DR NINA PIYUSH

INCLUSION OR HOME SCHOOLING? This question to me is like; 'What do you need to survive - water or air?'  The answer would be a reaction; 'Don't be stupid we need both.'  We die immediately without air & it takes a bit longer to die without water.  Similarly we cannot think about the progress of our children without home schooling. But without inclusion the progress is going to stop or slow down to a great extent with the increasing age of the child. We, the parents have very tight mental compartments about formal schooling & home schooling. We see them as different entity & treat them like different subjects in the school curriculum. We have fixed parameters to gauge our children. We have lost the ability to see the child as a whole. As a result we keep on evaluating the child through our set standards. We have distorted the true meaning of schooling. These days schooling is equal to report cards. If home schooling is all that is n...

O....!!! SHE MADE IT SO SIMPLE!!!! If you are in touch with me through my blogs and/or the 'whatsapp groups' you must have read my comments regarding the word 'special'. Most of us- especially the moms are not able to treat the special need child without the tag 'special'. The word 'special' is the root cause for anxiety, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, decreased efficiency, feeling depressed or being punished by THE ALMIGHTY ....!!! We just need to remove this word from our mindset & good things keep on happening automatically. We have experienced 'n' number of times. The recent one was amazing when my son got married. I would like to mention few experiences of past & the last one that how Palak made it amazingly simple when my daughter-in-law entered our house finally, sharing our surname...!!!! We knew that Palak will take time to walk & to talk. We kept on talking/narrating each & every happenings regardless of...

HOW TO HANDLE CARE-TAKER HOW TO RESTRICT SCREEN TIME 5) Care-taker: Our life style has changed to a great extent. Most of us are having nuclear families. Mostly both the parents are working parents thereby struggling for time management. The distances & traffic adds to the struggle. Naturally we need a helper. Let's be very clear with the word 'care-taker'. For whom you have hired a helper is very very important. I saw children walking behind with the maid at malls/ restaurants/parks/cinema halls etc. I have seen maids running behind the child to brush the teeth/for bathing/to dress him/ to feed him while the mom is busy doing something in the kitchen/getting ready for office/waiting for a friend or guests/talking on phone etc.  I have seen maids accompanying the families even during their vacations....where is the family time??? Back to the point, 'care-taker' for whom? The answer is for MOMS. Moms need help to handle home & children effectively. ...

SELF-HELP SKILLS 4) Social skills: I saw children coping up well with formal education. Many were well accepted at regular schools. I found very few doing well socially. The reasons behind are; We have compartments in our mind set & doing well at school is the most important milestone compulsory for the child to achieve. We want to measure the child and for us the most accurate parameter is SCHOLASTIC PERFORMANCE.  We are very much worried and concerned about the academics and forget to inculcate the social skills. We push the child to do better in school and that makes the learning sessions difficult, boring and burdensome. We feel stressed out...we transfer the same to the child... this adds to the difficulties.....learning becomes a hell...the vicious cycle sets in..!!! To express the frustrations child acts rebelliously. Denial, temper tantrums, too much of self-talk, making monotonous sounds, inappropriate social behavior are the outcome.  We, as a par...

CONFIDENCE & SELF-IMAGE 2) Self-Image: As discussed in earlier blogs, our children are excellent copy cats. If used appropriately, ability to imitate can give magical results but the same can result in PARROTING . Our children keep on repeating what we/other people say or behave. How to deal with this...???? Let us see the root cause. Our children are visual learners and are good at receptive vocabulary. So they grasp things readily &  reproduce the same without understanding. Our children  have vague self-image & self-esteem. These are the reasons they keep on repeating the behaviors even though undesirable/disliked by others. They are happy in their own world, unaffected by how people will think about them. As most of the time our mind set is SOO, we get disturbed by the child's behavior. We feel ashamed & can't deal with the situation effectively. If we look at the situation from their perspective we will be able to deal with it in a much better...

CREATE STRONG SOCIAL CIRCLES  After completing my blogs on Nutrition , I was to write about 'How to keep your child connected with the environment & facilitate the learning naturally'. Then I got an opportunity to meet all the beautiful people at Goa and I thought of a festive season BONANZA....!!!! We talked about some behavioral issues & I found it a major concern amongst mothers. Few more contacted personally & were worried about the same.  I have already posted about the  BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION TECHNIQUES but while talking with moms in details, I found that just knowing all these methods won't serve the purpose. We need to understand the reasons behind an undesirable behavior of a child.  This blog would be like a home-work for all the parents. I will mention the most likely areas & reasons that can disturb the child and results in a socially unacceptable/undesirable behavior. You need to identify the re...