A Letter to Kids-1

A letter to Kids (1)      

Patna,Bihar,India

 30 March,2012

My Dear Kids,

I welcome every one of you from each corner of the world to “Baal Chaupaal”. Literally this is a Hindi word meaning ‘Kids’ Club’. As a member-reader of Baal Chaupaal we would be sharing our experiences, our knowledge and wisdom with each other. We grow in life into a responsible child and citizen through our own experiences and knowledge. When we share others’ experience, it helps a lot to take important and proper decisions in right direction to achieve success in our life.   As a kid you are not only very precious to your dear parents but also to the Mother Earth. Mother Earth is a universal mother. As your parents expect a lot from you ie. You should read a lot to become scientists/professionals or you should play a lot to become world famous sportsmen/athletes. Mother Earth similarly expects that we could be her very loving and caring children. She expects a great sense of responsibility from each of us. You might be asking me that “Does Mother Earth talk?” or “Has Mother Earth ever told you to tell kids about this?”. It might be sounding funny if I say a strong “Yes”. But my dear kids you should grow into such a matured human being that you could be able to hear her voice. There is no doubt that you should become a great human being first. Whatever you do in life, whatever profession you choose to go for in future, always you should try to become a good human being. Unless you become a good human being with a sense responsibility to yourself and your family, a deep sense of compassion and kindness to others, you will never be appreciated and applauded. To become a good human being, every day you have to be in good health. Health means you should be physically, socially and mentally fit. But the dimensions of health do not complete here. Dimensions of health also include our education, society, culture and above all our environment where we live in.

To stay physically fit, we should eat good, nutritious and hygienically prepared food. This food should contain required amount of nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. Then our food becomes balanced one. When you take any food item ask yourself: ‘Do I really need it?’, ‘Is it hygienically prepared?’, ‘Does it contain prescribed amount of nutrients?’ If you get the answer “yes”, then go for it. Every day we should eat a prescribed amount of food called ‘balanced diet’ which is scientifically appropriate for our age, weight, gender and physical activity. Always take care, neither to eat above the amount nor to eat below the prescribed quantity appropriate for you. During feeding we must take care of quantity as well as quality of food. Why are talking so much about the food? Because when we eat more, we become ‘over nourished’ and when we take less, we become ‘under nourished’. Over nutrition leads to diseases like obesity, high blood pressure/hypertension, diabetes mellitus, different types of heart diseases, cancers, joint problems etc. Under nutrition also leads to diseases like generalized weakness, anaemia, scurvy, rickets, recurrent infections from disease causing agents like bacteria, viruses etc. To keep ourselves fit we should do physical activity regularly everyday either in the morning or evening along with balanced diet. At least one should go for 30-45 minutes for routine physical activities like brisk walking, running, swimming, playing outdoor games like football, tennis, badminton etc. In our daily routine we must keep physical activities in order to save ourselves from diseases. I would like to share here, a joke with you. One day I was going with one of my friends. We came across a family of overweight parents and two very fat kids. Each of them was very sluggishly walking and feeling difficulty in walking. My friend asked me, “Could you tell about the problem which runs in this family?” I answered, “My dear friend, nobody runs in this family. And that is the problem.” Due to lack of daily physical activity each of them was suffering from obesity. I hope, you will prevent obesity to take over your body.

Our psychological, mental and emotional well being is very vital for our personal growth and development. Our ability to respond to various situations of life, our sense about purpose of life and our ability to maintain equilibrium or a balance in the relationship between us and other individuals around us determine our mental health. By a simple example we can understand the above three components. Now hear a story of a student who failed in final board examination. A student called John was very excellent in mathematics. To his surprise he scored very less in that subject for which he failed in the examination. He felt extremely bad and he developed a sense of doubt in him. Whether he is so poor in mathematics? Whether his answers are meticulously checked by the teacher? Whether the teacher knowingly awarded him least marks? Here an imbalance in psyche/thinking initiated with him. He could not accept that he had been failed really. He felt angry about his teachers and he suspected that the teacher knowingly has awarded least marks to him. He could not know and cognize where the real problem is which leads to such an unexpected happening with him. He felt restless and lost control. He burst into anger towards other individuals like his parents, his own siblings and friends. Here his emotion got disturbed. After that he continued on thinking about this day and night. He lost self esteem and avoided to mingle and play with friends. He lost interest in food and friends. He got less sleep at night. Due to loss of sleep he developed more anxiety and stress next day. He threw himself into a vicious cycle of mental disturbance called depression. There are many neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin etc in our brain which play a role in expression of feelings of our anger, happiness, sorrow. There is a balance between each of them. When this balance is disturbed we become mentally ill. In the above story we found that failing in mathematics was a real life situation for John that lead to internal conflicts and psychological upset. This upset lead a sense of bad feeling and irrational emotion in the form of anger. Finally continuous and repeated cycle of these events lead to over/less secretion of some chemicals in his brain putting him a state of depression, which is known a mental disorder in medical science. Remember kids, a mentally healthy person is never at war with himself/herself. The person accepts failure and success in life equally. The mentally fit person accepts criticism and praise from others equally. The person has a strong sense of self esteem and self control. He/she applies his/her intelligence and talks to seniors and experienced persons to solve problems in life, fight out stress and anxiety. I hope you will never hesitate to seek help of your parents, teachers and peers for solving your real life problems.

In my next conversation with you, we could talk about other dimensions of health left out here. I believe you will be enjoying reading Baal Chaupaal regularly. I would like to suggest you that you should give your feedback and raise the doubts on every topic we are discussing. You can also suggest some topics of your interest for a fruitful and effective discussion. Now let me say ‘good bye’ to all of you. Take care and enjoy. Yours lovingly,

                                                                                                           Uncle Prabir

 

My note: This article is currently being published serially in a quarterly magazine "Baal Chaupaal" by the children and for the children being published by "Ark Foundation-India" in collaboration with "Baal Chaupaal Inc". One can visit this magazine at www.baalchaupaal.org and can write for children.