Nisarga had a fascination with water, and we have had several incidences where he encountered water in a new way and was fascinated. From air blon on a wet face to splashing in the tub to trying to catch the stream of water from taps he sees.
The latest is spilling water while drinking. He accidentally knocked my hand when I held a glass of water for him to drink. The water splashed on him. He was thrilled. Now he wants to drink water all the time….. and bat away at the glass.
Today, my birthday. No one at home but Nisarga and I. Big plan for the day? Meeting with Dr. Anaita Hegde, who is supposed to be the top or second from top pediatric neurologist in Mumbai. A few odd thoughts sent through my mind:
The meeting went very well. We went with all our increasing paperwork and ended up waiting a lot. Nisarga dozed off and I asked them to let a few of the other waiting patients through before us so that he could be well rested when we met the doctor. Since everything was running HOURS behind schedule, they were grateful for my offer. Of course, I was being utterly selfish. If I had to shell out a lot of money consulting a fancy doctor, I wanted Nisarga bright and cheerful, not wilted from waiting, so that she could really interact with him and examine and whatever it is these people are supposed to do.
While we waited, Dr. Anaita’s assistant (a neurologist herself) came and took a detailed case history. As meetings go, this was probably the most surprising and best of the lot. Dr. Hegde interacted with Nisarga and he was at his charming best. She made quite a few observations related with him scissoing his legs, not being comfortable on his back and other things, and had some conversation and a eureka kind of moment with her assistant.
She was concerned about his regression. He gets these developments, and he loses them. For example, after the bouts of bua bua ba ba boooa etc, he isn’t babbling much at all, while I was expecting him to speak more post that. There are other things too.
She has prescribed something called Syndopa, which is supposed to fix some chemical deficiency in his brain. No side effects, but a miracle cure if it works out. She explained that it was a long shot, but some of the symptoms made her think it was worth trying. Just as we were leaving, she took note of his history of slight jaundice immediately after birth, and considered the possibility that there may be some brain damage – even though the MRI was clear.
I spoke with her about the Feldenkrais work I do with Nisarga. She was very supportive and went to the extent of saying that if it is helping him, to not even ask any more doctors, because he is really the final judge. To not even risk someone asking me to stop! It was a big surprise after the unrelenting skepticism of most doctors so far.
Brought him home, fed him, gave him his first dose of Syndopa. Perhaps its my imagination, but after his second dose, I think he is more active. Fingers crossed.
Just got this update in the email.
As most of you know, I follow Feldenkrais information as a part of my quest to help Nisarga learn and grow naturally. I have been following “The next twenty five years” which is an ambitious film project for documenting the evolution of the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. This is a clip they have released of baby Liv, which conveys so clearly the process of physical learning right from the relaxed and random to the easy accomplishment of the intentional.
Truly, if you have a child, are involved with children, or are lucky enough that the child in you is alive and kicking well, this one is an insight. You can see clearly how the movements build on the learnings from the effort so far and refine them. It also is an insight into how effortless a Feldenkrais movement can be if you stop “doing movements” and get into discovery.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/13598879]
[vimeo vimeo.com/13598879]
[vimeo 13598879]
Okay, so its Nisarga’s eleventh birthday, and we are all grown up and ready to work. Naturally, the very first work we will try on is work we have seen happening around us. So friends, families and well wishers, here I present, Nisarga the mountaineer:
The first one was taken when Raka was packing for a batch for waterfall rappelling, and Nisarga insisted on playing with him and all the equipment. Raka picked him out of the mess and put him to one side and plonked his helmet on his head and the little guy was deeeelighted. i whipped out the camera, and it became the next toy he wanted 😀
The other one is about Nisarga’s increasing interest in the computer. He loves to watch the screen, and tap away at the keys. Mostly I open a word document and set the font to some huge size and bright color and let him bang away, or, like this one, I open a folder of photos so that he can bang at keys and make the photos change. Here are some more:
Love the little guy.
I haven’t posted in a long time, but I thought today was special. Nisarga is 10 months old today. I did absolutely nothing special, because Nisarga did something I’d like to remember forever as a memory of his 10 month birthday.
I woke up this morning to tiny feet kicking my chest. The guy had turned 180 degrees and was trying to nurse through my shirt 😀 We did the bed milk thing and when he nodded off, I promptly slept. Oh, but he hadn’t nodded off. He started batting at me and babbling. Desperately hoping for sleep, I clutched him to my chest and rolled over to the other side, depositing him between the husband and me.
Apparently Prince rug-rat knows which of his subjects are functional at what times of the day, because he promptly ignored me and proceeded to do the batting at face and kicking chest routine with Raka, who mumbled baby stuff at him. This delighted the little guy so much that he sarted to laugh out loud, babble and roll all and crawl over the bed. Vibrant. Loving life. Enjoying the attention, and the day was just beginning!
Charmed out of our sleep, the husband and I meekly moved to the edges of his playground watching our miracle not just welcome, but kick the day into action. His delightful mood lasted through the day, with loads of talk and laughter. It was only as he settled for his morning nap that we remembered that he was 10 months old today. Of course! The little guy knew 😀
So, in the absence of anything special for you guys to enjoy, I’m doing something I’ve been promising for a long time. I’m uploading some of my favourite photos from the time I’ve been MIA here. Enjoy!
Okay, this is what I have been up to these days. Nisarga’s development still seems behind schedule and the attitude of his pediatrician is wait and see. That seems fine, since he isn’t ill or unhappy, but I was getting concerned about his lack of movements.
A lot of research online led me to discover the Feldenkrais method and then the Anat baniel method for children.What I liked was the attitude of sensitivity to the child’s comfort and the focus on creating learning experiences rather than training or therapy. I was eager to have this for Nisarga, but there aren’t any practitioners in India. Not to be stopped, I have turned my considerable aptitude for learning toward this and learned through reading and teaching materials purchased online.
I tried to understand the principles and used the abundant videos on YouTube to see example after example of them in action and started applying these learnings to assist Nisarga. It started showing results almost immediately. I felt encouraged and worked further, helping Nisarga to roll over and gain neck control.
Then, I became complacent, till I realized that he is now 8 months old and still not sitting or crawling, and have been working with him gain for the last few days. Again, I am encouraged to see that within four days he learned to hold his back straighter, sits with very little support, uses two hands to play with toys and as of today, has started crawling – all of which he was not able till four days ago.
What began as a disappointment over lack of access to practitioners is leading to me becoming a practitioner!I am not a certified practitioner, but I would be happy to work with other children who need help with motor development. I am not promising any competence and of course, if, unlike me, you can fly abroad and get those experts to work with your child, its best. But if that is not possible for you, I dare say that this may be worth a shot. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t harm for sure. But if it does… the changes in Nisarga in the last four days are miraculous.
Of course, in an ideal world, I will be able to afford to fly abroad to learn when Nisarga is older. Or, there may be other practitioners who begin working in Mumbai…
When I began unschooling Nisarga, he was two months old. I was often told by veteran unschoolers that it was too early to think about schooling or unschooling and to simply enjoy my child. Yet, experiential learning is a way of life with me, and I wasn’t adopting unschooling so much as I had found a name for what I was doing, and a community to help me find ways to do it better. I couldn’t have stopped.
At the same time, I had bought in completely to the opinion expressed that at this stage what I was doing would be attachment parenting, plain and simple. And it was. Yet, I experienced the living proof of what I say countless times – “We begin learning from experience from birth and stop at death. Its like breathing. We may consciously influence its quality, but we can’t stop.” And so it was.
Nisarga was learning a whole load of things, and my awareness of unschooling helped me apply the principles to support his learning at his level.
He is rather young, so it isn’t really about projects and things, but simply discovering the world, creating meaning out of experiences, learning to use our bodies (and I mean the ‘our’ – my own body has discovered many new ways it can be used in this process). I pretty much let him do what he wants. He wakes up, sleeps, plays, interacts or not at will. I let him guide me as to what to do. My chief role at this stage is loving him to bits (he’s one cuddly love-sponge).
He is slightly late developmentally in reaching milestones, so a lot of my responsibilities involve protecting him from unintentional and well intended training that makes him uncomfortable (‘making’ him bear weight on his feet, pressuring him to roll by constantly jangling stuff at him, etc). On the other hand, I am trying to balance ‘getting him to do’ things with providing him with opportunities he enjoys and it has resulted in some very new ‘games’. Currently, his chief toy is me. Followed closely by DH, MIL, an exercise ball, a swing, four foot ‘hit me’ dolphin and absolutely anything he can lay his hands on.
Unschooling provided me the concept of trusting him that helped me discover that I don’t need to make him do exercises to develop his motor skills. If I offer them in a way that’s fun, he prefers them over other things. If he doesn’t want to do them, its not the end of the world. He has taught me (by being excited) to create our own exercises by simply breaking down the movements he is trying unsuccessfully into smaller doable bits or supporting him through the bits he is not able and he enjoys these more, since they are what he wants to do in the first place. I found this AMAZING. He doesn’t need a pediatrician to tell him what to do and this way we always have variety and increasing movements than those ‘recommended activities’.
We intend to go out everyday, but he’s not too much into it. So we don’t, unless he’s in the mood.
He loves spending time on the floor and is currently obsessed with eating his feet and the feet somehow keep escaping. So he rolls to catch them and finds himself rolled over, which is new and interesting. But he doesn’t have the strength to do much from this position, so he yells for me after a while. Depending on his mood, I may pick him up for comforting (fed up) or I may hover him over his toys so that he can pick them up and throw them around the room. He loves this. He taught me this by simply being delighted when I took him over the first time. Another version is when he sits in my lap and plays with toys and I take him over to pick them up himself. He likes being bounced, so I bounce him whenever he asks (which is immediately every time he is in any bounce-capable position). He loves me, so he gets a lot of me. Absolutely unlimited attention, any time he wants it.
We are discovering that he is fine going out in the evenings for a short time if he has had a good nap and enjoys the busy market bustling with people, bright and curious things and moving vehicles. I have started seeing the miserable place as interesting through his eyes. I am learning to be tuned in to him and it is an intimacy I have never experienced before. Its just beautiful. he is a cheerful, expressive baby with a distinct preference for communication, and very little need to cry. Its not like he never cries, but its mostly physical issues like gas or burp, or someone not setting him down when he wants to pee – doesn’t like to pee on people.
I discovered (to my surprise) that there is indeed a way of unschooling a baby, which is unschooling and distinctly different from attachment parenting, or simply loving and indulging. He has interests and preferences. It is not only about being there for him and loving him, but actually paying attention to what he is doing, what he enjoys more, and offering more of the same. Respecting his wishes for what he doesn’t want. Pretty much what I imagine happens with an older child, but this is a baby and it works very well for his learning as well. He likes grabbing at toys. We got him more ‘grabby’ kind of toys. He likes movement, so we have a ball to bounce on, swing, plus a whole repertoire of throwing, swinging, rocking, etc that he enjoys. He doesn’t like rice cereal, so I don’t feed him that. He likes watermelon, so he gets that often. Its a whole load of things we do that we wouldn’t have before beginning unschooling, and I’m glad, because he is so happy, contented, energetic all the time. He takes most opportunities offered, which only makes me see how much more I can offer him. New ideas keep popping up, and life keeps getting enriched.
There is a long way to go, of course, but the journey is enthralling. I totally forget that this guy isn’t actually speaking, which is the thing I was most scared of before I became a mom – how would I understand the ‘tiny creature’?
It is difficult to say what exactly we do, since its pretty much based on what he wants to do in the moment, and in the last couple of weeks, no day has been like another. I guess he’s discovering more and more. My role is to simply make as many wishes of his possible as I can understand and offer anything that I think he may enjoy.
It is an unfurling, an opening. New possibilities emerge with each moment lived.
Would love to hear how other families spend their days.
Posting an email response I made on a group I belong to.
“What if things don’t fall into right places and then one day your child will ask, why did you do this to me?”
The way I see this, no matter what I do, I will have done some things well and messed others up. If a child (or anyone for that matter) wants to put blame on me, there will always be ammo. There is no way to predict how things will unfold. I can only act to the best of my ability and in line with my beliefs right now.
That said, I imagine a child who suffers decisions made by others, whose individuality is not nurtured, whose desires are not respected is likely to harbor more resentment from always living to someone else’s tune. So its not really a equal choice problem to school – unschool, since once out of school, there is no reason for the child to suffer from living another’s idea of appropriate. so, in fact, I would be removing many resentment triggers by unschooling.
How will you face it?
By facing it. There are no short cuts. I will need to get buy-ins from many people lovingly involved in his life – be it through stubborn, gentle, persuasive, argument… It is a journey with each person you’d like remaining lovingly involved.
Are you sure what you are doing will work for your kid?
Nope. I am sure that this is the best choice I can make.Hindsight is twenty twenty. Now takes courage in belief.
Why don’t you send her to another good school where they don’t conduct exams?
Why not IB or IG, they are international and fine quality education?
This is really something that needs addressed before committing to unschooling. Its not going to help anyone to jump in the sea and long for a pool. For me, it is basically four things:
I guess my thoughts are rather extreme on this subject, but I believe them completely, so here I am.
Many children these days roll over late. Nisarga is one of them. Its not that he can’t. He just doesn’t seem interested.
He has rolled over from his tummy to his back and vice versa more than a few times. He can. But he is content to lie how he is. I must admit that I have some concerns over his muscle tone, particularly when I went and discovered that he has many symptoms of mild hypotonia. But his doctor is not overly concerned, and I dislike labels anyway, so I am simply plodding along, helping him to do more, unless the doctor suggests that there is a problem, which she clearly doesn’t think at the moment.
Anyway, here are some things I tried to encourage him to roll over:
Other things that may be possible are sessions in a swimming pool,
A friend has a daughter who was born a couple of months after Nisarga. She has hypotonia and is having trouble getting her daughter to do many things. She goes with him to a physiotherapist, but is feeling rather discouraged. As we chatted, I realized that with Nisarga having low muscle tone as well, and considering the amount of research and experimenting I do into encouraging movement, I had tons of very useful advice to offer.
We spoke about many milestones and specific motor achievements over a week or so of extensive chatting, and I am planning to share the ideas as different posts focused on specific subjects.
This one focuses on encouraging head control. Here are the different things I do (and some I haven’t yet done) with Nisarga:
Keep everything fun. It is not going to work if your child is resisting what is happening, since his energy will then not be with ‘flowing’ with the activity, but in avoiding it. Also, something fun for both of you is likely to be repeated regularly to coax laughs out of the little charmer than something that is an ordeal.