Different Perceptions of how Children should be due to different cultural Background

Today I would like to write down some of my observations with our little Apra, her surrounding, other children and people who meet her, both from India and abroad.

Apra is now a 15-month-old toddler – I was informed that she is now no longer a baby and that we have reached a new level. We have been feeling that every week, nearly every single day actually ever since she was born. She learns so much every day that she surprises us again and again with something new! She has been talking for quite a while and has such a vocabulary now that you can have a small conversation with her! In this way she is much further from children of the same age whom we see in our surrounding. We believe that the reason for this fast development is mostly that she gets so much input from so many different people all of whom she has been bonding with since she opened her eyes for the first time.

She is always surrounded by so many people – sometimes she plays with me or her mother, then she goes to talk to one of her uncles, her grandfather or her great-grandmother. That’s not it however! Whenever she feels like, she will go to play with her six big brothers who each have their own games with her. Of course the rest of the Ashram members, our staff of kitchen, garden and more, are no strangers to her! She knows all of them by name and walks on her own into the kitchen to ask them for food or a snack, takes trips to the neighbor cows and helps in the garden. Everybody talks to her, teaches her different words and gives her more information about the world around.

For us it was always clear that this is a good thing and I was honestly surprised when some western guests at the Ashram expressed concern about the same fact. They were wondering if our baby would ever learn to busy herself on her own. They thoughts she might always need other people to play with her and told how difficult that can be for the mother who would then not get to do anything else. Our answer was that we usually don’t have this problem as there are really always people around who want to play with her, all waiting for their turn. But would she even get some peace and time for herself, to be on her own? – such were the questions.

Oh yes, my dear friends, I can assure you that she learned everything she needed to learn! When the younger boys get too close and it is too much for her, she can make it clear, mostly by saying ‘Naa!’ and if they don’t hear, by screaming loud, that she wants to have more space for herself and doesn’t want to be touched, hugged or picked up right now. She takes toys and can sometimes spend twenty to thirty minutes just rearranging wooden blocks and boxes, painting with her crayons or feeding imaginary food to animals in books. From time to time she looks up to see if we are there and when she had enough, she comes to show us what she did. It is beautiful to watch her while she does such games – you can see how she processes new information and repeats what you showed her, murmuring the words that she just heard and forming two- and three-word-sentences.

A few days I then heard an interesting comment by an Indian lady which made me laugh about the differences in culture again: one of our teachers had brought her daughter, who is now two years old. Both girls were delighted to see each other and Apra showed her the books and toys which were lying around. After a few minutes of interest in the other girl however, she started playing on her own with a car, moving it around. I heard the teacher say in a town of slight concern ‘Oh, does she like to be on her own a lot?’. Laughingly, Ramona could assure her that she was by all means no solitary person and definitely used to the company of other children!

So you see, our cultural background lets us perceive the behavior of children very differently and we all have different ideas of ‘how it should be’. A fact is however that we all give our best to make our children happy. While we could read a lot of parenting books and guidelines and could listen to a lot of people how they think things should be, I think it is best to give your child as much love as possible and not to worry too much about what others say. Your baby – or toddler – is fine as he or she is and you are a good parent. Children develop differently from each other and I know if you just think a bit like I do, you will do whatever you can to love your child and make him or her happy – and that is enough!