Recently Ishaan has started asking a lot of questions, not that he wasn't asking questions earlier but now he has started relating the topics, and thinking a lot before asking these complex questions. His questions are so well thought and communicated that it surprises us.
As we are visiting India in mid Jan for Dinu Chachu's marriage, we have started preparing Ishaan for this trip. Starting from his daily routine to language to people around him, everything will change for him and am sure initially he might not feel comfortable but eventually he would adjust surely sooner than we think. But its important to talk to him about what and why.
Dinu's marriage: A couple of month's back when Dinu's marriage was finalized, we started explaining Ishaan what marriage is and that chachu is now getting married to a girl and he is going to stay with her, just like daddy stays with mumma. He did understand what marriage means and gave us several examples from our friend circle for the married couples, but in the process of explaining him and getting the idea of this social bonding into his innocent brain we had to answer his several questions like, why is he getting married, when will Ishaan get married and his curiosity of finding a girl to get married etc. I realized there would be several such social rules made by human beings that he would come across in his life, surely his first question would be why are we doing it and later he will accept it and follow it, without being sure if it will work good for him or not, he will assume if it worked for everyone else it will also work for him. It might be after a point he wont have his parents around to ask such questions, so a parent's job is to give as detailed answer to their kids as they can, which could satisfy and convince them that the process they are following is correct and will work in their case as well, because only satisfied kids can create socially responsible adults.
Relatives: Ishaan knows the names of most of his close relatives and does remember the time he has spend with them in past, he would usually remember the incidents that happened when they were with him and when we talk to him he recalls all such incidents and says "Daddy, you remember yesterday when ......" (for him anything in past is yesterday:-)). A lot of our relatives are visiting us for Dinu's marriage, Ishaan has never seen them and am trying to prepare him with a list of such relative and his cousins, he is excited to meet them and thanks to facebook he has seen everyone's pictures. I remember once he told me "When we go to India, you and mumma will have a lot of friends their but Ishaan has no friends so Ishaan will be sad, as all my friends are here" so I thought to tell him about his cousins and now he is excited to meet them.
Safety: I am also preparing him for safety in India, like he should be careful with strangers and should stay with mumma, daddy or someone he knows. I give him situations and ask him what he will do and if he is wrong I will tell him what exactly he should do. I am happy to see Ishaan remembers the situation and actions every time I ask him and hopefully he will follow them if required.
Hindi: Am really happy to see Ishaan now learning and catching hindi words, its extremely important so that all our relatives can communicate with him and develop a bonding with him, when he is there. His English communication is above avg and I dont want language to be a barrier in his communication with all relatives and his cousins in India. I know he wont be fluent in Hindi in just few days but he should at least understand few common words and the context by then. We started with 3 words, every night before he goes to bed and now he can understand the whole sentence and sometimes reply with grammatically incorrect hindi. Recently I started telling him simple stories and asked him to translate hindi stories to english and he was successful, now I can also try vise verse in few days. Am sure his dadi maa will be very happy if she is able to communicate with him in Hindi.
I think, location, culture, communication and company affects a child most and his personality develops based on these factors. A change in any of these factors would bring in a temporary imbalance in his life but they are so quick to adapt and absorb, that they could entirely change their personality in just few months without much problems, if these factors are changed.
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