I remember being spanked, but I don’t remember for what. The lessons were lost. My teacher was blissfully unaware that you cannot teach any lesson by spanking. What she did manage to teach is that it is acceptable to be a bully if you are bigger. And I always fantasied about becoming big – bigger than him – and beating …

A green hedge encrusted with white mountain roses – the smell I carry in my nostrils to this day. Pure and heady. I was three. It’s a snapshot of memory. I put a name to the memory much later. Lansdowne, a quiet and picturesque cantonment town set in the hills of Uttar Pradesh. My father had arranged the trip. He …

It is impossible for a child to smother himself by lying face down on a bed with no pillow or getting under the bedclothes. He will come up for air when he needs to. What you need to be worried about are thin plastics since they are both airtight and clingy. If your child puts a plastic bag or a …

Have you developed some dark patches on your cheeks? Don’t worry. Pigmentation is a very common symptom in pregnancy, though noone knows what causes it. But the patches usually fade away after childbirth. The skin on the abdomen and breasts stretches as the uterus grows in size. So does the skin on the arms and thighs if you have put …

The day your child sits up, he has achieved something big. His horizon becomes larger and this too is not achieved in a day. You prop him up with pillows and cushions, but he is not ready for it yet. Remember, you cannot hasten his development. You will have to wait till the particular part of his brain responsible for …

Maya cannot forget her first pregnancy. She was young and careless. She preferred to go shopping than go for her regular checkup. She hated staying at home when her husband was away at work. But all this took its toll on her baby. In her ninth month, she realised that her baby was not moving. A trip to the doctor …

Most children with low self esteem keep trying hard to prove they are unlovable and incompetent. A number of children I worked with had been with other tutors previously. When that tutoring hadn’t proved successful, the children felt like failures-hopeless, discarded. When their parents contracted for them to work with me, it felt like they were now going to have …

Children with low self-esteem are usually anger to relate but fear being able to relate successfully. Since failure is most threatening to them, be positive and success-oriented in your approach. As I mentioned before, one of my usual approaches in relating to a new child in tutoring or therapy is to have ready a series of nonthreatening questions in neutral …

Ease Your Childs Back-to-School Jitters — What you can do to help your little scholar feel better about the coming school year. Even if you don’t know exactly why your child is anxious, here are a few things you can do to help him or her feel better about the coming school year: Talk about your first-day-of-school experiences — If you don’t remember, have …

May 17 — It’s celebration time in Japan. The Imperial Household Agency confirmed this week that Crown Princess Masako is pregnant with her first child, news reports said. The news of the princess’ pregnancy appears to have stimulated hopes for a change in attitudes in traditional Japanese society. On the one hand, Japanese think-tanks have started pressing for a change in the …