter of the individual and the family and we should respect points of view.

7.    If both parents practice different religions then it is best that the child is exposed equally to both religions. Best if each parent or grandparent takes up the responsibility for their religion so as to give the child the right perspective and balance of both.

8.    Do not generalize based on religion, especially during family debates and discussions. We have a habit to even categorize and label animals, we say sly as a wolf etc. lets leave it to that. Let us not label a Hindu as this or a Muslim as that. Children must know that every Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Sikh etc. is different and just because one has made a mistake it does not mean the entire sect should be labeled.

 Parts of the above article have also been featured in a Mumbai Mirror article ‘Talking God’ by Nasrin Modak-Siddiqi, check it out on http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31821&articlexml=Talking-God-03062015026016

We need to make children netizens!

The internet and social media sites are here to stay and we have two choices, crib, complain and watch as our children become victims of it or take things in our hands and prepare our children to become safe and secure users. When people started using cars we prepared our children about road and traffic safety, so similarly for any new aspect in our lives we need to prepare our children and make them aware of the good and the bad.

It starts with how our children see us using the Internet and social media sites. When parents use social media they should talk about it in conversations that include comments like- “I got an invite or poke from so and so and I did not accept as I was not sure about the identity and want to be safe.” “ I don’t think I will post this photo as I feel it is a little personal and I don’t want to share it with the whole world” when children hear and see us being safe rather than casual then it translates into their own behavior and choices.

Teenagers especially are vulnerable to social media sites. It is the age and stage of development of self identify, how they see themselves.  And teenagers see and judge themselves from what their peer circle thinks about them. So pressure is on how many friends, likes, pokes, posts etc. they have had, this makes them reckless about whom they make friends with and what they post. The teenager brain is at the final stage of developing impulse control and so they still, ‘act first and think later’. Make simple rules for them for their social media use-

1.     You will not share your date of birth, address and phone number or email id.

2.     You will not post personal photos, the definition being no cleavage, bare chest (for boys of course!) or photos that look sultry rather than fun.

3.     You will not post your daily schedule.

4.     Think before you bare your emotions on social media, people are just reading, and forwarding, so if you have issues discuss with your family.

5.     Just like there are predators on the street and when you were young we taught you not to talk to strangers or take things from them or go anywhere with them, similarly for social media we are telling you not to make friends with someone you do not know, do not give them any photos or information if they ask and do not visit any sites if they ask you. There are predators on the net too.

Another thing is to discuss Internet related crimes during healthy discussions in the family rather than adopt an attitude of ‘I told you so’. So when such crimes of identity theft or cyber kidnapping are reported in the media, turn it into a healthy thinking brain discussion with points like- ‘what do you think went wrong and made things easy for this predator? ‘how would you have avoided falling into a trap like this’? This will help your teenager take charge of decision-making and you would have equipped him/her to take thought-through decisions.

Do not spy on your teenager. Ever. A mother recently came to me for parenting guidance and she broke down and shared that to know what her son is doing on Facebook she created a false profile of hers as a teenage girl and then friended her own son. Now she is worried, as she fears the son will find out it is her and then she does not know how to handle the emotional breakdown that will follow. My advice to her, admit it to your son and say I know what I did was wrong. Because if the son finds out it will lead not only to an emotional breakdown but the most important attachment-relationship based on trust will be destroyed for her son. Our relationships define us, our personality and when the most trusted relationship in the world betrays you, you feel a sense of loss so great that you are left with only two ways to react, retaliate, or go into depression.

It is important that our children grow up as netizens and understand both Facebook and face-to-face, they tweet and also have conversations, they whatsapp and discuss and not just forward videos, they post photos on instagram that are not only fun but relevant too. Yes, it is important to help our teenagers understand that it is called social media for a reason, as it is about society and how individuals together can build a healthy society on social media. It is important that we are able to give them that important message that social media may be free but it has to be enjoyed like everything in life within defined boundaries if we want it to make us happy. 

Board Exams And The Teenager Brain

Supporting your young teenager during the ‘tussle’ of board exams and cricket world cup fever…

By the time the child appears for the 10^th or the 12^th board the child is now a young adult and literacy is not the goal but complete education. So by this age your youngster would have inculcated certain required life skills like focus, concentration, and ability to stay away from distractions. The human brain goes through two phases of intense development, one stage is the period between birth and 6 years and the next stage is when the thinking brain or the executive brain develops and this is rapid between the age of 11 to 21 and beyond.

The thinking brain is that part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex and it is the only difference between the apes and us! So the thinking brain can perform and should perform executive brain functions, it is called executive because these are functions that youth will require in their career and life. So impulse control, ability to defer gratification, self-regulation all come under this category of executive brain functions. And these will all be tested because the board exams are clashing with the World Cup matches.

So now is the right time to test if your child is ready for executive brain functions and has his/her upbringing and education helped nurture his/her  brain or just their memory! With the cricket fever at its highest pitch will it impact your child’s learning, performance or will you and your child be able to swing this problem like  a googli and strike a six for performance?

·         So the child knows that there will be important matches during a particular exam- prepare ahead- plan ahead, study ahead.

·         The temptation to watch the match will be there- have self control- self-regulation and maybe decide that the child can take 15 breaks of his/her choice.

·         The child has his/her mobile phone, internet and will be tempted to cheat and watch it on that while showing you that he/she is studying well, tell the child ahead of time that this is also the test of his/her ‘smart brain’ – impulse control the ability to defer gratification which means to know that something is available within easy reach but to not take it because you care for your own success.

·         Remember there will be many world cups but this is your only chance to win the board exams. If young children’s executive brains understand this then the motivation to score well in spite of the matches will be an intrinsic goal and not have to be monitored by parents and schools.

So is your child equipped with executive brain functions? Time to examine your youngster’s  ‘brain feed’ to check if it is brain antagonistic or brain relevant.

Parents want smart children and teachers want smart learners. Then if the aim is same lets focus on that body organ that can achieve this goal for us- the brain. All learning and memory is in the correct functioning of the brain. Did you know that the brain can be taught to learn? And did you know that during exam time there are certain practices that can actually destroy the learning and memory capacity of the brain? These are called brain antagonistic practices.

So lets understand how to ‘brain feed’ and how the brain can be taught to learn. It is called RAD learning.

R= Reticular activating system, A= amygdala and D= Dopamine

Reticular activating system simply means stimulus for the eyes, the less stimulus for the eyes the more they will droop, blink, and faze out, unable to concentrate, unable to focus. So, it is important during learning and exam time to use flash cards to revise, these flashcards can have relevant paragraphs, diagrams and acronyms. As each flash card changes the retina gets its stimulation and the reticular activating system sends positive stimulus to the brain. These days there are many apps available that also help them do this in a jiffy. studyBlue is a fantastic app that allows kids to prepare memory cards from their notes to test themselves, it also helps them see 30 of the top cards created by others and helps them compete with peers and check scores. cheggFlashcards, another app also has similar features

Amygdala is a small almond shaped part in our brain. It is on the left and right brain and it is the emotional checkpoint of the brain. All information, stimulus, learning that we receive through any of our senses has to pass through the amygdala. So it is like a security check of our brain. The minute it perceives any danger, threat or stress then the amygdala shuts the brain down immediately and then the brain triggers the primitive brain that can have only 3 reactions- Fight, Flight or Freeze. Flight means you want to flee from the situation at any cost, you don’t want to face it. Children will fake illness, cry, and fall sick to avoid exams if stressed out. Fight means resorting to aggression, violence against others or oneself to avoid facing the situation. Taking drugs, cheating, not wanting to appear for exams, running away from home, reaching school late are all signs of fight behavior and the last is freeze- also called brain fog- wherein everything that the brain knew is suddenly not recognized or remembered. The child just freezes unable to speak, think, understand, or react.

To avoid brain shut down, the amygdala needs to be deactivated during exam days, and this can be done in a variety of ways-

a.     Chamomile tea is good and calming, mothers should drink it! Because a calm mother will automatically calm the child.

b.    Avoid ‘hyperness’ creating words or facial expressions or tone of voice when referring to study time or exams. The amygdala will catch on and send the brain for a shutdown.

c.     Help children do deep breathing, yoga during exam days. Avoid foods with high salt and sugar content.

d.    Take brain breaks during studies. Important that the brain takes a break every hour for at least 15 minutes of maybe TV time, or just simple relaxing.

Dopamine- it is a chemical that the brain thrives on. Most drugs taken by drug addicts have a high content of dopamine. No we are not asking you to give drugs to your child. Dopamine is naturally released in our brains when we are happy and positive. So if you do what is given above then it does not trigger amygdala but instead triggers dopamine in the brain which will help your child’s brain become alert and focused which means better learning, retention and memory. All leading  to exam success.

So RAD learning is the secret ‘brain feed’ for every child during exam time. It does not cost much but its impact is on the emotional and cognitive health of your child.

RAD learning is a brain compatible practice every family should adopt during exams. After brain antagonistic practices will destroy the very organ that is required during exams. It would be like ‘running out’ your own team player!

If parents want their teenager to become a smart adult then it is time for parents to appeal to the teenage brain and for more such ideas check the work of Elkhonon Goldberg,(wikipedia) on www.sharpbrains.com

Keeping Children Safe During Holi

Here are some tips from Shalini Ahuja of www.safebaby.in  to keep our children safe this festival season:

Adult supervision at all times is important. Do not leave children alone.
Educate children, friends and family on using safe, non-toxic colours.
Since the floor will be wet, instruct children to be careful while walking or running.
Water balloons should be avoided.
Water balloons and pichkaari should be used away from the face, especially the eyes and ears.
If you have to travel on Holi, make sure that the windows of the car are closed so that balloons/ colours are blocked from coming in.
Make sure the driver is not under the influence of ‘bhaang’ or alcohol. Surveys have shown that road accidents increase by 30-40 percent during Holi, so please drive carefully.
Safe Baby recommends using gel colours instead of powder colours to protect the skin since they are easy to remove. Also, gel colours do not get blown into the eyes of young children.
Do not let children put any colours in the mouth.
If colour goes in your or your child’s eye, wash with plenty of water and do not rub the eye. 
If a large drum is used to store water for Holi, make sure children do not lean into the bucket. Being head heavy young children can fall into it.
Make children wear full sleeves clothes and long pants to protect the sensitive skin of the child.
Apply oil or cream all over the body to prevent the colours from sticking on the skin. Oil the child’s hair before she goes down to play Holi.
Safe Baby recommends that parents have a list of emergency contact numbers ready. This list should include phone numbers of your pediatrician, closest hospital and ambulance. This list should be saved on your mobile phones or kept in a place where it can be found easily.
Have a safe Holi.

Female Heroines For Our Girls!

Dear Friends,

This Week I have a guest blogger Vandana Mohal Dewan. As a parent and as a professional she is passionate about removing Gender Bias in our parenting and teaching.

Female Heroines For Our Girls!

By Vandana Mohal Dewan

Amongst the many ways I can introduce myself, one of the happiest and also one of the proudest way I do so is when I say I am a mother of two absolutely gorgeous kids. Of course this is a mother’s pride speaking!

My son Arjun is 11 and daughter Maahi is a 4 year old. Apart from the obvious difference of gender, the two are as different, to use a cliché, as chalk and cheese. While sonny boy is gentle, sweet, adjusting, easy going, sporty, deep thinking, empathetic, emotional, just and adjusting; Maahi on the other hand is head strong, competitive, loving, strong, hardy, feisty and fearless. I, obviously, love both of them, although honestly Maahi due to her head strong nature, does drive me up the wall leading me to do Google searches about at what age I can put her in Military school, so that they can make her more malleable, or make a competent soldier out of her since all her traits are complementary to what a good military officer is expected to have!

Having said that I feel extremely happy that my daughter is the way she is. I want her to be a tough kid, because unfortunately she has inherited a world where females have to be quite tough to survive and hold their own. They have no other option but to excel and beat the boys at everything, to be able to get an equal place in this world.

But, I wonder sometimes how will my daughter and other girls really achieve this. I say this because when I look around, I see a complete dearth of female role models. What I see on the idiot-box, I think a very apt definition of the TV, are soaps that have pretty, decked up women, plotting revenge on someone, while shedding onion-cutting-induced tears amongst the assortment of the colourful pots and pans in the well-lit kitchen. They do all this while being subservient to their male partners, observing fasts and pandering to all their whims. Equality of gender just does not figure in the soap-world. This of course is the Hindi telly; the Western soaps are too risky; the content is too sexualised for young kids! Movies too portray women as mere showpieces, with a few exceptions like a Mary Kom or a Queen.

Now if I look at animation films or even cartoons, again equality isn’t what I see. I see a pink-clad Minnie Mouse preening and blinking her heavily mascaraed eyes at Micky. The clubhouse is called Mickey Mouse clubhouse. So a boy is a hero. I look at Chota Bheem, where Chutki, once again clad in the ubiquitous pink and her beauty enhanced by some dark long eye lashes and pink lips, plays second fiddle to the male lead. Examine the hugely popular Harry Potter or Percy Jackson; the title itself conveys who is the lead and what is his gender. If we see Harry Potter, he is the hero, while Hermione Granger, despite being the sharpest “witch” still plays second fiddle to Potter and is the girlfriend of Ronald Weasley, a good-at-heart, yet a bumbling average bloke. Why on earth will someone like a Hermione fall for Ron, is beyond my comprehension?

If we look at fairy tales, most have a very strong theme of the damsel in distress waiting for her knight in shining armour to come rescue her so that she can finally live a happy life – Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow-white etc. Where female are the protagonists they aren’t positive, Goldilocks is a thief!

Look at how education is imparted to kids. When we teach children grammar somehow or the other, gender roles are clearly etched out and they do take root in the child’s mind. “My mother is cooking, My father is going to the office.” The father is always the tough guy, the most important person in the family while the mother is, well secondary.

Call it political correctness or adjusted gender–role representation, the two forces in our children’s lives -- their Mum and their Dad -- need to be seen playing more complementary roles. No one is better than the other, but the two combine to make a safe, secure and loving environment. Of course, here the dads can also pitch in playing the role of an equal partner, but well that's a topic for another article!

And this adjustment is required globally, not just India. Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg in her book ‘Lean In’ captures some very touching aspects of this girl vs. boys or women vs. men roles as society sees them and as they exhibit socially. She makes an observation that when a little boy is aggressive, we say he knows his mind, but if a girl does so she is called pushy. And when they grow up, the same two people will be judged differently, the man will be called successful and knowing his mind, the woman “a bit political”, “too aggressive” or worse “not a team player”. The book is peppered with many such examples and the interesting thing the book throws up is that we women only a lot of times hold ourselves back and do not make enough efforts to realise our true potential and that's why we need to ‘Lean In’. This link captures more of these points http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/why-i-want-women-to-lean-in/

Females/young girls need to feel empowered. They are in desperate need to have their own “heroines”. While its alright that they see themselves as pretty princesses, just like my baby girl does, they should, however, not have a mental picture of themselves as that imprisoned princess, who needs to be rescued by a knight. They should mentally feel liberated and not bound. And if they do feel imprisoned, when they imagine a knight doing the rescuing act, they should be able to have a choice of the knight’s gender in their mindscape!

Children, particularly young girls, need to have more of Mary Koms as the HERO! I feel authors, particularly those who write for young children, and educators in general should attempt to show a balanced picture to all kids. We can possibly start by digging out stories of our own heroines, Rani Laxmibai, Razia Sultan, Laxmi Sahgal, Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams or even corporate honchos, singers, sportswomen, military officers someone like Wing Commander Pooja Thakur!

All humans begin making visual connects very early in life and if we are able to cast such strong female characters in popular literature, cinema and other art forms both boys and girls will picture the quality called heroism from a gender-neutral prism! And that possibly will a step in the direction of a more equal world for both our girls and boys! 

Hickory Dickory Dock. The clock struck one…

As we run around in frenzy completing our day to day tasks, we almost end up running against time and many mothers wish that children would do more things on time, waste less time etc. for children to understand about time, being on time and wasting time etc it is important that they understand the concept of – time.

What is time? How do we see it? Where do we see it? How do we know that time is up? For us it is easy to understand these questions but these are concepts about time that we take for granted, and can be confusing for a child .

The concept of time first begins in simple everyday rituals, because till children cannot count, it goes without saying that they will be unable to understand about the small hand, big hand, 2 o’clock etc. The understanding of time starts with simple everyday rituals and routines. ‘We will brush our teeth, then we will have milk and then we will sit for a story’. Children as young as 18 months can understand when you tell them a routine and infact kids love routine as it adds that much needed structure to their day and gives them things to look forward to. This is also good for their growing brains as brains thrive on routine, knowing what is next.

Singing songs to children about time, clocks and other time related concepts, also helps, so when its time to put toys away it helps to sing the song given below. similar songs can be sung for eating, brushing teeth and other daily chores.

‘Its time to put your toys away, toys away, toys away

Its time to put your toys away. its time to end our game’.

Songs and rhymes like hickory, dickory dock, help children understand about the existence of clocks and make them observe them in their environment.

The next step is to make a picture clock for your child which is in the shape of a clock but instead of the numbers has pictures of his/her daily activities in the same sequence, where number 12 usually is on the clock, paste the child’s photo and on the other numbers place pictures of the routine of the day. As the time to brush the teeth approaches put the big hand on the child’s photo and the small hand of the clock on the picture of child brushing teeth. And say, ‘lets look what time is it. Oh, its time to brush your teeth.’ 

The concept of time is not only about teaching how to ‘see’ time, but is also about teaching the importance of being of time, using time well and understanding that there is a special time for everything.

1.   Concept of being on time- extremely essential. At this age children learn by imitation so your child will learn looking at you and your habits, so be punctual!

2.   Using time well- here using visible items like a sand timer helps so that children can see time passing and know that little time is left to complete the activity etc

3.   Special time for everything- just like schools have a timetable it is important that mothers make a timetable for home and help the child display it in the room, this helps children understand routine, structure and time management!

Try out these time tested activities with your child and I guarantee you will have the time of your life!

The A to Z of Parenting in 2015

http://m.idiva.com/opinion-iparenting/the-a-to-z-of-parenting-in-2015/34193