The Motherhood Retreat

It all started with an intense searching for the way to peace and strength. The search led me to this book called ‘Buddhism for Mothers’ that my friend and mother pointed me to. 

In a Zen (Buddhist) retreat, one would ‘withdraw from the worldly busyness’ and learn to sit with oneself, breathe deeply, become mindful of simple things like eating, walking, bathing, etc. and sometimes sit in silence. In essence, one would learn to slow down and become intensely aware of the present moment, realizing that there is really nothing more important than that. Motherhood (especially spending the early years with one’s child) is a huge life-time opportunity for a beautiful experience. Here are all the various aspects of the retreat. Acknowledging and honoring all these made my second year of motherhood a powerfully transformative experience. 

Living one moment at a time. I came face to face with my own addiction to being busy and packing my day with lots of things to accomplish. I had truly lost my ability to relax along with the ability to be fully aware of what is going on inside and around me in the present moment. Young children (whose minds are free from fear) are oblivious to the past and unconcerned about the future. They are fully present in their bodies seeing objects, people and events with fresh eyes and a sense of wonder. I am learning to bring back my attention to the present moment in two ways. When there are a few things screaming for attention at the same time, like Isha falling down and getting hurt, the water on the stove boiling, the phone ringing, the door-bell ringing, it is easy to succumb to the madness of running about in a state of frenzy, feeling like a helpless victim of the situation and cursing it. In those moments, I’ve learned to breathe deeply, taking complete responsibility for that situation, becoming intensely aware of what is required of me in that moment. This has always helped me to think and prioritize clearly, and act calmly without being flustered. There is really no moment to ‘wish away’ or ‘wish to extend’. Every moment is special and is asking for our fullest attention.  The other way she helps me live in the moment is to drop what I am doing when she wants to share something with me. Not all the time and every time (it isn’t possible), but many times.

‘Living in the moment’ is not to be confused with ‘not caring about or planning for the future’. Even that planning happens one moment at a time. We travel a lot – within and outside Chennai – to people’s homes, to interesting places to explore. And there is a fair bit of planning involved in it – packing things, mode of transportation, coming back before bed time, etc. But Isha inspires me to make every thing a mindful and fun activity. No task is a chore. No moment is dull. I’m learning to enjoy packing my bag (as if that were the whole purpose of my being, in that moment of packing). Life takes on a different colour when you live it moment by moment.

Quietening down. Children are naturally quiet many times. Yes, even the most active and intense children naturally like to spend time in silence. I’ve been learning to tag along and just be with Isha when she is quiet, without disturbing it. Lazing on the bed when she wakes up, going on walks, watching the ant. It amazes me how hard it is to simply ‘be quiet’ and observe and soak in the experience without letting my noisy mind take over. These days, I don’t let go of a single opportunity to experience stillness and silence with Isha. I also think it is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, the gift of learning to stay still and silent. Actually, they have it in themselves. Our gift to them would be ‘non-interference’ with it.

Child rearing as worship. I’m learning to see what an honour it is to watch a child grow and be a part of it. I’m increasingly seeing it as a blessing from God; a gift placed on my hands with love and trust. Every little thing that Isha did for the first time – there were at least a few every day – has been a thing of such immense joy for me. I am not talking about challenging moments, but quiet, cute, beautiful ones where children do such beautiful things. I have felt more and more compelled to drop everything simply to watch it. Like Swami Vivekananda said “Every soul is the Soul of God. Look upon everyone as God. You can only serve. Serve the children of the Lord if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any of His children, blessed you are. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship.’

Every single time as if it were the first time. Children love repetition. When Isha likes a story, song or a game, she’d say ‘Once again!’ asking me to repeat it for her. And it can go on for as many as twenty times without a break. Yes, telling her the story about how the elephant went looking for water repeated twenty times. And each time, she’d listen to it with rapt attention as if she were hearing it for the very first time. When I sense irritation or boredom about narrating the story, I get the cue that I am not tuned into the present moment. I quickly learn to look into her wonder-filled eyes, let her excitement infect and inspire me, align with the moment and repeat it once again. I realize that it is very special to experience the elephant’s surprise at finding a tiny pond each time the story is being narrated. It is an amazing exercise in building awareness. I go on until my Zen-master is done with it herself.

Witnessing the miraculous in the mundane. “Amma, come look at these ants.” Actually, I’ve never seen ants with the kind of amazement that I’ve learnt to see them of late. They’ve always been around; been a nuisance. At best, they have been tolerated. That’s about it. But actually they are one of the most amazing creatures. When there is spilt food in the corner of the room and ants come to get it, we just let it be and keep watching it once every few minutes. They really clean up the place for us and leave! Isha can play with her shadow against the light streaming in through the window without getting bored about it. I am learning to see that the most mundane things can be the most miraculous.   

Connecting to people: Taking Isha’s help, I have been able to connect to so many people I otherwise wouldn’t be able to.  Once we were sitting inside a bus in a bus-stand. A frail old beggar came up to us and put his hand up asking for alms. As I was reaching for my purse to get a few coins, Isha shook hands with him thinking that that was what he was asking for. It immediately brought such a beautiful smile onto his otherwise pained face. My eyes welled up! What an unexpected, pleasant surprise it must have been for him! I’ve seen countless long-faced people whom Isha is able to touch with her love, beauty and innocence. It is so healing to watch their frowns turn into exuberant smiles instantly! And I get to smile with them too. How often do we get to smile at people who are frowning? She connects to table cleaners in restaurants and ragpickers on the streets making them feel special. How easy is it for us adults to be able to do that?

Exploring things I’ve never done or haven’t done in a long time! Motherhood is a time to explore and get engrossed in little things that we do less and less of as we grow older, and things that were forbidden to do when we were young. Getting wet in the rain, dancing wildly to music as she’d call out to me ‘Amma, neeyum vaa!’ (please join me), singing along on the road, painting and crafting, watching the stars and really taking it all very seriously; getting really involved in life.

Understanding spirited children. Another understanding that helped me a lot was about children who are more intense, perceptive, energetic, persistent and sensitive. These children who can react strongly to any disturbance are more spirited than normal. But our society which likes ‘docile, quiet and obedient’ children who listen without questioning or disagreeing, labels these spirited children as ‘problematic’.  Isha is a demanding and intense child, and very often reacts to things strongly. In spite of having a lot of freedom, being spoken to respectfully, being given choices, she is a kid who would like to assert herself, push my buttons, test my patience, stretch my boundaries, etc. just to see my reactions. All toddlers who are figuring out their sense of ‘selfhood’ do these things. And her tantrums and crying can sometimes be intense.

Understanding ‘spiritedness’ of children has helped me understand myself better. Times when her reactions are strong or her demands high are reminders for me to ground myself, take a deep breath and learn to diffuse the tension. The first step is to ask her ‘What is it?’ It helps her express what her emotional reaction is related to by pointing at the object (let us say, a book) that was taken away from her, for instance. Then the next step is to help her get in touch with what she is feeling and verbalise it. ‘Are you upset that the book was taken away from you?’ She’d nod her head. ‘Do you know why? You were very angry and were beginning to tear the book, which is not at all ok! I tried telling you many times not to tear it, but you were not in a state of mind to listen to it. And so I had to pull it away from you. Can I give you a hug until you feel ok?’ Well, she might agree or not depending on her mood. But at least, she’d soon settle down knowing that she was heard, and seeing that what she actually went through was acknowledged. And soon enough, she’d see that I was actually being reasonable. Actually, this works with adults too. Getting in touch, acknowledging and allowing the other person’s negative feelings without judging them, helps them feel at ease and become more cooperative.

Learning to let go. Conscious motherhood gives us a huge opportunity to learn to let go of our ideas about many things. Like a father of six children said “Before my children were born, I had six theories about raising children. Now, I have six children and no theories.” Each moment unfolds with its share of surprises. What she loved yesterday, she is completely disinterested today, and vice versa. Until yesterday, Isha disliked coconut chutney so much. Somehow today, she called it her ‘most favourite food’. If I ask Isha to come do something with me because she loved doing it yesterday, she can surprise me by refusing and instead badly wanting to do something that I begged her to do yesterday, which she had refused to!  

Feeling and expressing gratitude. The motherhood experience in an urban nuclear family setting can make it look like it's all loaded against the woman. It usually brings up a lot of issues for me about 'being a woman'. It took me a while to reconcile the fact that the mother's role is indeed different and more intense than the father's, and to be able to acknowledge all the wonderful ways that Rajeev was actually being there. Learning to express gratitude allows very soothing life-energy to flow through you! It really deepens relationships.

What about career? Though I never had a 9-to-5 job, I did pursue my own career in ‘saving the world’. Activism (wanting to change the world from an egoic space) is highly addictive. If we don’t watch it carefully and do what we are doing from a perfectly grounded non-egoic space, it can keep giving us a ‘kick’ that we are ‘doing something very important, without which the world would go to the dogs!’ Well, I had been on this trip for a very long time. Even as recently as when Isha was only seven months old, I was actively involved in coordinating the campaign against Bt Brinjal. I burnt myself out after three months of intense action, since so much was already happening in my life even otherwise! In the first year of motherhood, I liked to believe that my life wouldn’t change much at all after Isha. I wanted to be unlike all other women, being able to do everything and carry on with life as though birthing a child was just another event in my life. Until I got burnt out and suffered exhaustion to the point of being forced to go on a retreat.

Slowing down has helped me take a break from everything to be able to reflect on and take stock of many things on many fronts; questioning my ‘work’, ‘relationships’, 'plans’, etc. Most times, all other jobs and careers have paled in front on the most important job of all times, being a conscious mother. And this retreat away from working on ‘social change’ has made me get more in touch with my true inner callings, which would not take me to any of the things I used to do earlier. I badly needed this time and space to re-evaluate things in my life. And I am grateful for it!

I personally don’t understand or feel the need for a career in my life. I know of some others who do, like being a dancer, singer and such. I am not to say what would be good balance for them! What is working for me is to live my motherhood fully, while getting short but regular breaks to do my own things.

Predictable breaks. Deciding to make my breaks more regular and predictable also helped hugely to remove anxiety. Once I started knowing when exactly to expect my space and time, I could relax more easily and be with Isha more fully. Yes, it’s absolutely important for the mother to find alone time, finding expression for things that cannot in the presence of a child. Again, let’s remember that never before in history has the mother had to spend all her time engaging with children. All said and done, it is unnatural. Haven’t we all heard our mothers say “Those days, kids just grew up on their own!” The truth is that there was an entire community of people who the child grew up with; community of neighbours and extended family.

* I hope this post does not read like 'I have attained enlightenment'. :) I have a very very long way to go. There are a lot of times that I lose it, feel frustrated, complain, give unwillingly, etc. But yes, I've wholly set myself up on the journey and it has been incredibly rewarding so far.
 
* Though I take a lot of inspiration from books such as ‘Raising your Spirited Children’ and ‘Buddhism for Mothers’, I find that they don’t question the larger framework of the modern society. It takes the ‘schools’, ‘offices’, ‘nuclear families living in apartments’ etc as the given and helps us with tools to cope with that living. But I think that such a lifestyle is itself unnatural and unhealthy. The way I use these tools is to find my peace in this moment, but keep my questions about fundamentally restructuring our lives from that grounded space. 

'Buddhism for Mothers'  can be downloaded here.

Raising your spirited child can be downloaded here.

* This article won’t be complete without acknowledging the role of family and friends in holding the space during emotional melt-downs, and taking over whenever I felt exhausted. :)

Challenges of conscious mothering

For about twelve years before Isha was born, I was a vagabond. Traveling thirstily to different lands to understand India and the world; meeting different people to see if I could connect and collaborate to change the world. I was preparing well (or, so I thought) to accept my new role as a mother – to deal with restricted mobility, inadequate sleep, giving a big part of my time to preparing food, feeding, changing nappies, cleaning, nursing, putting to sleep, etc. They say ‘You can never prepare enough for motherhood.’ and it is so true! Though I willingly signed up for the job, when I became one I did go through some kind of a shock; even depression accompanied by illnesses that took a while for me to recover from. Looking back, I was actually grieving the loss of a free-spirited life. We, as parents, made some choices like giving Isha only homemade food, using cloth nappies, not having a nanny or a TV, etc. which made our days so overflowing and overwhelming.

Little ones come with their own personalities and there is no way to know them before hand. They bring along with them surprises and challenges you never even remotely expected! At just one month, Isha would wiggle her way out of my lap on to the floor, ‘claiming her independence’. At 10 months, she started climbing the window grill all the way up to the ceiling. She could climb up the slide and come down all on her own. When only a month old, when I tried singing a lullaby to put her to sleep, she started screaming and wouldn’t stop until I stopped singing. To this day, Isha gets very distressed whenever I start singing (for unknown reasons) anything other than her rhymes. Music being a big part of my life, this has been very hard on me! Uninterrupted conversations with friends are almost never possible. Being a writer, when words come bursting out of me, I would almost never be able to get to my paper or computer in time. I used to beat myself up to keep up the deadlines for an article series I was writing for a magazine. Just when I’d sink into a chair to rest, I’d have to clean up spilt food or ‘poopy’, being unwell myself, being groggy after a sleepless night. It’s a very long list of things that can be frustrating, sometimes even traumatic! 

I would wait for my break every day. When I did get it, I’d get super-anxious about how I should use that precious time. ‘Should I be resting now? Should I be blogging? Finishing up my article? Cleaning up? Reading a book? Just sitting quietly with some hot tea?’ I would never make peace with whatever it was that I chose to do. No matter what I did, I was always thinking of all the other things that I was missing out on. And before I realized, the break would be over. And since there was no predictability to these breaks, I lived in perpetual anxiety about when my next break would be. Phew! It has been one long exhausting ride, physically and emotionally!

From what I have observed over many years, I’ve seen that motherhood, especially with an intense and spirited child like Isha, where the primary care has not been outsourced to a nanny or a day-care centre, can have such a profound effect on the mother. (On the father too, but that is Rajeev’s personal story.) And the nature of the profound effect depends on how the mother chooses to respond to the challenge of the critical few years bringing up an infant. In our strong areas, it makes us stretch and become stronger. In our weak areas, it really intensifies and brings up our issues and challenges us. Complaining mothers can become unrelentingly negative. Worrying mothers can become neurotic. Controlling mothers can become control freaks and nags. Submissive mothers can become more submissive to their children and spouse, feeling lost and victimized by motherhood. Mothers with low self-esteem can become more guilty and miserable and feel like losers who aren't anywhere close to being enough!

Between spouses, it intensifies issues that already existed, but could earlier be brushed aside more easily. Parenting makes them stare at your faces screaming at you for urgent attention. 

If you are wondering how all this is related to not sending children to school, here it is. Most parents choose to send their children to school early (sometimes as early as when they are one-year old) as a way to find respite from the intense experience of parenting. When children are out of sight, parents seem to have some sense of ‘peace’ at home. Isha is going to be three soon, and many parents wonder why I have not decided to get some of my (our) own time by sending her away for a few hours everyday.

The truth of the matter is that, for exactly this reason, we did try out two playschools for her, and pulled her out as we saw damage happening to her. After just a couple of weeks subjecting her to unhealthy treatment, we chose to be with her until other healthy options opened up for us.

If we choose to not get neurotic, negative, submissive, guilty or controlling as parents, then there is only one other way that I know of. It is the one where you choose to see motherhood as a wonderful opportunity to become stronger, more peaceful, more loving by going on a zen retreat, with a live-in zen master, your child. I chose that way. 

I want to share what a fulfilling journey it has been so far! Will write about it very soon.

A day in the life of a family 'learning naturally'

Readers of my blog ask me, 'You've written about activities of a young child, alright. What about those of older children?' Here is something written by a friend and parent of two kids (eight-and-half and six years old) Hema Jain about a day in their lives 'learning naturally'.    

 

"As you know, my kids (Abhi 8 1/2 and Aparna almost 6) don't go to school. I don't follow any curriculum either to "educate" them. I let the kids' interest lead the way; I help them a little every once in a while in ways that I can. This approach is called "unschooling". Some of you have had questions for me about what we do at home all day. Here is a recap of what we did all day today (from 8 AM to 8 PM):

- breakfast (cornmeal, milk, nuts, raisins).

The kids chopped the nuts. We enjoyed the breakfast. It was past 9 when we were done with eating and talking.

- music (piano).

Aparna played the piano for maybe 20 min. She tirelessly plays her song over and over again till she is completely satisfied with her own performance. She changes the tempo, transposes the song and explores the music on her own. Abhi was playing the tabla (Indian percussion instrument). He didn't seem to mind sharing the same room as Aparna where she was playing the piano. They seem to be enjoying their music oblivious of the other one's presence. It was almost 10 when they got tired of the music they were making. Abhi wanted to play Monopoly. The kids were happy to set up the game which lasted 15-20 min. I played the piano until then and joined them once they had it set up.

- Monopoly.

We were playing a usual game. There was a lot of mental arithmetic work, permutations and combinations that were being exercised ("hey Aparna! try to give me $60 using the bills $20, $10 and $5"). All this plus a lot of silliness made each player's turn much longer than usual - I became a kid and enjoyed all that was happening. We had all the time on earth to enjoy the beauty of the moment. All of a sudden, Abhi got this (crazy) idea to take a loan from the bank. I briefly told him that we typically take a loan only when we don't have enough money for a particular thing. He didn't seem to care; he insisted on borrowing money and so I let him be. He wanted to borrow $1000 and wanted to pay an interest of 10%. Not willing live in a world with 10% interest rate, I negotiated it down to 1%. So Abhi calculated how much interest he owed. Then he asked me when we pay interest on our house loan. He moved on to figure out when he should pay his interest in this game; he thought and settled down with "we pay interest every time we cross GO (square 1)". He was so fascinated with the ideas behind loans, interest and paying back that our Monopoly game turned into some kind of banking game (except that it was all real for him). Only at night (while narrating this to Dev) did I realize that my recent trips to the bank had sowed the seeds for the banking game that we played this morning. This was till 1 PM. The game was interrupted by me several times because I was baking bread today and I needed to be in kitchen every 45 min. or so.

- music (vocal).

Aparna was humming a tune. Abhi tried to correct her and said that he could teach her that Raga. It went well for a while, but Abhi being bossy sometimes it didn't last long. This resulted in a fight and tears. They were upset with each other, but they managed to resolve the conflict all by themselves. They were back on track teaching and singing.

- Lunch. I took my afternoon (15 min) nap.

- We went to the park between 3 and 3:45; I did my exercise and they had great fun at the monkey bars.

- music (piano).

Abhi played some of his songs on the piano. I heard him transpose "the lion sleeps tonight", which was entirely spontaneous (the teacher hadn't ask for anything like that).

- cooking.

Aparna loves kneading the dough for roti. She started with water and whole wheat flour and transformed it into a beautiful ball in 10-15 min. It is almost meditative to just watch her do that.

- science.

Abhi found a used microscope at a thrift store yesterday for a few dollars. Having spent all of yesterday with the microscope and the only slide it came with, he wanted to look through more slides. But we didn't have any more. While I was cooking our dinner, he took some sticky tape and cut come of his hair and made a slide! He just loved his invention and made more slides - one with sugar and another with salt. He spent the next 40 min. at this.

- Karate.

Both of them absolutely love karate. Thanks to our teacher, Sensei Tony. Abhi took his microscope and his slides to show off to his friends at Karate. I meditated while they were at Karate. It was 7 PM when they got back.

- Dinner, bed-time reading (Aparna) and more microscope time (Abhi) concluded the fun-filled day.

I couldn't ask for anything more in a day. Every day has its own flavor. No two days are ever the same. I have always been able to cook, bake, play music, exercise, meditate, nap with them around. I am grateful for this stress-free life and wouldn't trade it for anything."

Isha's many activities

Whenever we have the luxury to let Isha choose, we ask her ‘What do you want to do now?’ Most of the times, we give her choices based on where we need to be and what we need to be doing. For instance, if I need to go to the terrace to put clothes on the clothes line, I ask her ‘You can feed the birds, or put clothes to dry, or put clips on them, or draw using chalk piece, or anything else you come up with while being with amma on the terrace.’ Climbing on the iron ladder on the terrace up to a safe point (and she knows which rung of the ladder) and coming down from the other side like a jungle gym is usually her most preferred activity while on the terrace. Here are all the different things we do together.

She measures rice and dals as we soak or cook them. She measures water in cups and pours it into the containers. Of course, she would not let go of the container without stirring the contents this way and that way with her both hands, or taking the water in a tiny spoon and playing with it.

Idli making is one of her favourite activities. She likes to oil the idli plates, pour idli batter onto them. This pouring happens in different ways. Sometimes she’d insist on pouring onto the plates herself. Sometimes she’d take a small ladle and pour out of it into my big ladle, which I then pour onto the plates. Before this activity, she’d go around the house asking everyone how many idlis they’d like to have. When we sit down, we count as we pour the batter and say “These three are for appa”, until we have poured idlis for everyone. She waits near the stove and catches the steam, holds it for a while and opens her palm to see the moisture on them. She is currently training to be able to skillfully remove the idlis using the back of a spoon (“just like how amma does”) without any piece sticking to the plate.

She puts back washed dishes into their respective places in the kitchen cupboards and draws.

Whenever I cook beetroot, we use the red juice to paint herself or on the paper. Last week, we marked a 4 sq.ft. white tile in the living room and we paint on it. It was fun using the brush and painting on the floor. We could wipe it off easily later in the day!

She uses mehendi cones which she uses to make her own designs on her left palm. She'd press the cone and allow the mehendi to flow out on to her palm, and then look at the different shapes and decide what they might be. Last week, she said she had made a ‘dragon design’. Then she'd ask me to make a design on her right palm. It almost always has an elephant with its baby (her favourite theme of all times), and a few other elements like trees, clouds, sun, etc. She’d go around doing things while carefully protecting her mehendi until it has dried sufficiently. After about 10 days, when the design fades away, we’d do another one. This activity is a lot of fun for both of us! I never knew I could put mehendi until recently. And these 10-rupee cones last really long!

We spend a lot of time preparing food and eating. Apart from her meals, she eats a lot of snacks in between. Cashews, raisins, dates, banana (her favourite), roasted gram, peanuts, almonds, grated coconut, tomato, cucumber, carrot sticks, fruits and the like – we sit together with them, sometimes have conversations and and sometimes just eat quietly. 

We cut vegetables together. She uses a blunt knife to cut only vegetables and fruits that are safe to cut, and only under supervision. For instance, she cannot cut tomatoes (for they are slippery) or carrots (for they are hard). She can cut the snake gourd, papaya, tender beans, banana and such. In the process, we may discover things together and allow ourselves to get distracted. We consciously build time into the activity for that. Yesterday, we were cutting tender French beans. I’d cut the ends and she’d pull out the fibrous string. As she placed them on the floor, they started curling up into different shapes. She started naming the pods after people in her life. Long pods were tall people like 'appa'. Tiny ones were kids - ‘Isha’ and her friends. Medium ones were short people like ‘amma, paatti’. Suddenly, she figured out that if I held onto one end of the pod and she, the other, and we both pulled it in opposite directions, the pod split into two pieces. She’d fall on her back with her piece with a loud giggle saying ‘Innooru vaatti’ (once more). After we did this for a while, she noticed a bean that had come out of the pod and asked what it was. I said it was the seed inside. Then I slit open one long pod to show her the row of beans inside. With a huge smile on her face, she said ‘Amma, this is just like how we play the ‘surprise surprise’ game!’And we slit open quite a few of the pods to see the ‘surprise’ inside. And yes, every single time it looked like she was genuinely surprised! Well, this whole thing took about an hour.

We go on long nature walks. We keep them as quiet as possible, of course allowing for conversations when they naturally happen. I would like to recount an experience here. Last year, Isha and I were taking a walk inside the forested 'Valley School' in Bangalore. Satishji (the chairperson of the school) was walking along with us. As we were walking, my noisy mind wanted to "teach" Isha about all kinds of things along the way - 'Isha look, that is that date tree' and on and on. After a couple of minutes, Satishji turned around and said 'Why don't you just let her soak in this experience quietly and make her own sense of it? She is too young to want to make use of the information about what a date tree looks like.' That gently shut me up, and his voice rings in my ears (gently reminding me) every time we go on a nature walk. I'm learning to quietly soak in the experience too without labels.

When we take the bus for long distance travels, we usually travel at a time of the day when we can get a window seat. Sometimes she looks outside the window quietly. Sometimes, she is singing loudly. Once, she was singing her favourite Tamil rhyme ‘Amma Inge Vaa Vaa’ in a fairly empty bus. An old lady sitting behind us got quite excited on hearing a long-forgotten song and started singing along. Soon, two other women joined in and all five of us were singing it a few times. And all the oldies in the bus, including the bus driver and the conductor, were smiling and humming along. It was quite an experience.

When we go on walks in our neighbourhood, she goes on speaking out loudly. She stops by dogs and cats (any animal) and talks to them. Watchmen and maids (resting under the trees and in front of apartment complexes) start conversing with her, and whenever she feels spoken to respectfully she stops to spend time with them. It is so beautiful and healing to watch them connect. Some of these older watchmen from the village also have a childlike innocence. They can smile from their hearts just as easily as they can get upset about things. A short walk of half a kilometer to the next road can take about an hour or more!

Watering plants, sowing seeds, scrubbing and washing clothes, sweeping, mopping – Isha likes (I’m sure all kids like) to do them all!

While waiting for the bus, we play games like spotting different colours and shapes around (on trees and sign boards), for instance. We make up stories with some standard characters (like Krishna and her friend Papu) doing different things that are mostly known to her.

I make playdough with wheat flour, and she can play with it for a long time inventing all kinds of shapes and things to do with it – putting it on her nose like a clown. Her imagination is endless.

The beach sand and water can keep her occupied for hours together! The sand can be anything from ‘the rain’ (when poured down), ‘sambar’ (when she stirs it), 'a hill' (when she piles it up) to all kinds of fascinating things.

Of late, she’s started playing with two-dimensional toys. Our neighbour kids have drawn a whole lot of pictures on the terrace floor using the chalk piece. Isha likes to go up to the terrace and play with these imaginary toys. She’d ask ‘Do you want a fruit salad?’ And then go “pick up” imaginary oranges, apples, pineapple, grapes, “pick up” the knife and "cut them up" into an imaginary bowl and offer it to me and keep some for herself. “Do you like my fruit salad?” she’d ask. The other day, she picked up a story book. It had the picture of a dog sleeping on his bed in his room. She said ‘Amma, I feel like going into that room!’ I said ‘Go! What’s stopping you?’ She smiled, turned around, placed her head on the page, closed her eyes and said ‘Now, I am in that room!’ She made space for me and said ‘Amma, lie down and close your eyes and you will be inside with me!’ I did that. Soon, we were living in that room doing all kinds of things. She said “shhhh… quiet. The dog is sleeping.” So, we whispered about picking up this and that, sitting around, examining the curtain in the room, playing with the soil, washing our hands in the wash basin (all of which were in that picture). Wow, I had never done that before. It was fun.

She gets to play with kids downstairs, and visit friends, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and spend time with them. She has unique sets of activities to do with each of them. She loves it when we have people over (which we often do!)

She has learnt to use the scissors quite well. Whenever she is around and I need to open a fresh packet of something, she gets to cut it with a pair of scissors. Yesterday, she skillfully held a real vessel with tongs and was pretending to make tea for me! 

I could go on writing about all the stuff we do, but by now I hope you've gotten an idea!

Now, if you add to all these fascinating and fun times, moments of Isha's tantrums and moments of my impatience and need for alone time and space, only then would the picture really get completed. :)

Now, where does a mother (or father) get all this time and patience from, to cut beans for a whole hour, or stop by every stray dog and cat? And how can one person give all her or his time to being with the child, however fun the activities are? Won’t he (she) need his (her) time? What about their career? In my next story, I’d be chronicling all my challenges of choosing to be the person who spends most of the time with Isha, with Rajeev stretching himself with all his available time too. (By the way, Rajeev has a unique set of creative things he does with Isha. If he gets enough inspiration to write about it, I’d post that too!)

Natural Learning - Part 3

What are some of the basic needs of children that are going largely unmet today?

1. Need for silence: Children need silence to stay calm and alert. But from the time they are born in urban houses, their fragile senses are subjected to assault from noises from various sources – the blaring TV, constant chatter by adults, the road traffic, construction work next door, noisy battery toys that we buy for them, etc. Noise is the first thing that frustrates children. When children wake up from their sleep they like to have a quiet morning and ease into the day. Just like we adults do. But very often, we start talking to them, exciting them about a surprise waiting for them in the living room, blaming them for being ‘late’ to school, and on and on. A noisy start is already enough for a child to start feeling frustrated. 

Try being by your child’s side when she wakes up, and spending some quiet loving time on the bed until your child utters the first word. (For a chatty parent like me, this is hard! But when I manage to pull it off, it is sublime. :) This silence that we have started the day with (and reducing, if not eliminating, all noises) can then hold the space for anxiety-free and safe times. We also become more alive to the subtle sounds of nature – the rustle of leaves, bird calls, the rain, the breeze. These natural sounds make their way into the child’s soul and make it sing.    

2. Need to feel trusted: All children have a need to feel trusted. Constantly telling them “See, you are going to break it!”, “You might lose it”, “You will fall”, etc. makes this basic need unmet and frustrates them when they are actually feeling ‘Can’t you trust me that I will do my best?’ And when they do break it, lose it or fall, it is worse to tell them ‘See, I told you!’ Their egos get their final bashing with that comment. If we turn this around and tell our children ‘You can do it!’ and trust them with small things and if they mess up assure them by saying ‘It’s ok. We all mess up at times. You can try again’ we can actually help our children become self-confident and trustworthy. Like someone said 'The confidence of childhood is a fragile thing. It can be preserved or destroyed in an instant.' 

When children grow up feeling untrustworthy and lacking self-confidence, another voice in their heads grows louder and louder. It is our voice telling them ‘You will fail!’ that won’t allow them to try out anything new for fear of failure. How can one expect a child that grows up with this fear, to ‘learn naturally’?

We need not trust our children with 1,000 rupee notes, expensive stuff and risky feats. How about beginning with small things that are really ok to be lost or broken? I usually give the bus ticket to Isha when we travel together. She holds on to it tightly and has almost always kept it very safe. I’ve sometimes noticed her holding on to a tattered  piece of paper, an hour after our bus journey was over. When asked why she’d say “You never asked for it back!” One or two times when she does let it slip out of her hands, I make sure she does not feel bad about it.

Isha is a natural climber. One of her dreams is to be able to climb the coconut tree and 'pluck tender coconut for amma’. She is usually very sure-footed and careful while climbing. Once, she slipped and fell off a jungle-gym from a height of about 7 feet. Both Rajeev and I got concerned since Isha didn’t stop crying for a long time. We made her talk, walk, move her arms and made sure there wasn’t any major injury. After a while, Isha stopped crying and felt comforted. She turned around and looked at the jungle-gym from where she fell. Though we both felt tempted to say ‘If you climb again you will fall!’ we managed to not yield in to it. Instead, we asked her ‘Do you want to try climbing once again, this time more carefully?’ She enthusiastically nodded, ‘Yes!’ and did climb for a bit and held on to the bar extra-tightly this time.

Children are, many times, naturally willing to trust their own ability and ‘try again’. If we don’t come in their way, and if possible, reinforce it in them, we won’t have to tell them the story of ‘the king who took inspiration from the spider, tried several times and then won a battle’ when they grow up. They can at times get frustrated about not getting something. Like an infant trying to open a bottle when her motor skills are not developed enough to do it. At those times, we can wait until they reach the point of their frustration and then gently assist them to open it with them. Every time children feel trusted, they learn to trust themselves more, in turn opening up to natural learning.

3. Need for respect: Children are persons too, with a sense of who they are and what they’d like and don’t like. Just like us. Many times, we don’t realize this and take them for granted. When children tell us they don’t want to eat a certain food, we often don’t give them a choice about it. We often threaten or bribe them into eating certain foods they don't want to. This may give us short-term results, but is actually harmful in the long run. Apparently, some research shows that girl children who are forcibly fed when they are children have a hard time saying ‘No!’ when they grow up, and hence more easily succumb to abuse of all kinds. How interesting!

Again, respecting children does not mean giving in to all their tantrums. Respecting them in a real sense is also showing that they need to respect others too. In an equal partnership, it is only when the parents learn to claim their respect (respectfully) the child will really learn to be respectful of both herself and others!  

4. Need for participating in adult’s world and contributing

It is we adults who have separated the child’s world from ours; work from play. Children know only one world – a meaningful world of exploring, creating, celebrating and collaborating. They know only one life, where work and play, living, doing and learning are one and the same.

Children learn by observing adults who are engrossed in what they are doing. They get curious about what they see all around them and participating in them. But today’s homes can be so frustrating for children from the time they are born. First of all, we keep them in closed rooms with walls all around them. And because we feel sad about their having to stare at the walls, we buy them brightly coloured mobiles (toys that look like merry-go-rounds) and colour their rooms with bright colours. These colours can be over-stimulating and be an assault on the visual sense. Over-stimulation can excite the child in an unnatural way and can be harmful, contrary to the belief that it leads to brain development!

When children start crawling and walking, they find that all windows are beyond their eye-level. Doorways are forbidden to be crossed. Dining tables, cooking counters and desks are beyond their reach. At an age when they are waiting to go out there and explore their world sensorially, can you imagine how frustrating being unnaturally ‘locked up’ can be? These holes (plug points) on the wall look curious, but they are ‘dangerous’ and hence forbidden too. The shoes on the shoe stand, many times the only things at their eye level, are forbidden too! It is tempting to reach for all the stuff on the tables, climb on to the window sill to peep out, but they are forbidden too. How frustrating!

When they grow a little older, they start seeking to be part of the adult world and learning by doing with us. But urban adults don’t do anything interesting in their day-to-day lives anymore! We have machines and maids to do most of the work. And entering the kitchen is declared as “not for children”. Just like we adults try to kill our boredom with entertainment – on the computer, TV or phones, we buy children lots of toys. But these can seem like occupying them for a while. Those of us who can see how they can be harmful, buy ‘educational toys and CDs’ hoping that our children are also learning something in the process. It is called ‘edutainment’ these days. Their minds get numbed, hypnotized and stunned, and many times get addicted to these. That does not mean their needs are getting met. A child may get addicted to junk food and crave for it, but that does not mean it is meeting the child’s real needs.

As a parent who is interested in ‘natural learning’, I am increasingly needing to look into how I lead my own life. We don’t have a TV at home, nor do we buy toys – other than those that get handed down or gifted. When given a choice between playing with her toys and ‘working with amma or appa’ Isha many times prefers the latter.

At two-and-half, here is a list of things she can do. She can apply oil on to the idli plates and pour batter into it. She likes to roll rotis and then pass them onto me to be made thinner. She likes to organize washed dishes and put them away in their respective places. She likes to fold small clothes. She likes to put washed clothes on the clothes line, and then put clips on them. She likes to sweep and mop. She likes to put ‘kolam’ (rangoli) and has a great time playing in haldi and rice flour! She likes to measure rice and dal for soaking. She can cut soft vegetables and fruits using a blunt knife, after which I take over to cut them into smaller pieces. She likes to water the plants. And each of these tasks can take about five times longer than it would if we did it by ourselves, and many times messier. It requires at least one parent to have all the patience and time in the world to do it. How is this possible? (We’ll look at this question in greater detail in a later post.)       

5. Need for their time and space

Children need to have all the time in the world to be engrossed in whatever they are doing without being hurried, or being told “Enough, now do this!” As a parent, I know this is not easy especially when you are in a hurry to finish something or get somewhere. But these should be exceptions rather than the norm! (During these times, we make sure that we explain why we needed to pull her away from something and apologise to her.) Otherwise, if she wants to play with her haldi powder for hours, it is perfectly ok! Having said this, even I have a tendency to interfere unnecessarily and catch myself wanting to be the ‘all-knowing’ and ‘controlling’ mother. Not being allowed to complete a task (or game, as we see it) for no apparent reason, can be very frustrating for children.   

6. Need for uninhibited expression

Expression can be in the form of dancing, singing, speaking, drawing, writing and painting. Children are often ‘taught’ how to dance, sing, speak, draw, write and paint. Rules are given to them. When they want to express ‘out of this rule box’ they are 'corrected’. I once witnessed a little girl dancing with beautiful body movements, and her parents constantly kept commenting saying ‘That’s not how it is done! Can you please change your movement, you’ve repeated it so many times!’ and on and on. This voice that keeps ‘correcting and instructing’ them is not at all helpful. Very soon, all forms of expression will be trained to ‘conduct themselves based on what is popularly accepted and validated’ through the noisy mind. And that can never be true art. True art exists only when the artist (i.e. his noisy small mind) disappears.

How about dedicating a wall in the house for painting, drawing, doodling, writing? If you have a tiled terrace floor, it is an excellent canvass for chalk-piece drawing! If we don’t correct or comment on our children’s expression, it will come alive in its own unique form and style. Children will learn their grammar and rules at an appropriate time and pace on their own, with some facilitation. When they begin to express is not the time for correction. ‘Dor’ is a valid spelling for ‘door’, and ‘madar’ is a valid spelling for ‘mother’ in their world! Isha has just begun to speak English. When she says, "I no come play", we ask her "Oh, you don't want to come play now?" she says "Yes, I don't come now!" And I am learning to see this as 'perfectly fine'. :)

Children have a need for expressing themselves physically. They need physical space where they can run about freely and scream their lungs out, which is usually outdoors. Whenever Isha wants to run about and and scream out aloud, she gets to do it as long as it does not disturb anybody. And so, when we really request her to be quiet, she usually respects it and is cooperative.

7. Need for creating

Children have a basic need to create with their beings - their bodies, their voices and their minds. They’d rather make their own toys than have ready-made ones given to them. Give them clay or cardboard (and scissors) and watch their excitement when they make their own toys – which are actually objects that they relate to in a real sense. Participating in work that is creative – food preparation, gardening, etc. fulfills this real need too. There are lots of tutorials available at arvindguptatoys.com to make toys. The joy of creating also applies to 'stories' and 'songs'. Sometimes, Isha and I have conversations like songs, following popular tunes that she likes - 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'Amma Inge Vaa Vaa'.

8. Need for communing with nature

Children have a basic need to stay connected to nature. Nature does not live in the forests alone. Nature lives in the rain, the garden soil, the roadside plants and seeds, avenue trees, birds that visit our window sills, lizards and ants roaming inside our homes, the sunlight that streams in through the window, the stars and the moon that fill the night sky on the terrace, stray butterflies, moths and dragonflies that land in our rooms. Even silver fish, termites, cockroaches and rats are fascinating, if you are willing to separate the issues at hand here! The list is endless, if only we are open to welcoming and receiving them into our lives. But very often we tell our children that soil is ‘dirty’, the lizard is ‘disgusting’, the rain can ‘make us sick’, the insects will ‘bite us’, being exposed to sunlight will ‘tan us’…. And do all that we can to develop animosity in them towards nature. It is worth asking ourselves if we are doing it because our need for communing with nature was unmet and trivialized when we were young!    

Isha is most fascinated by lizards. When she finds one on the wall, she goes around the house looking for the kutti paappa palli (baby lizard). In her world, when there is an adult animal, it is invariably the mother and there has to be a baby somewhere nearby! If she happens to spot another adult, she’d consider calling it the father. Apart from all the small ways that we try and connect to nature from our urban home, we go on these long walks in the IIT-Madras and Theosophical Society campuses, which are the green lungs of Chennai. Isha leads the way taking us to all sorts of things from the spotted deer to the tiny mosses that usually go unnoticed. We make sure that we are well fed, energetic and don’t have anything else planned on these special days, so we don’t have to rush through anything and think of getting anywhere else. A three-kilometre walk could take us anywhere between three and five hours!

9. Need for love and touch

All children have a basic need to be touched and held. They feel safe, protected and loved when they are. Meeting this basic need is also very important. Going with this is a deep acceptance of their sadness, crying, anger, etc. whenever they get expressed. "Are you angry because you couldn't get that ball? I understand. I feel that way too when I don't get something I wanted. "Acknowledging, helping them verbalise and accepting their unpleasant emotions helps them learn to get in touch with them, and use these emotions in powerful, constructive and liberating ways.

10. Need for communing with people

We see that some children are extroverted and some are naturally introverted. It is easy to understand that extroverted children need the company of other kids and people in general. However, introverted children also need the company of people in a different way. Every being has a need to feel connected to life. They just aren’t ready to connect to people openly and verbally. But they too seek quiet companionship, when they are left alone (without being bothered too much) but held with understanding and love. They flower in their own unique way, like a bud that blooms very quietly.

But this is also a very tricky area. There are all kinds of people in our lives. Children have a need to be treated respectfully and lovingly, and so communities, families (basically people spaces) where this is lived is usually where children feel safe and nourished. In the cities, it is very hard to find meaningful people spaces, which Isha remembers fondly and asks to be taken to. Many homes are usually blaring with TV noises. Young children (her playmates) are many times aggressive. Many times, adults violate her space and talk down to her. Isha plays with many different children – our neighbours and friends’ kids. They do have sweet innocent play times with joy and laughter. Alongside, many times even 4 or 5 year old kids behave with her like how adults behave with them - provoking, manipulating, bribing, correcting and shaming her. Remember, children imbibe adults’ ways! So our options may be very limited. And that is why it is important to reach out and connect to people who look at their children and their role in their lives differently.

If you bring her up so protectively, how will she learn to deal with all kinds of people?

She is far too young, vulnerable and impressionable to be able to protect herself physically or emotionally. She is like a tiny sapling with great potential, just like a tiny seed the size of a mustard holding the potential to grow into a banyan tree! In these foundational years, it is important to stay protected from danger, just like we sow seeds in a nursey or plant a hedge / put a tree guard around a young plant. The belief is that as she grows older, she will learn to deal with the world from a safe, secure base more confidently, firmly and lovingly. Here is an example.

Indian parents know very well how we adults like to pinch the cheeks of babies and young children. Even when Isha and I are waiting at a bus stop, passers by don’t hesitate to stop for a second, pinch her cheeks saying ‘So cute!’ and go. Isha hates it everytime somebody does that to her. If you think about it, it is actually such a physical violation of children's spaces, and they grow up thinking that it’s the norm. Earlier, she used to cry and get upset every time someone did that to her. Then, we used to step in to tell people not to do that to her. (It is our duty to speak up for these vulnerable beings, who trust us and look to our protection.) As she grew a little older, we started explaining to her that people actually did that because they liked her and they didn’t know that she didn't like it. ‘How about telling them that yourself? If people want to connect to you, what do you feel comfortable doing?’ She said ‘They can shake hand with me!’ So these days, she tells people 'Apdi Pannatheenga. Enakku Pidikkathu' (Don't do that. I don't like it.) And then people invariably back off feeling surprised, sometimes offended, sometimes appreciating her confidence. We step in to suggest that they shake hands with her, which restores the smile on everybody's face. :)

Natural Learning - Part 2

If saying ‘No’ comes in the way of learning, does it have any place at all in parenting / educating a child?

But can we examine every single time the voice in our head screams ‘No’? Can we put a check post, stop it every time and ask ‘But why?’ and then see if it is worth it? Walking on the road without holding an adult’s hand, doing anything near a gas stove, playing with currency notes, breaking stuff, etc. are a strict ‘No’ for Isha. She usually respects the ‘No’s because we have established a pattern where we don’t say it unless we absolutely mean it. We normally don’t misuse our power to say ‘No’.

Kids are usually reasonable when we adults are reasonable with them. Times when they are cranky from hunger and sleepiness are usually exceptions! Excepting those times, Isha almost always checks with us when she sees new things "Is this safe to use? Can I drink this water? Can I climb on this?" It is amazing how children really trust us with our power to say ‘No’, if we learn to use it sparingly and responsibly. And we absolutely mean it every time we do. This means that once we have said ‘No’, it is usually non-negotiable. No yielding in to manipulation by the child. Of course, this is not a rigid rule, but a general one.  

Again, what does all this have to do with ‘natural learning’?

Only a free mind can learn freely. An anxious and frustrated mind becomes guarded and resists learning. Remember we talked about how children taken out of school invariably ‘shut down’ initially when left alone? They are basically working on unconsciously ‘freeing their mind’ so that natural learning can then take over!

Freedom for children does not mean ‘completely disengaging from their lives and worlds’ and letting them do whatever they want to and however. We need to learn to engage with their worlds on completely new terms; on the terms of ‘equal partnership’. Yes, as parents, we need to build a healthy partnership, where we are both equal participants.

In a parent-child relationship, we are naturally given more physical power over our children. We may be tempted to misuse this by turning it into authoritative power by raising our voices, deciding for our children, manipulating them, etc. But, that does not help build partnership. And unless we become partners with our children, we cannot enable a meaningful process of natural learning.

Can you give some examples of how to build partnership with our children? What would it look like?

To build effective partnership, we need to respect our children and earn their respect as well. We need to trust our children, and earn their trust as well. We need to give them their space, and claim our space as well. We need to insist on their keeping their word, and keep our word with them as well. We need to help them understand their boundaries with other people, and assert our boundaries with them as well.

Equality does not mean that a child’s and the parent’s ability to do everything is the same. Equality in a healthy partnership between child and parent would look like this: both of them would have equal freedom to point out if the other makes a mistake and have it be accepted gracefully. Equal partnership helps establish safe and respectful spaces which enable ‘natural learning’. 

Other than to allow a child to be curious and explore, what else encourages a free mind?

Children have a certain set of basic needs. If they are met, then the mind remains free. Unmet needs often lead to fear and frustration. They in turn lead to withdrawal and aggression. How often do we see young children who are exuberant and joyful in a quiet way? They are mostly either withdrawn or boisterous and aggressive. Don't we see more aggressive kids these days than we used to? Many of us brush it off as ‘some inexplicable phenomenon’. But the fact is that the present day urban lifestyle is designed to breed frustration, and hence aggression. I notice that girls are usually withdrawn and whiny, and boys boisterous and aggressive. May be due to a combination of biological and cultural reasons!

What are children’s ‘real needs’? How are they going unmet? How can they be met?

Warning: Agreeing to undertake this journey from this point on would need us adults to start looking into ourselves, our ideas, beliefs and priorities in life, be willing to unlearn many things. Many times, we would need to be willing to look to our children to lead the way for us. As we understand the following needs of our children, we will begin to slowly realize that most of them are actually our basic needs as adults too. We will also begin to realize how these needs were very often unmet when we were children, and how much pain it has caused us unconsciously.

But the good news is that if we really understood children’s needs, we can make way for our children to inspire us and help us get in touch with and heal from this pain in ourselves. As parents who are already on the path led by our daughter, we can assure you that it has been absolutely fascinating and rewarding! Very intense, nevertheless.

Before moving on to understanding children and their needs, I’d like to share how we see our daughter and all children in general. Isha is really a spirit that has come seeking bodily experience, and not a body seeking spiritual experience. She has come seeking a unique set of experiences, to learn a unique set of lessons in order to fulfill a unique life purpose. Like every other child has. So, she has come with a certain inner knowing about what these are. Though there are some basic needs common to all children (which we, as parents, have some control over), needs also vary from one child to another based on the kind of life experience they have come here seeking (which we may not have control over). But what we can do effectively is to prevent things from disconnecting her from her inner knowing, not add noise to her life and head.

Before proceeding any further, I'd like for us to read Kahlil Gibran's words on 'Children'. It is a beautiful passage that I begin many of my days with!

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Natural Learning - Part 1

At home, she gets very bored with nothing to do. I don’t know how to keep her sufficiently engaged.

Quite obviously! If we sow seeds on a piece of land where the fertile top soil has been completely eroded, we cannot expect to sit back and expect 'natural farming' to happen. Similarly, we cannot expect ‘natural learning’ to happen while living in nuclear families and unnatural apartment environments, which offer very little that is meaningful for our children to draw inspiration and learn from. If you think about it, this is the first time in known human history that humans are living in pairs boxed up in concrete houses, without an apparent need to know their neighbours even!

How about entertainment? Of course we are not talking about mindless TV programs. How about educational cartoons, books, the discovery channel, etc.?

What would happen if we start correcting the problem of infertile soil by feeding the plants with chemical fertilizer? The soil’s fertility will reduce even further. The plants too will get bloated with salts and water, and become more prone to disease and pest attack. (Applying organic fertilizer is definitely better than this, but again unsustainable and expensive if bought from outside the farm.)

In the same way, to kill our children’s boredom, we have invented entertainment of different kinds. Like junk food cannot satisfy the nutritional needs of the body, entertainment cannot satisfy the learning needs of the mind. But both junk food and entertainment (like chemical fertilizer) are addictive by nature, producing sick and obese people, who are prone to physical and psychological diseases and disorders. 

Yes, this includes even educational entertainment or ‘edutainment’ as it is called these days. Irrespective of the content of the cartoons, books or other TV programs, the mind is passively processing images and information given to it, without any kind of active participation. That is the last thing that the mind is seeking. It craves for real contexts, real experiences and sensorial interactive learning, which is quite the opposite of what even edutainment can provide. Carefully chosen educational programs can be used sparingly to supplement real learning. But without exception, it can never be a substitute for natural learning.

Certain toys like building blocks are definitely much better. But even they come next only to ordinary articles of daily use and ordinary materials like containers, sheets, stones, twigs, etc. that they learn to use creatively. Books may be good for older children. It is best to keep books and images away from young children and help them experience everything with their five senses. Even stories that are told orally rather than shown with pictures are better for the child to develop her imagination.

A more sensible approach with plants, then, is to build the soil with organic matter, which will make it come alive with microorganisms, insects, reptiles and eventually birds. Soon a rich and thriving ecosystem will evolve where the plants can then live and grow naturally. Likewise, in the case of children, we need to create vibrant and diverse ecosystems, which will enable natural learning.

How do we go about creating these ‘vibrant and diverse’ ecosystems living in the cities?  

One thing is to dream up ideal living and learning environments for our children and for ourselves, which will amount to dreaming up another world. This is an important task in our hands, but we’ll save this for later. Fortunately, unlike plants, we are mobile. So, creating ‘natural learning’ environments for children can be achieved with some amount of mobility and traveling to many existing spaces. But even within our own homes, there are so many possibilities and opportunities for natural learning that we could pay more attention to. Yes, without TVs, computers and toys. Let's start with those!

What kinds of spaces and activities are you talking about, inside and outside home?

I am not yet ready to start making a list of spaces and activities for our children at home and outside. I will, in a bit. But there is a more important and challenging step to be followed even before that. And that is to ‘step back’. My teacher Fukuoka called it ‘Do-nothing’. ‘Stop doing.’  

Stop doing what?

Stop coming in the way of life! Stop the voice in our heads that does that!! Something that happened yesterday will help me explain this.

Isha carefully walked up to one corner of our living room and sat down on the floor. This was a relatively unswept area of the room and had a few cob-webs too. The voice in my head immediately said 'Isha, don't go sit in that corner. It is dirty. Come here!' with a disgusted look on my face. Thankfully, I caught the voice before the words were uttered and asked Isha 'What are you doing sitting in that corner?' genuinely interested in knowing what it was that took her there! Isha said, 'Amma, look at this spider!' with an excitement that was really contagious. I started looking with fascination at this otherwise ordinary everyday creature! The shared experience was something special. I gently left Isha alone with her spider and got on with my work. She spent a good half-hour watching it and following it wherever it went. Of course, her hair had to be cleaned and her clothes changed for they were full of dust and cobwebs. But hey, it was well worth it! :)

(You can read another related story about getting wet in the rain here!)

The moment children are born, we see that they have already learnt to do so many things. Like breathing, for instance. And they continue to learn so many things everyday. They shake their arms and legs, they learn to turn over, to sit, to crawl, to stand up, to walk, etc. All of this learning is completely biologically driven.

We never tell babies “Ok, now shake your legs and arms.” We know they won’t unless they decide to. We never tell them “Now, don’t shake your arms and legs! Be still.” We just let them be. Have you noticed that babies can laugh more joyfully and effortlessly, (even when compared to a three-year old) because they are allowed to ‘just be’? Now, might there be a connection between their sense of freedom, their joy and their learning?

Children are effortlessly ‘learning naturally’, just like they are breathing. But as they grow older, when they are ‘just being’ curious, expressive, participatory, exploratory, we thwart their freedom - life and learning - with the one word ‘No!’ that we repeat so many times every day in so many different ways. We need to stop that!

I want to share two more stories here.

Sometime last month, I was waiting with Isha for a doctor's appointment (for my sister's leg fracture). The wait was in an outdoor garden. An old lady had come with her grandson. He picked up an interesting looking pod that had fallen on the ground and began to examine it. The grandmother immediately shouted at him and said 'Chee, Chee! Drop that now! It's dirty.' A few seconds later, Isha went and picked it up and the lady told Isha the same thing. I stepped in and told her 'It's really okay for her to keep it and play with it. It is just soil, after all!' The lady did back off on hearing that. A few moments later, the boy hesitantly picked up another pod from the soil and saw that the grandmother didn't say anything this time. After a few moments, the old lady asked her grandson 'Can you give it to me for a second? I'd like to see what it is!' with a childlike curiosity and a smile on her face! 

It is quite something to watch what happens when someone gives us (young and old) the license to be curious and explore. Everybody is waiting to be given the license to be a child, and 'learn naturally'. :) This is what I mean by 'the flow of life'.

This morning, Manish, Isha's 6 year old friend and Isha were playing at home. A few pieces of ice that had been removed from the freezer were kept in a large container. Isha went to it and picked it up in her hands. Manish went to Isha and said in a big-brotherly tone "Isha, drop it. Don't touch it. It's not good for you." Isha refused to listen to him. I told Manish, 'It's ok for her to play with it. Nothing will happen.' In a few seconds, Manish started playing with the ice saying 'Isha, jolly-a irukku ille? (Isn't this a lot of fun?)' and inventing cute ice-games between each other. They both spent about five to ten minutes with the ice and had had a new experience with it. Every new experience of a fresh and free mind is learning. With our limited minds, we adults may not be able to understand and measure these 'learnings', however hard we try to.

Yes, as the first step, even before we start thinking about‘what we should be doing to enable natural learning’, we need to understand ‘what we should stop doing to allow natural learning’.