Breathe! You are alive

Recently my sister asked me if I could add to a small write-up that she had to submit to Head Start, a Montessori school, as a part of my nephew, Athreya’s, application process. It was aimed to help them understand him better. And, this is what I thought about him.

I think Athreya is an intelligent kid. I spent 2 weeks with him when he was 15 months old and 3 weeks when he was 19 months old. When he plays with TV controls, remote control or the music system, he is really quick to figure out stuff. One particular observation comes to my mind. He was playing with all the dials on the music system. He was quick to figure out which one was the volume control. And when he increased the volume, he gave us all a look of  ’Did you see what I just did?’ (an achievement of sorts). He was quick to learn how to reduce the volume too. And this game continued for a bit. Surprisingly, this repeated with the remote control another day. Its easy to believe initially that these ‘achievements’ are accidental, but observe for long enough and you know that he knows what exactly he’s doing.

And when he wants to explore but cannot, he immediately knows whom to ask for help. Like a toy out of his reach, or a bottle that he cannot open. He also knows how to employ his intelligence to achieve his ends :). I don’t remember the details, but something was forbidden for him by his parents. He insisted, but his parents didn’t give in. And the next thing he does is comes to me and asks for help. And I helped him out, of course, unaware that I wasn’t supposed to.

As a general observation, I also find him exploring new toys or new environs very keenly. He manages to observe the smallest of details.Like when we see a picture of cars and roads and other thousand things in it, he shows us a small dog, which we would have not registered at all.

He also seems to be very tuned into others’ emotions. He senses anger and reproach very easily. And doesn’t like it when people are angry with him (esp. coming from his parents). He knows when he’s getting all the attention. He also knows what exactly about his actions is attracting attention, and tends to do more of it. Another observation which I find very interesting is his ability to involve everyone into some activity. Like he wants to feed everyone in the room. This starts out as him offering his food to his parents, and when they pretend to have accepted his offer, hen he feeds everyone (whoever is present in the scene, including pets and stuffed toys). This happens not only with food but also things like pinching the cheeks or showing someone his new toy. He warms up to strangers quickly and involves them in his activities. This also happens with other kids. He is extremely sociable with other kids. He insists that they play with him, talk to him, share their toys and stuff.

I also see him being fearless. He’s not afraid of the dark, not afraid of animals, not afraid of water, not afraid of strangers. A few things do unsettle him, but I don’t sense fear. Personally I just love this about him..it’s a wonderful quality to have.

This write-up sorely reminded me I was missing out on a big part of life – to watch my nephew grow.