Adoption : Bringing home your bundle of love

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Adoption : Bringing home your bundle of love

Sunita (38) and Sandeep (42) have been married for nine years. But they have not been able to have a child naturally. Lakhs of rupees and many fertility specialists later they were getting frantic.

"We were very irritated all the time. The wait was killing us," says Sandeep. Sunita adds, "My husband and I desperately wanted to have child. So we visited many doctors for treatment. We spent almost Rs three lakh but it was taking too much time and it was still uncertain whether we would meet with success. Later, we both decided to adopt a child." She calls it the most "wise" decision she and her husband have taken ever.

They are not an isolated case. Stress and conception-unfriendly lifetsyles has meant that more and more couples are coming forward with complaints of childlessness. While infertililty among young couples in the age group 20-30 is between 10-15% it rises proportionally with increase in age. It can be as high as 25% in couples above their 30s.

"Apart from social, cultural family and peer pressure most couples on their own desire to have children. Not being able to fulfil this need, can bring not only lead to unhappiness at personal level and affect self esteem but this also strains the marriage. Moreover, in our country not being able to conceive a child is looked down upon by society. This can only add to the couples woes as everyone keeps asking them about it, "says Narendra Kinger, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist.

Having said that, adoption is not a cake walk either. It involves a lot of paper work and the couple has to mentally prepare for the wait. Rajendra (37) and Priya (36) have been married for 13 years and just adopted a two-month-old child. "It took us four years to complete the entire adoption process and bring our daughter home. Adoption agencies can and should do better but parents need to be forewarned that the process is lengthy and can be emotionally draining," says Rajendra."But, this process has not put us off adoption and we plan to adopt another baby soon," he is quick to add.

Once the adoption process ends, it is only beginning of the actual challenge that lies ahead and being mentally prepared for it will help parents feels Kinger. "Most parents expect their children to be perfect. This issue needs to be especially addressed when adoption is concerned. You CANNOT blame the child for any shortcomings that might arise later in life. This can happened with your biological child too," he points out.

According to him, it is up to the parents whether they want to tell the child that s/he is adopted. "I feel that the children must be told about this by the time they turn six or eight. As finding it out later in life may severely affect them. It is best the children know of this from their parents than any outsider. It is better to adopt infants. If you plan on adopting an older child, try spending some time with her/him," counsels Narendra Kinger.

Children need grandparents

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Children need grandparents

Everyone agrees that our children are the most precious gifts we have ever received, or will receive, in our lives. Indeed, children alter our life even before they are born. In many homes, parents yearn for them, plan for them and dream about them even before they enter this world. And from the moment they are born, they take over our lives. Ironically, despite all our yearning and love for them, they have the potential of turning into our biggest nightmares later in life.
What goes wrong? It is not an easy question to answer on a general basis, particularly since circumstances are different from home to home. No one can generalise and say that the fault lies entirely with either the children or the parents. But one thing which I strongly believe is a universal truth is that in our desire to give our children what we did not get as children, we do not give them what we got as children.
Once the veracity of this statement sinks in, you will find many instances in homes across the land and across the socio-economic spectrum which bear it out. When I grew up as a child, I was narrated the great epics by my grandmother who imbued us with the values and morals of the heroes. My case was not exceptional as the situation was the same in all my friend’s houses. My grandfather used to tell us children had a lot of pithy sayings, none of which I have forgotten. Among the most memorable is this one which I have recalled many times during the dark phases of my life: A man who is drenched can never be afraid of the rain.
I do not see many such ‘growing up’ scenarios in the homes of my friends these days. Their children, who are in homes many times more affluent than the one I grew up in, very often do not have the benign influence of grandparents since these are modern nuclear families. Neither do my friends have the time to carry on with the great tradition of oral history of our country. Their children have the latest electronic gizmos but — for no fault of theirs — they have no value benchmarks, nor do they have any heroes worth emulating.
The scene is not too different in the homes of my help. There, television has killed the tradition of story telling and economic compulsion has made the parents work longer hours away from home, thereby giving them less time to be with their most precious assets.
I am talking here of just one instance which I am sensitive about, particularly since it is established that the first six years of a child’s life are the most critical to his emotional psyche. There are innumerable others, which I am sure you can spot if you analyse the situation. So think about your childhood and give your children elements from it while you still can. Else, you will eternally regret your inaction.
The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor

Baghdad school system struggling as pupils resume studies

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Baghdad school system struggling as pupils resume studies

Iraqi girls sit by a swimming pool during recess at a private school in Baghdad on October 12, 2010. As Iraq staggers to its feet, more schoolchildren have returned to classrooms, teachers and educators say. But that has overwhelmed the poorly-funded and long-neglected state schools, driving parents to one of the few dozen private schools.

BAGHDAD: Discarded drinks cans and plastic bags litter the halls of al-Mamuniyeh state school in Baghdad where, despite over a billion dollars of US spending on Iraqi education, children squeeze into dim, crowded classrooms, often without books or electricity.

In the same neighbourhood, the spotlessly clean al-Mawwada girls school that is privately-run and housed in a large modern villa seems a world away: teenagers with books sit behind neat desks in air-conditioned surroundings as a maths teacher chalks a quadratic equation on the blackboard.

With security on the mend and violence ebbing as Iraq staggers to its feet following the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, more schoolchildren have returned to classrooms, teachers and educators say.

But that has overwhelmed the poorly-funded and long-neglected state schools, driving parents to one of the few dozen private schools like al-Mawwada that did not exist under Saddam but are now springing up in Baghdad and other parts of the war-torn country.

“Private schools are better because they employ better teachers,” said Adnan Hashim, headmaster of the state-run Omar Bin Abdulaziz secondary school in Baghdad.

“I would prefer to send my own son to a private school than to educate him here,” said Hashim, remarking that the annual fees of about two million dinars (1,600 dollars) for a final-year student were too expensive.

Iraq once boasted an envious state education system, producing some of the most qualified doctors, engineers and scientists in the Middle East.

All schools were state-owned and literacy was compulsory from an early age, as it is now, but one in five Iraqis under 15 still cannot read, according to the UN.

“Overall, Iraqis’ perceptions of education have deteriorated during the past few years,” said a UN report in April.

Education has been a prime target of insurgents fighting against American forces and the Iraqi government.

Between 2003 and 2008, 31,598 violent attacks were reported against educational institutions, said a February 2010 UNESCO report quoting the Ministry of Education.

“I have no problem paying the fees for a private education,” said Fatima, a mother of three seeking admission for her 14-year-old at the Osool al-Deen school for boys.

“I am paying for after-school private lessons anyway because the teaching is so bad at his public school. I am hoping that he won’t need those lessons once he starts here,” she said.

“In the public schools you’re on your own. There is no one to help if you don’t understand something,” said Riham Rashan, a tall and lanky ninth-grader at al-Mawwada. “The teaching is much better here.”Private schools sometimes have facilities like swimming pools, or French-language or music lessons, not available in public schools.

They also often have better teachers because they pay around double what their state-employed colleagues receive and because thousands of experienced teachers were forced out of their jobs at public schools after the US-led invasion for links to Saddam’s Baath party.

“Public schools in Baghdad are overcrowded because less than 30 have been built here since the invasion. We need 952 more,” said Falah al-Qaisi, a senior education official in Baghdad’s provincial council.

He said that some schools had about 70 students per class, while private ones had no more than 25.

Since 2003, the US government has spent more than one billion dollars on education in Iraq. The funding built over 500 schools and refurbished more than 2,500 others nationwide, according to USAID.

There are about 3,000 public schools in Baghdad, while just 30 private ones have opened since they were authorised by the government in 2008.

The popularity of private schools has meant that their numbers are growing.

The UN says that the Iraqi government has “identified education as one of its main priorities” and increased budget allocation from 7.2 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009.

But Qaisi believes much more is needed — between 18 and 20 percent of the budget — and that the outdated curriculum should be modernised.

He noted that the results from the private schools favoured by Iraqi parents were not actually much better.

“Of the 61,000 students from public schools who took the exam last year for a high school diploma only 27 percent passed. But the percentage of students from private schools was only 31 percent — not much different,” Qaisi said, adding that the situation in Baghdad was worse than other parts of Iraq because of the capital’s larger population.

He said many who had stayed out of school for a year or two during the worst violence were having a hard time picking up their studies where they left off.

Children do better at school if mothers stay home

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Children do better at school if mothers stay home

A recent research has revealed that homemakers' children perform more at school than the kids of job-going women. The photograph shows a mother teaching her son at home.

A major study by researchers at Macalester College, Minnesota, and the University of California, has found that youngsters are less likely to succeed at school if their mothers return to work within a year of their birth.

Children of mothers who resume work during their first year of life end up faring worse in formal exams and show signs of being more disruptive, reports the Daily Mail. The child’s success was particularly affected if the mother’s work was full-time, the study spanning five decades found. The impact also varied dramatically according to class and whether the child was in a single-parent or two-parent household.

Children of middle-class and two-parent families were more likely to be affected negatively than those from working-class or single-parent families, according to the research.

“Somewhat later employment (years two and three) appeared to be advantageous for children’s achievement,” it concluded. Working full-time during a child’s first year — rather than reduced hours or not at all — may increase the risk of a child developing behavioural problems, it also emerged.

The research was publicised on Monday by the Daycare Trust charity, which campaigns for affordable childcare and has called for mothers to be given a year’s paid parental leave.

8 Indian States have 421 million multidimensionally poor people

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8 Indian States have 421 million multidimensional poor people

The UNDP Human Development Report places India behind Bangladesh and Pakistan in education and healthcare. This picture of very young migrant children working at a brick kiln typifies the stark inequities of Indian development.

Eight Indian States are home to 421 million multidimensionally poor people, more than the figure of 410 million in 26 poorest African countries.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index — which identifies serious simultaneous deprivations in health, education and income at the household level in 104 countries — brought out in the latest United Nations Human Development Report has calculated that South Asia is home to half of the world's multi-dimensionally poor population, or 844 million people.

The rates of multidimensional poverty are, however, relatively low in most of East Asia and the Pacific including China and Thailand. In Delhi, the rate is close to Iraq and Vietnam's (about 14 per cent), while that of Bihar is similar to Sierra Leon and Guinea's (about 81 per cent), according to the report released on Thursday. The Indian States include Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, often referred to as the BIMARU States.

The report's new Inequality-adjusted HDI, measuring the effect of inequality in 139 countries, shows South Asia with an average 33 per cent loss due to inequality in health, education and income — the second largest for a development region after sub-Saharan Africa. India loses 30 per cent overall on the Inequality-adjusted HDI, including 41 per cent in education and 31 per cent in health.

Major barrier

Women's inequality remains a major barrier to human development throughout Asia, the 2010 report shows. The new Gender Inequality Index — which captures gender gaps in reproductive health, empowerment and workforce participation in 138 countries — shows that six countries of East Asia and the Pacific fall in the lower half in gender inequality, with Papua New Guinea among the lowest.

Several countries in East Asia and the Pacific have little or no female representation in Parliaments, although the Philippines and Indonesia have elected women leaders in recent decades. South Asia is characterised by relatively weak female empowerment with an inequality loss of 35 per cent compared with 16 per cent in developed nations.

India ranks 122 out of the138 countries on the Global Instability Index based on 2008 data – with nine per cent of the parliamentary seats held by women, and 27 per cent of adult women having secondary or higher levels of education compared to 50 per cent among men.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index, the Inequality-adjusted Index and the Gender Inequality Index have been added as new indicators in this year's report, which runs into its 20th year. It spotlights countries that made the greatest progress in recent decades as measured by the HDI, with China, Nepal, Indonesia, Lao PDR and South Korea making it to the “Top 10 Movers” list.

Among the South Asian countries, Nepal is second among the top movers on non-income HDI, while India is among the top 10 movers in GDP growth.

Pushy parents may damage kids if their love is conditional, Deccan Chronicle

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Pushy parents may damage kids if their love is conditional, Deccan Chronicle

London: Pushy parents risk damaging their children's health if they link love to sporting success.
They face a delicate balance between supporting playing field ambitions and pushing their children too far.
Mr Rod Jaques, the national medical director of the English Institute of Sport, which works with elite athletes, said that in some cases a parent's love can appear conditional on the child achieving sporting success.
This can lead, he claimed, to youngsters developing eating disorders or inventing injuries, reports the Daily Mail.
Addressing the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference (HMC), Jaques said: "I think it is a tough one when a parent comes into the consultation who is both the coach and parent. It is a potential for conflict of interest there.It's a very delicate balance between encouragement and support for that child, and its potential for being a mentor or a tormentor of the child I think is really quite real."
"It is often anecdotally said that behind every injured child is a parent athlete wanting to get out." he added.

Five-minute test can tell parents if kids use cocaine

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Five-minute test can tell parents if kids use cocaine

London: Scientists have developed a low cost drugs test which takes five minutes to tell parents whether their children are snorting cocaine or cannabis.

The disposable drugs test relies on a droplet of saliva for any trace of drugs in a person's system.

Scientists say it can detect the littlest amount of a drug such as a metabolite (small molecules) of cocaine, reports the Telegraph.

Suspicious parents can screen their children for the drugs by taking a swab of their saliva and placing it into a machine.

The Vantix biosensor technology, developed by Universal Sensors Limited, could also be used by police officers to test motorists for drugs by the roadside.

Kevin Auton, commercial director of Universal Sensors, admitted the tests could have "huge implications for society."

"It is controversial but the test can be used at home by worried parents to test if their children are taking drugs," he said.

"We are very focused on getting the test out of the laboratory and onto other platforms. It is as simple to use as a pregnancy test.

"We can produce 30 million biosensors each year, which means it is very cheap to sell," he added.

The tests, developed at the Universal Sensors' base in Ickleton, UK, are designed to be used in the home. But they could also be rolled out across the country to aid police investigating suspected drug drivers.

Currently, officers perform Field Impairment Tests, which look at pupil dilation, balance and coordination.

These are not solid proof of illegal driving and police are often reluctant to carry out time consuming blood tests.

The breakthrough means officers would be able to identify drugs by taking a swab from a driver's mouth.