What Should You Look for when Deciding on a Summer Camp?

Come summer and you can see scores of parents hunting high and low and seeking feedback of friends and colleagues on that ‘perfect’ summer camp? Why summer camps have all of a sudden gained so much popularity? Without doubt, for working professionals summer camp is a good way to keep their child engaged in a constructive activity during the summer holidays। But, beyond that what benefits accrue to children who go for summer camps। Are there any takeaways for real, or is summer camp just an expensive proposition to keep kids busy? Find the answers to all the crucial queries that you might be thinking about this summer. Lets review the check list:-



1. Focus—Other than keeping your child occupied summer camp should have an objective, which is to enrich the personality of the child. At the end of the camp the child should learn a new skill which would not be possible otherwise.





2. Distance from home—In the name of learning a new skill or art the child should not travel long distance. After all, its summer holidays and summer camps should not be an arduous task.





3. Interest of the child—Of late, grown ups as well as kids come with shorter attention spans. Camp conductors find it a challenge to keep the child hooked in the activities. Hence, it’s advisable to consult your child when choosing on the camp. If your child is interested in dancing, enroll him for dancing classes and if he is into fitness, he will like to go to fitness classes.





4. Peer pressure—You just can’t ignore this factor while deciding on a summer camp. If all your child’s friends are going for swimming lessons this summer, inadvertently, your child too will insist to join his friends.





5. How old is the summer camp—While summer camps are mushrooming every other day, still you should go for those camps which are being conducted by schools because they have an established system in place. After all, when there are 20 to 30 children together you need infrastructure in place—qualified teachers, spacious and air-cooled rooms (at least) individual attention, clean rest rooms, availability of drinking water and conveyance.





6. No technology—As it is children have more than enough exposure to technology in the form of video games, Farmville sessions on Facebook and Play Stations. When they are not gaming, they are watching cartoons. Hence, when choosing a camp keep in mind that the curriculum should keep technology to minimum.





Summer camps should throw in outdoor activities like trip to a farm, nature walks, planting a sapling and pottery which the child would not be able to do in his regular life. Summer camps are designed to be fun and that’s the whole purpose of it. The camps should spell a departure from academics. The focus should be on learning in a light-hearted way. Moreover parents need to refrain from keeping huge expectations of the summer camp. At the end of the day the child should enjoy the summer camp.

When Your Child Experiments with Lie

Parenting is akin to enrolling yourself in a school. Everyday springs new surprises and has lessons to offer, wise parents keep learning and moving on. Often, parents feel shocked when they learn that their otherwise honest and truthful child has begun to experiment with lies. While some lies are innocuous and are products of overactive imagination, there are some, which are spoken intentionally. Now, there is a good and bad news attached to it—the good news is that the child has become grown up enough to tamper with facts to wriggle out of awkward situations like an adult to save his skin and the bad news is that he has learned to lie.

‘Though, Suhana never lied to me’, says Anchal about her seven-year-old daughter, but these days I often catch her lying to me without batting an eyelid. “Agreed, her lies are not big and are usually in response to the questions that she prefers to avoid, yet lying is not good”, says the worried mother.

Why kids lie?
Lying is a symptom and it calls for parental affection and concern. Eight-year-old Sagarika complained of unexplained aches and pains in her leg just before the Kathak class. The pains would last only for an hour. Her mother insisted on taking her to the class and sat through out the session. She found that Sagarika was not able to dance like the older girls in her class and felt de-motivated for this reason. When she joined the class meant for girls of her age group, she became the star dancer and her pains vanished. ‘Now, in fact, she looks forward to her Kathak class’, says the beaming mother.

Sometimes what we call lying is just a figment of imagination. Kids live in make-believe world and their thoughts correspond accordingly.Many a time unknowingly parents introduce their children to the web of lies. What do we expect our children to learn when we ask our spouse, friend or staff to answer a phone call for us and concoct an excuse for us. The impressionable minds of children are quick to learn that adults tamper with facts, and so can they.

Often, parents tend to attach strings to their love towards the child. Sometimes this can coerce your child to tamper with truth because s/he wants to conform to the standards set by parents. Manisha, a mother of two children shares her childhood memory, “When I was young, once I scored less marks in Maths. Studies were of paramount importance in my family. Hence, I lied to my parents that I have scored well, but I have misplaced my report card because it would reveal my lies.”

Whats the remedy?
If you find your child experimenting with lies then make them understand that lies erode trust. Have faith in your children and try to get to the root of lying; you might find a fear lurking there. As a parent it is also good to understand thsi fact that as kids grow they become more independent and want to exert that too. And therefore with their growing mind often lying becomes an escape route to wriggle out.

Try to see them the reason behind your questions and they are likely to conform to your expectations. You will see a difference in their approach, thereafter.

What is making our kids obese?

You don’t need a survey to tell this. A visit to your kid’s school should be more than enough. Children are becoming extra large these days! The experts blame the marketing muscle exercised by fast food chains and quick serve restaurants for this. There is also a greater likelihood for plumper kids to grow in overweight teens and finally as obese adults. Hence it becomes imperative to curb childhood obesity.
You are what you eat. Like always weight and food share relationship with each other. In the Indian scenario when the baby is young mothers tend to force feed the child thinking that this will nourish the child. This lays the foundation of obesity in children. As the child grows he is bombarded with images in media that hard sells junk food to their viewers (read children). Chandrima Sanyal, mother of seven-year-old concurs to this. She says, “Meal times have become a constant battle for me because my daughter insists on having instant noodles, pizza in place of nutritious home cooked food.” Chandrima is not alone in her struggle.

All TV and no play makes kids fatter day by day. Apart from junk food too much of sedentary lifestyle is responsible for making our kids overweight. Earlier kids would hop and jump in the playground after coming from school. Nowadays, children sit before the TV or the computer after finishing their meal in a hurry to catch re-runs of shows or to plays games. Internet too sneaks in the lives of children, initially in the garb of innocuous research for homework. As kids gain the license to use the net they build their Facebook accounts irrespective of the fact that they are not even eighteen. “I have many friends who are active on Facebook,” shares ten-year-old Swastee, “and we love to play games, particularly Petville.” Obviously with so much activity happening on the ‘received’ mediums (read TV, video games and online games) kids are not enthusiastic enough to pound the ground in the evening. Amidst all of these sedentary activities popcorn, cakes and cookies provide constant company to the children. “Is it a surprise that the kids are bloating up?” asks Chandrima.
Getting trapped in the vicious circle of obesity. When you are overweight you are at the receiving end of jibes and sneers of your fellow classmates and friends, explains Dr. Arti Anand, Consultant Clinical Psychologist with Ganga Ram Hospital. To bottle up the sadness overweight children eat more, particularly junk food which acts as a comfort food, says she. This starts the vicious circle. It’s no coincidence that depressed kids are usually obese.
What to do?
1. The first step involves weaning kids from unnecessary TV viewing and munching on junk food. To accomplish this, you need to figure out interests of your child that could be pursued in the spare time in place of mindless viewing of the TV. It’s a good idea to get the child enrolled in a hobby class.
2. Weaning off the junk food will be difficult. You got to ration junk food initially and then combine it with portion control. Offer the child healthy alternatives in place of junk food. You can engage the child if he is big enough in the cooking process to arouse his interest in the healthy eating habits.
3. Adopt a dog. If you’ve space and resources at disposal get a dog home but only if the child had been insisting for one. Try to make the child responsible for the mandatory walks of the dog and you are sure that twice a day your child will get some physical activity.

Time to Talk

Learning to speak is a liberating experience for toddlers. It empowers them to express themselves. This is not always true. Dr. Vijay Aggarwal, speech pathologist at AIIMS has lots to say….


The first time when I met Madhukar, he had come to my clinic with his mother. He was tugging at her sari while she talked to me and I saw a six-year-old boy with a thick mop of unruly black hair and sad eyes. His mother shared that Madhukar didn’t like to go to school these days. She was quick to clarify that he was a good student who got good grades in all his written work at school. But, he had become a loner, refrained from meeting his friends and was reluctant to participate in oral tests at school. Whenever Madhukar would open his mouth to answer, normally he would take a second longer to speak the first syllable of the word. It gave an opportunity to his teacher to rectify his fault which he didn’t like at all. His class mates made fun of him!

Like Madhukar, hundreds of children lose confidence in their capabilities because of speech difficulties. Parents tend to notice speech problems in children by the time they turn 3 to 4 years old. This is also the time when child gains fluency in speech and develops a vocabulary. Initially, speech problems may be episodic in nature but as the child grows the problem stays with him.

Contrary to myths, one cannot outgrow stuttering. In fact, if it does not get cured it can leave psychological scars in the child’s mind. Children with stuttering begin to lose confidence and resort to gestures to communicate. Studies have time and again reiterated that stuttering runs in families.

Boys stutter more than girls. In 30 years of my experience as speech counsellor, I have seen thousands of cases and ratio of boys to girls is 70-30. However, girls stutter at an earlier age than boys. Emotions and stammering connect. Often, children who speak normally might stammer if they are agitated, afraid or under stress.

How speech therapy helps

Speech therapy helps in lowering the stutter by using various techniques to develop fluent speech that reduce anxiety levels of children, which helps them to talk more fluently and confidently.


1. Relaxation – To co-ordinate breathing and reduce oral pressure.
2. Phonation – co-ordinate breathing with articulators with soft contacts
3. Automatic speech – to practice technique effortlessly
4. Reading – short stories in simple sentences with voice continuity.
5. Reading and Narration –
6. Conversation in close-set with strangers.
7. Telephonic conversation
8. Conversation in different situation like public gathering, presentation etc.
9. Maintenance and follow up
10. Parents involvement


Coming back to Madhukar, he has regained his confidence when he learned to speak without stammering. Sometimes he does stammer when he is too angry and for these moments his mother hands him a glass of water to cool off. He looks forward to go to school and has a huge gang of friends.

Are You an Overprotective Parent

“The rules for parents are but three—love, limit and let them be.”
- Elaine M. Ward

These days we are experiencing a new breed of parents, who have forgotten to let their children be themselves. This genre of parents have a name—helicopter parents. The name might sound interesting albeit logic defying to you. What’s a helicopter got to do with parenting? Nothing except hovering, yes, helicopter parents hover; they are constantly on guard protecting their children from every fall, fighting their battles, fretting over their grades, negotiating with their friends, always running that extra mile to safeguard their children and their interests.

Now, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? No. Agreed, helicopter parents cocoon their children from adverse situations, reactions and experiences, but while doing this they, in a way undermine the confidence of their children. “All said and done mistakes remain the biggest teachers and if you are not allowed to make one, you are deprived of an opportunity to learn,” says Dr. Arti Anand Consultant Clinical Psychology with Ganga Ram Hospital.

Mugdha Shekhar has just given her class X exams. She wishes to take Maths and Physics in Class XI, whereas her doctor parents are constantly advising her the benefits of opting for Biology, in lieu of Physics. To say the least Mugdha is frustrated. “All my life I felt squeamish at the mention of PTMs. Mom would ask too many questions during the PTMs,” says she.

Parents need to grow upIn a bid to protect the interests of their children these parents go to extreme lengths, often fighting their battles. In the year 2007 US media was splashed with the news of suicide of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl from Missouri, USA who killed herself after an online relationship she believed she was having with a teenager named Josh Evans turned sour. What her parents learned six months after the suicide was that Josh Evans was a fictitious creation, which was created by Lori Drew, a 47-year-old mother of one of the former friends of Megan Meier to settle score with her.

This might be an extreme instance of helicopter parenting, but instances abound where parents peer over each aspect of their children’s lives: do their school projects, shuttle them after school to various hobbies, hog attention during PTAs, scrutinize their report cards closely.

Dr Anand says, “Children with possessive parents or highly critical and judgemental parents will have lowered self confidence and self-esteem, they will have problems in making decisions and may have difficulties in dealing with others and in their relationship. Such adults will grow up to be confused and may not be able to take responsibility for their actions. Such adults may be become highly anxious and depressed easily and are overly sensitive to criticism.”

Millennia kids, roughly the kids born between 1981 and 2002 are experiencing this treatment. Roma Ranjan, mother of two teenage children says, “This generation is a pampered generation. As parents we strive, scurry and do everything feasible to fulfill the whims and fancies of our children. By serving everything on platter we are painting rosy picture of life before them.”

Namita Gokhale adds, “Last Saturday I had gone to the graduation ceremony. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter graduated from pre-school." "Aren’t we overdoing things?" quips she.

Bedwetting

Almost all mothers encounter bedwetting—nocturnal enuresis. Most kids become fully toilet trained between ages 2 and 4 — but there's no target date for developing complete bladder control. Girls get toilet trained faster than boys.
Causes
• Kids, who wet the bed are not able to feel that their bladders are full and don't wake up to use the toilet.
• During childhood, some kids don't produce enough anti-diuretic hormone, or ADH, to slow nighttime urine production.
• A urinary tract infection can make it difficult for child to control urination.
• Sometimes bed-wetting is a sign of obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which the child's breathing is interrupted during sleep — often because of inflamed or enlarged tonsils or adenoids.
• For a child who's usually dry at night, bed-wetting may be the first sign of type 1 diabetes, if it is accompanied with passing large amounts of urine at once, unusual thirst, fatigue and weight loss in spite of a good appetite.
• Sometimes children who don't have regular bowel movements retain urine as well. This can lead to bed-wetting at night.
• Sometimes a kid who wets the bed will have a realistic dream that he or she is using the bathroom.
• Many kids who wet the bed are very deep sleepers.
• Bedwetting may also be the result of the child's tensions and emotions that require attention. Enuresis runs in families too.

When a young child begins bedwetting after several months or years of dryness during the night, this may reflect new fears or insecurities. These include losing a family member or a loved one, arrival of a new baby, change of home. What your child needs is increased attention and assurance from you for these abrupt episodes of bedwetting to go away.

What can you do at home to prevent bedwetting

Children rarely wet on purpose, and usually feel ashamed about the incident. Hence, do not discuss bedwetting with anyone when the child is present. A pediatrician's advice is often very helpful in treating bedwetting. Do not give the child liquid to drink just before he goes to bed. Most importantly, do not fret about bedwetting because kids outgrow it.

Is Your Child Sleep Deprived

Are you one of those parents who are apprehensive of your child’s sleeping pattern? Then, this is the wakeup call for you. Just like adults, children need to sleep well to replenish their energy reserve and get ready for another day. Study says that sleep deprivation in children has been linked to lowered immunity, diabetes, depression, obesity, hindered physical development, stress and anxiety. When children don’t get enough sleep, it can have a negative effect on their overall health.

Why sleepless?

What causes turmoil in bed for young children? In young children, however, failure to establish a regular routine is frequently to blame. Physical factors such as bedwetting, general illness and developmental delay can cause sleep problems.
Psychological factors that can cause sleep problems include anxiety about separation from parents, fears (for example, of the dark), depression, drug abuse (in older children) and sexual abuse. A bedroom that is cold, noisy or damp may deter child from sleeping.
Dr. K. Ramalingam, pediatrician informs, “ Children who are experiencing exam fever, are couch potatoes and watch too much TV or are on the internet can suffer from sleep deprivation.”

Loss of sleep in your child can manifest in following behavioural changes–• Aggressive behaviour• Temper tantrums• Decreased patience• Hyperactivity• Crying and fussiness• A feeling of continuous lethargy• Poor concentration• Poor school performance

Dr Ramalingam points out the health hazards of sleep deprivation in children. “Poor food habits, unseemly growth and development, stomach upsets like constipation or irritable bowel syndrome and even depression can hit a sleep deprived child.”

How can you make your child sleep well?

• Create a simple and familiar routine for bedtime. For example: feed, bathe, and put to bed

•Allow toddlers time to settle down. If they make a fuss, don’t give in immediately.

• Keep things quiet, this helps toddlers to settle and teaches them that the night is different from the day.

• Alternatively, keep natural house noises going.

• Make sure your child unwinds before the bedtime. This will make the transition from lively toddler to a sleeping child easier.

Waking up too early:

• Use thick curtains to make children’s rooms darker so the morning light doesn’t wake them.

• Provide safe toys for him to play with in the mornings, so he can play quietly until he hears that the rest of the family is awake.

• If your child’s a natural early riser, you may just have to be patient. Usually, once children start nursery or school, they tend to sleep in for longer.

Waking in the night:• Be realistic and remember that everyone’s sleep requirements and patterns vary. Some people need eight hours or more, others can manage on five or six.

Many toddlers continue to wake during the night for feeds. If you’d like to stop this, cut down night feeds by gradually replacing milk with water. When you go in to comfort him, keep the lights low and use a soft voice. Don’t encourage any kind of activity. You’ll probably need to do this several times.