Periodical Medical Examination

As a routine, I got periodical medical exam done. When I discussed the results with the Doctor, he told me something interesting (scary?). I asked him whether an OK medical report guarantee good health for next one year.

As per him, An OK result on treadmill test or 2 D echo of heart, may not guarantee for the next one year or more of disease free life. He was quoting a famous cinema actor’s case. He got his PME done and came home with all normal report. At his house, when he was climbing the staircase (ironically, with medical reports in hand), he collapsed and died subsequently.

Doctor concluded by saying that one has to take continuous care of his body and not relax after a satisfactory PME.

After the above observation, one gets a doubt as to whether PME is of any real use. There is an interesting view point discussed in Wikipedia. However there is one interesting input in favor of PME. “People who undergo yearly medical exams however are more likely to be diagnosed with medical problems.”

Thus one has to take his/her own conclusions and take care of one’s health accordingly.

Origami

This is a fun activity for children and adults alike.

Origami means paper folding. This is a craft, where paper is folded into different shapes. There are many videos available on youtube on how to fold paper to get letters, animals, objects etc.

This is a fun activity for children of all ages. Can be started with children as small as 5 years.

Initially, an adult has to accompany / guide the child in making some easy shapes. It does not matter if the fold or the object is not great. Let children pay with paper first. Slowly they can develop interest and skill and after a year or two, they can do things on their own or by seeing books or videos.

Origami can be used to teach mathematical concepts to kids.
 
This activity develops hand to eye coordination in children, at the same time entertaining them.

Adventure camps India

As children grow older, their range of activity increases. We as a protective parents impart more and more caution to them leading to curtailment of their activity and enthusiasm in the process. There is a famous saying “Many difficult tasks were accomplished by persons who did not know that they are difficult.”

A parent has to come out of this mindset that he/she has to protect the child fully. This change is not possible or advisable on a sudden basis. A child is to be given more and more freedom to do things and understand implications, as he/she grows older. This way, parent also can loosen her control gradually and prepare the child for real world life. It is true that this process of loosening can be easier/faster for a male child compared to a female child, it is needed all the same for any child.

But it is difficult to find a suitable and  appropriate activity for a teen child. There are some organisations in India, who take up some such tasks.  Youth Hostels Association of India(YHAI) is one such. Girivihar in Mumbai is another.

Both these organizations, provide a platform to live a real world life to a child. Girivihar conducts a camp in Dec every year for children between 8-14. They take these children to near by place and let them indulge in activities like rock climbing, rappelling, river crossing etc. The group of children are guided by expert guides. They are conducting this for the past 30 years or more.

YHAI on the other such organization which has pan India presence. They conduct adventure camps for children/adults of various age groups and organize camps twice a year in Dec-Jan and April-Jun at various places in India. Typical age groups are 10-12,12-14, 15 and above and 18 and above. One issue with taking them for a child is that someone has to leave the child at the camp and bring him/her back after the camp.

The bookings open 2-3 months in advance for both of these, so that a parent or guardian can plan in advance for them.

One more fact about these organizations is they are not for profit organization and the pricing of camps is at cost to cost basis.

These organizations and their camps help parent design an age appropriate training program for a child to improve/impart some much needed skills for a child to be on his own in the real world.

YHAI camps are good not only for children but for adults too.

For futher information on these organizations, one can visit their websites.