Watch: Why We're Considering Moving to India: Netherlands Healthcare and Our Gifted Child

3:27 We know each other since a very long time so you know we were talking and eventually we decided that we should get married so in 2012 we got married and he's like we are we are in like random parts of the world what am I supposed to come and do in South Sudan where my next posting was and then I decided okay and I also had like some issues in Palestine where I had some life-threatening situations because of the conflict and then that put that made me decide okay then I'm going to go back to London and go back to a corporate job and I gave up my human rights work so when I went to London when we got married we started a good normal you know Indian life he used to work for a win turbine company and I used to work for a consulting firm so life was going on and eventually my husband got really sick after a couple of years he had a

4:29 Back injury actually and eventually we decided that he should quit his job and go to India to get it fixed because the healthc care system in London can be good if you go into specializations but can be slow and it can be yeah difficult to get appointments and referrals yeah So eventually we made the choice for him to just take a break go to India and get it fixed so I continued living in London and at that point I had a very hard time with my work it was a very toxic environment yeah there was a lot of racism going on in my team eventually you know when my husband came back I said I can't you know I can't continue here and at that point he didn't have a Visa because he quit his job and he came back as a dependent on my Visa so he hadn't found a job yet because he had just started recovering and all that so we had a out of settlement because I had

5:30 A lot of evidence against systemic racism at the workplace and they gave me an out of court settlement and for me it was just like you know I can't deal with this environment anymore and I had like mental health breakdown and so we decided okay we'll go back to

5:52 India and we went back to India but we were all we were not ready to like move back completely at that point so just as a reference like sorry to interrupt when was this year like just so that we kind of put so just like is it after 4 five years in London or yeah I think it was in the year 201 16 if I'm not wrong okay sure just reference okay 15 I think 15 December I think yeah when the Chennai floods happened it was that time I don't remember the year but it's been like now this is our eighth year so we moved back for a few months only and then we moved here got it so we went to by that time my husband had recovered completely and he found there's a rule in that time there was a rule in UK like if you give up your this thing tier four that tier four tier two I think I can't remember properly your work permit yeah tier two general I think it was called

6:53 That's the work permit it's like the H1B equivalent in UK okay now that's system is gone so if you give it up then you have to have a cooling period of one year you can't go back to UK MH so we said okay we were looking in other places and we my husband found an offer in Netherlands so we were like okay let's go so that's how we came to the Netherlands and that time Netherlands was even now actually Netherlands is very open Germany Netherlands lots and lots of Indians are coming here because here aging population not enough Workforce this kind of issues and it's very easy even now it's not very complex to move to Netherlands Germany and all it's pretty easy actually so that time it was the beginning of that influx of Indians so we were we were one of the people who kind of rode that wave so we came here quite early on I think before we came maybe five six years there were

7:55 Earlier families but we were one of the early ones still so we can came to the Netherlands now there's a huge Indian population here yeah but at that time you know when we came here it was really nice the difference between Netherlands and UK was fantastic because here we are experts there we are immigrants here you know once you get a work permit it's valid for five years and then you can apply for citizenship after 5 years so it was really and your Visa is not tied to the employer okay so it was a big relief for us because Visa stress is very very very debilitating and the UK we face that a lot because when my husband so got he had to give up his work permit and go and then my he was he came back as a dependent on me and I had a bad situation at work and stuff so yeah so that was all very great it was nice Netherlands is a wonderful

8:56 Beautiful green Place it's a great place for single people couples without children it's fantastic really at that time still you know the housing market was very not now it's extremely difficult to find even a room even for Indian students who come here they say don't come here if you don't have a room so it's that bad because it's a very small country yeah they don't have enough rooms here it's very popular after brexit Netherlands is a very popular destination for Indian students to come because UK has become very you know cost of living crisis is going on and all that still lot of students go to UK but now Netherlands in the last 10 years has become a very popular destination especially because we have really good engineering schools here in the Netherlands and good engineering job opportunities here so yeah so it was great for us in 20 my god when was my son 19 my son

9:58 Was born so in 20 8 I got pregnant and until then it was all great and Rosy for us it was fantastic it was really nice we had a good set of friends you know lots of Indians here and it was a nice social life and everything so 2019

10:15 My son was born and that's when we had our first encounter with the Dutch desired putting it very politely yeah and we were like oh my God we came from the UK and that was so much better really yeah okay the Dutch Health Care system is something else got it yeah it's yeah it's not a good system is it because of lack of doctors or is it the infrastructure just curious maybe if you can just quickly summarize yeah sure La they have doctors I think they I think for us as Indians our epidemiology is different we are we get different diseases we have different immune systems we heal differently and that is different for them like in the UK they used a multicultural population for many decades in Netherlands it's very new so

11:18 Here also like you know they have a very small population it's a very small country and they're very healthy population okay so they're very extremely fit very they hardly sick and when they do this health system is okay enough for them so the the main problems is there's no preventative healthare here there is no Private health care so even if you pay money you can't okay and their waiting lists are long and the biggest problem is the doctors are not competent I know it's like saced to say that people are not this is taboo like people don't really say this but if you come to the Netherlands there's like a joke like even if you go to the hospital and you're like dying then they'll be like here's some paracetamol so come back in 3 days so so what happened like for me personally that was my first encounter with the Dutch Healthcare System usually when you're like in your 20s early 30s whatever you don't really like this is not something that you think about because you are usually you know unless

12:19 You have some chronic illness you're pretty healthy and know life goes on and it's not something that so I had my I went into labor and you know my labor was long my I was not dilating here there's a huge emphasis on natural birth in Europe itself which is fine it's good but what happened in my case was 44 hours of Labor and when my son was born he had to be like vacuum extraction and everything I had this extremely rare condition called vaginal Fula which is eradicated in the developed world and India it's only present now in African countries where they don't have gynecological facilities it happens because of lack of gynecological care got it so when women have long labors and

13:20 There's not enough sometimes you don't have doctors right they just have midwives and stuff so in the Netherlands it's like that you know it's very midwife driven most of the babies are born at home it's it's a different like Hospital like you have to pay extra if you want to have your baby in the hospital it's it's that kind of culture so I had my baby in the hospital we chose to have a hospital birth we you can pay for it so I didn't have my son at home but and I had a gynecologist present usually there are no gynecologist at Birth in the Netherlands so still you know I had this so it's an extremely debilitating Condition it's it's a disability basically you know you have stool passing from your vagina on Non-Stop so this happened to me and they didn't they didn't and so vaginal tiring is something that happens to a lot of women when they give birth this is also like this is also part one of those situations but it's the worst

14:22 Kind that can happen and it is like the UN has a mandate to eradicate obic Fula from the world because it's that debilitating like you can't really walk around even if you're like leaking stool all the time yeah right so that happened to me and 15 months postpartum I was not able to find a surgeon to fix I needed a surgery basically and I couldn't find one and I was stuck in one room for 15 years my mental health went for a toss my baby was you know she small baby I had had to take take care so the problem was they should not have let me have labor for 44 hours 24 hours is the max in like most of the countries even in India of course C-section heavy they don't even let you go that far the US UK 24 hours is the norm but here it's not because of that I had this condition and it took away 15

15:24 Months of my life thankfully the rest of the world was also going through it because of Co so it's a blessing and disguise I didn't really miss much everyone was stuck at home I found that there's a Dutch surgeon who works in Africa who's an abic filla expert okay so I emailed him and I said you know can you do my surgery and he's like I'm actually in the Netherlands now I'm shielding because covid and he's 8 years old so he's like okay I'll do it tomorrow I was like okay but he's like actually I don't know because I I don't have license to practice in Netherlands and then I called my Euro gynecologist and I said I don't know what you will do 15 months I've been here I'm suicidal you decide what you want to do then somehow they did some jugar some that they helped me thankfully but he was a world renowned surgeon and they brought him as a guest lecturer and they did like a demo

16:25 Surgery for all the students so that's how I got my surgery but that was all me I put in a lot of effort it was not the system and they were like very happy to just you know have a trial surgery on me and that surgery is like very prone to failure so there are women who had like 20 surgeries and still they're not okay and that means your life is like finished you're sitting in one room in one place so luckily I got that Dutch surgeon who was from Africa and he fixed me but what was also happening parall was my husband was in this very high pressure job he

17:04 Was traveling he was a consultant and then he was starting to have very be off character like you would have very be very impulsive have like very high frustration low frustration tolerance irritability not performing as good as work which is very unlike him because he's as far as I've known him since childhood he's not that person something was happening everybody put that down to okay so much is happening stressful new baby wife is not well but I always knew this guy is not in depression he's it's something else like I've been in depression clinical depression he didn't have the symptoms but something was going on with we kept going to the doctor the Dutch house arts or the GP and they kept saying nothing nothing nothing it's just like stress burnout sickly one nice thing about NE you get up to two years paid sick Lea so at least if the Health Care system is

18:04 Not good at least you can be on sick leaf that much is there so that's the best thing about the nland actually you get really good you know if you have a permanent contract then your sick leave benefits are very good and you can take that time to recover yeah so then eventually once I was like recovered from my surgery that whole process took me like almost two years my son was two almost before I could you know from the day he was born it took me two years I had like PTSD I had to get therapy rehab I forgot like how to even cross the road because I'd stuck in one room for two years so then I noticed my husband was stopping breathing when he was sleeping like after I recovered until then I had no bandwith for anything and the doctor just kept saying take sick leave so he was on and off and sick leave nothing it didn't improve at all his situation and they were like lit he was very forgetful something was going on with him we didn't like and then I said

19:05 You're not breathing when you're sleeping then I quickly Googled and I saw it something called Sleep Apnea I said maybe you have this so we went to the house Arts the GP the house Arts said oh yeah yeah that sounds like sleep AP I also have it I'm like what's wrong with you for you know two three years we've been coming to you and you know you said burnout you said depression you said this you said that and then they said you know you're lazy you don't want to take responsibility of your child they said all of that and then and they're like oh sleep UPA yeah yeah even I have she herself had that condition if I have one condition first thing I will think is well someone else has it or not yeah then they did a sleep test he Ahi that is apnea hypo apnea index which shows how many hours you stop how many times you stop breathing per hour was 87 for 3 years they didn't diagnose him and my son my husband went through like this extremely high pressure job with a child

20:09 With a sick wife with all of this you know and then finally I diagnosed it no they didn't diagnose it I diagnosed it in Chennai know if you go to cavar hospital which is one of the hospitals there or like any Hospital any doctor first thing they'll ask is how are do you snore when you're sleeping do you like that's one of their screening questions I've been there like when I do Master Health checkup and all they ask this is a screening question it's not even it's a routine question and here for three years my husband lost his life because of the negligence you know I had this fista which should never have happened so many women go give birth come back six weeks they are fine I lost two years of my life yeah and my son what happened in all this until 15 months which which is I was the primary caregiver because my husband was traveling he had these issues and all that and I was the caregiver at 15

21:05 Months suddenly my surgery got thing and finalized and I had to and then after that I had like four months of bed rest so my husband was taking care of him and we had like babysitters covid time that time so different we couldn't find like a proper babysitter so we were changing babysitters to find like someone's stable and it was just a mess at that time so my son stopped talking making sounds like at 12 months used to say Kaka mama papa like those two syllable words no and by the time he was 16 17 months he completely stopped making sounds he completely stopped me he was losing eye contact he didn't fully lose it but it was almost gone he would not interact and he was this normal child he he was totally fine and my husband was so sleep deprived he hadn't slept for three months 3 years he didn't even notice this was happening to

22:07 The child and I only saw my son like 10 month 10 minutes a day maybe because I was in so much pain and I had like postsurgical complications and it was it was a lot then I noticed at 18 months around 17 and half 18 month this child is stopped talking stopped making stop he's just playing on his own in one corner he's not doing anything his Milestones are bit delayed and then I was like this this is not the case so I immediately I contacted the ggd here the health care the you you the youth Health care that's for the babies and stuff they they said no no wait until 2 years old after that only if speech delay and all we will talk we will we will not see anything and now anyway it's co time you just you know encourage him to talk I'm like this is one respons there's

23:14 Before two and any intervention even if the child is autistic before two there is evidence you can actually reverse it even you know before two years because the brain is so highly plastic at neuroplastic at that age my son was 18 months so I'm like you know I'm not going to wait for these people I got appointment in India with an Indian speech therapist with an Indian child psychologist and then we did an online appointment because Co time and all that and I couldn't go to India because I was still recovering so she said yeah yeah expressive language delay is there eye contacts little reduced but it was not like that and 18 months is when autistic regression starts you know for many children who have autism sometimes it's from birth but there is this 18 month is the mark when regression happens for children with regressive

24:15 Autism so I was very worried like okay what's happening and that can be triggered also by the environment and this whole unstable environment husband is like completely out and I'm am out and these babysitters back to back changing something has happened there and then she said Okay She's he's still 18 months it's great let's do intensive speech therapy but how because she's in India where she said don't worry I will teach you you do it so she used to take online class for me and I was the speech therapist for my son for six months day and night everything we did was speech therapy like the way we interacted with them everything was like and by two years he was hitting his Milestones because there is a growth spur related to speech at two and he rode that wave basically because of all the work we put in if he hadn't I don't know what would have happened if he had trusted this Health Care system I don't know what would have happened

25:16 So my son kind of speaks and he's now he's like a big chatter B that happened so but he was still like having some special needs I don't know if it is a Remnant remnants of what happened when he when I had surgery or I don't know but we also like later found out that he's extremely different from other children like his cognitive abilities were much higher like significantly higher he was

25:45 Reading by the age of you know two and a half he started reading like little words by three he was a fluent reader and his mathematical ability was I I can't even explain I've never seen anything like that so that happened by three he was multiplying and dividing and all that and with very little input we didn't like actively teach but then we found out actually he's gifted so this child is neuro Divergent he could have so autism ADHD giftedness sensory issues all this is a spectrum you know you there is a overlap of symptoms usually he could have been autistic maybe he's still autistic he because we inter so early he has some stereotypies of autism like he has very specific special interest he has he has high movement

26:46 Knes which is like similar to ADHD but he's not he didn't qualify for ADHD he didn't qualify for autism but that is also put down to extremely early intervention what remains now is like his higher cognitive ability has sensory issues which means he doesn't experience the world the same way that we do now preschool has started and we have lots and lots of issues in preschool like he has behavior issues he has you know it's a bit disruptive then we eventually found out then we said okay now you know this is not working their their expectation to confirm and also it was very unstimulating for him like he was at a much higher level than other children but also like you know he was attention seeking he was he wanted to talk only to the teacher there was nothing to talk to the other kids because his level was a little higher in the US there's a lot of you know thing for these kind of kids they have gifted schools and program here also they have but it's all in Dutch okay and we chose to not do

27:47 Dutch so then we said okay let's pull him out because his behavior was getting compromised because you know in school in they have certain discipline systems in the day in preschool and it was not jelling well with him he was getting really upset and he started falling sick because of stress IND your sickness he started getting weezing Asma stomach is he still has it okay so we said okay we'll pull them out we'll go to India three months we'll put them before he starts big school so we went to India three months we put him in normal prekg like nurseries you know you have one year our house we put up and was a different child because there they were stimulating him academically there there's a lot more Tolerance on you know how children behave because when you're three and four you're like not very cognizant of other people's needs and stuff yeah they have to learn they have to learn how to be in a so in a in a

28:47 Group setting and all that but there's a lot more tolerance for you know the delay in onset of these characteristics and it's a lot more for giving like children can be children and nobody is like complaining every single day today your child child like went and pushed the blocks of the other kid today you know your child pushed that other kid you know other kids also push my kid but we don't hear anything about that but my son does it a bit more than others yeah so it was amazing we thought okay now all the issues are finished now he's ready for big school we come back we put him in big school that is fourth birthday and then it was all back down downhill cuz the teachers are nice only but they just have different emphasis there's a there's very little tolerance on you know children who are developing their social skills a little slightly behind not very now

29:49 There are other kids in the class also who do the same but there's so much of like oh you know it's made a big deal in India they'll be like H by 78 they'll all done you know eventually Sooner or Later by the time they eight every kid will learn it and there's no thing about oh you are not you don't know how to take turns oh you don't know how to turns right like here it's not it's like you're supposed to do it and sitting they'll stand one notepad in the corner when the children are in outside play they'll not this kid is not sharing this kid is pushing this this is like three yearolds will push four yearolds will push this is normal part of life only it's not like you know some great thing to come and report and it used to be very stressful for us every day when we go pick him up they'll say this happened today that happened today that and also

30:50 Because he was not cognitively being stimulated so at home we see a very different child who is like nice of course he has his moments like every kid you know but I won't even I won't call my son as socially NE or anything and nobody else has also called that called him that here also in the Netherlands so at home he's a very different kid in school it's like completely disruptive completely you know not willing to stay in the group and constantly doing things to seek attention of other other other teachers because he wants to talk to a grown-up so that they he they can interact with him at the same cognitive level but the other children are not able to do that so we had we had like we went through this thing and we went to the government

31:40 Services to say like we went to the doctor they referred us there are services for all these things very good services but when we went there they came and did like a initial assessment and they were saying like oh you know this is all happening because you're twoo h two you're not letting him be independent he's you're too hands on and they were like oh he's still sleeping in your bed he needs to like be independent be in his own bed be in his you know eat his own food he eats his own food but at home I feed him because that's how my mom raised me she fed me when I was five I'm sure even now if I go and like I'm going to be 40 now and if I go and tell my mom I'm not feeling well can you feed me she'll feed me that's her you know the nurturing feeding is a big part of nurturing and mothering in parenting not mothering even fathers in India it's that's a big thing no like to feed your child is like a

32:42 Huge part of our culture and here they're like oh then he's not independent because he's not able to self-regulate because you're feeding him because you're sleeping with him he doesn't know how to be on his own he doesn't know how to be alone he's constantly attention seeking I'm like if that is your problem then that's not my problem we said you're not going to let these people into our house because they don't understand our culture we will hire private Specialists we have to pay a lot of money for but still you know it'll be worth it to get the services because if I'm going to let these people into my house they're going to come and like judge my culture and half the world lives that way more than half the world lives that way and now there's nothing wrong with what we're doing so then we went down we kind of you know got these Specialists who privately hired Specialists who are extremely expensive they came to school they did observations they all said the same thing he needs to be cognitively

33:43 Challenged they suggested that he be grade skipped the school is kind of refused because they think he's socially emotionally not ready although the people who've come to do observations think that all of that will ease out once he is put with his cognitively similar aged peers not chronologically aged peers cognitively similar age Pi because my son is like reading these thick chapter books he's five years old and they are learning a makes a sound B makes B sound my son is doing like you know big mathematical operations like sorry questions with multiple operations like you know like Bard Mass Rule and all that he does all that and here they're learning how to count one two three 4 1 to 10 that's what they learn in group one yeah so there's a big mismatch and he doesn't know what to do because he's very annoyed and also like with free

34:44 Play of course like academic is a very small part of what they do in group one but still like the play is also not cognitively at the same level like there are maybe one or two kids and they don't always want to play with with him so he's branded as this bad kid when actually nobody's seeing him for his gift for his strength there's no strength space approach they in paper there is a strength based approach in practice it's not so because they always say the right things but we've not had any extra support this in all these meetings we've done so many meetings in the last one and a half years and we don't and in the meantime a Chance's health is deteriorating we just came back like last week from India and he was in an Indian school for the last 3 months and it was a completely fantastic experience for the first time since my child started the formal schooling that is preschool I was able to breathe easy when he was in school and for me no

35:46 Amount of money or anything can give can you know it cannot be compared yeah that peace of mind that my child is is safe he's happy he's thriving in school rather than when I go pick him up who's going to say what today yeah that is worth its weight and gold for me it's something and my son thrived before he left he had asthma he had like gut tissue severe constipation he needed an anema which also was another thing like here in Netherlands for two months he had stomach ache they didn't do anything we went to the emergency at least five times and they would always say it's nothing and we went to Italy for holiday and there he again had stomach a we took him to a pediatric emergency room and within 5 minutes he had an he needed an anema it was that bad and for in Netherlands for two months they just ignored it there are other cases also like my friend's

36:46 Kid who had ta's operation he was vomiting blood and they like didn't do anything and this is like scratching the tip of the iceberg there are so many Medical stories here I don't even like that's like an entire different podcast understood yeah no thanks a lot for sharing such a lot of details there so just wanted to make sure you know few things that along the way right so your professional background was it more in the economics accounting side or were you more into the engineering it I me because you said like you went to the

37:20 London College of like you know economics or School of Economics School of Economics well I don't have a technical background or background so my background is in human rights in communication so now I do a marketing role I work for one of the Dutch government's water research institutes the world's largest water Research Institute so digital is my background my husb my husband is an aeronautical engineer so he had a he had a background like with the wi turbine companies and then he made a Transit told you he went to India for eight months to get his so at that time he also requalified to become a data scientist so so now he heads data science for one of the French aerospace companies here in Netherlands years so that's our background professional background got it and then just curious if you're open to share I know just sounding from

38:20 Like you know your experience in the last few years right you know from your health from your husband's Health like then work environment stress the kid in terms of the school environment just curious like why not move to India I mean or like to some other place you know that might be much more better for everyone and why

38:41 You know waiting to make the decision just curious if you're open so what has also happened in this meantime is you know during that period where my husband and I were both sick without any support system we had to basically blow all our savings on arranging child care for my child which is not daycare which is also expensive but you know we used to pay €2,500 per month for a full-time Nanny and that was not enough yeah because we were both very sick who's going to take care of the child so we pretty much blew through we blew through a lot and so Finance is a big issue second that's not the biggest issue because money can be earned you know in India is a land of opportunities and for me it's not a big thing that okay we lost all our savings like I am thinking I spent that money to you know have my husband alive because he could have died at any time if I hadn't diagnosed it on that day yeah he

39:41 Could have died the next day also because he was that bad he could have had a stroke or a heart attack which is very common actually for undiagnosed leap apnea I'm like take all my money give my husband a life sure so just a quick question I think switching G I think definitely got the point about importance of moving to India like you know the quality of life according to your definition I think you kind of briefly mentioned about your kid going to school in India right you know especially after the primary school so I definitely want to dive a little bit especially for your kid who is a gifted child you know is there some specific schools that you have researched in India and is there something that you have down selected and how did you go about it any any advice that you can share yeah definitely I'd love to share that yeah any any advice to the parents who might have be in a similar situation how can they look at it or what kind of opportunities of the infrastructure is there the schools so I think

40:42 Definitely would be very helpful so for

40:45 Me you know if you look at the schools in the US even UK UK maybe it's a bit tricky for special needs gift to children because they don't even like recognize the term gifted it's like called High Learning potential in the UK they don't use that word and there are social issues which say that you know everyone should be equal VI special treatment and all that okay they don't recognize it as a special need us has a different story I know that there are lots of opportunities for gifted children but for a lot of reasons us is not at all an option for us mainly like what I told you just now yeah yeah so India for me you know living in the Netherlands has given me huge perspective on how amazing it is to be able to speak the local language you know and Chennai for us is that place we speak Tamil and to in when it comes to selecting schools my son has been to school since he was what three years old

41:47 In India first he went to play school then he went to moneri prek now he now we went to India and I know what schools are there because I always been in that circuit and stuff and now there are lots of new schools coming up IB schools igcc schools even like cbsc schools and the teachers are all like getting upskilled you know there are courses where they go they learn how to you know teach in an IV school or in a gcsc school always in India we've had like good talent like teachers have been good with their subject maybe their approach their child handling skills were not up to you know that was the problem because they would be punitive they would be like unkind this when we were in school and all this used to be used but that most of them would be good with their subject you know if there's a math teacher means

42:49 It's very rare to find a maths teacher who's not competent maybe he he or she is extremely strict or punitive or not you know the approach may not be good now that is changing because there are courses there are a lot of competition also so with lots of new age schools are coming up in Chennai we've chose we chose an IB School because my son also goes to an IB School here we spoke to a lot of different schools also for prek I did this for nursery I did this I spoke to a lot of and I needed to find a principal or a teacher teacher who resonated with what I need and that is true for any country because there are all kinds of schools everywhere there is different children have different needs even if your child is neurotypical even if your child is there'll be some children who need to be encouraged in sport or like some child is good at singing or art or whatever you know so we need to find a

43:51 School that will fit and and play to their strengths yes you know if my child is an art if I put him in a school which is preparing the kid to for neat from fourth grade or whatever grade then that is not a good fit but if I put him in a walr school which are there in Chennai Bangalore Hyderabad everywhere it is there in Bombay Delhi then that is a good fit right that's the thing like you have to find the good fit for your child and that's a personal choice for many for lots of people for everyone actually you should talk to you know your child best and you go and talk to the school and say this is my child what do you offer and you have to make the decision is this a good for not like this is the best school in City this is the most expensive let me go and yeah so we we spoke to lots of school there there's like a new IB School which is like really popular very expensive we went to the school and we spoke we found that there neurod diverent they don't have

44:53 Enough support for neurod diverent children and their focus is different we said no it's not and we found this new IB School which is really small nobody actually knows about it but we spoke to the principal and she was like what the first sentence I said like you know my son has specially he has like she said oh he's twice exceptional these children are called twice SE who those who are gifted and those who have any disability along with gift and like sensory processing disorder for my son it can be ADHD it can be anything like you know some children can't see or hear any kind of disability along with gift it's called twice exceptional he said your she said your child is twice exceptional I was like shocked because in Netherlands no I have to like spend hours explaining what that means and I never seen anyone who actually asked me if you know is your child to e to is twice exception and I was like wow she's so

45:53 Informed she knows exactly what to do with my child that's a good fit right that is so my search ended there I didn't talk I had you know had appointments with other schools yeah I spoke to her she knew what to do with my child she she said your child is 5 years old but we're going to grade skip him because that's what she needs she said we'll put him in second grade because his cognitive level is there I said he doesn't know how to write because in Netherlands until 7 they don't really write she said it's okay okay what is that only writing is the problem no that he learn nobody had talked to me like that ever yeah I almost cried I actually cried in the principal's office because for me it was I felt heard and understood and I felt like supported very supported yeah makes sense I'm like please take all my money thanks for sharing some insights there I think in terms of how you

46:55 Selected so because I was just maybe more particular about you know cognitive stimulation like that you talked about right you know able to engage him at that cognitive level and you know the schools maybe are more focused for not so gifted I mean regular kids you know so that they all the same level right so I don't know if there are some schools that are particularly designated or they have a different curriculum or different sounds like I think you know just basically people who understand and then see what's the best way to approach see now popular opinion of the science Community today children need to study in an inclusive environment it doesn't matter whether you are gifted or you have you know autism or you have something else or you know whether you have dyslexia or disg graphia or dis it doesn't matter yeah inclusivity is very important of course it's not the norm in India but there are more and more schools which are now inclusive and more and more schools who

47:57 Are open to having this kind of diversity in the classroom because children learn from each other real world you have to work with all kinds of people if you're an engineer you probably have a higher you know F probability that you are neuro Divergent it's it's not even that you know in the real world all kinds of people exist so how are you going to deal with it so in India I've seen now Lots lot of new schools are actually embracing even old school they are embracing these children they are supporting these children they are having you know differentiation within the classroom the classroom is the same so my son eventually I said like no second grade we'll put him in first grade it was amazing because he wasn't with older age children he's five but his classmates were six and six to seven and they had mixed classes with second grade also that is 7 to8 so he thrived because finally he had someone to talk to and he was playing and collaborating and building and you know

48:58 Doing all of that stuff which he never did in the Amsterdam school because he was with four to five years old but it's not just that you know they're learning from each other I'm not saying my son is like you know that is also a special need being gifted is a some sometimes it's a curse actually because you can't really you can never really fit anywhere and that's big problem so having this kind of accommodations having for children see my son they in my school my son's school they had these periods every I think every day they have one period where it is personalized learning okay so every if one child is good in art or dance or if my son is behind with fine motor skills writing then they get special attention only in that area got it so they'll group the children who are good in certain things who need support also older children younger children so writing skills if they are behind then they'll go to one class if some child is

49:59 Very good in piano then they'll go there makes sense across classes so they have these personalized learning periods every week sorry every day yeah and then they have their normal classes they have they have their so that support it means a lot for the children to help them be themselves another big issue for us is in the Netherlands they have extremely strict laws regarding NE education like if we have to put p a child out of school and keep them you know take him to India for a we can't do it after age five it's a huge it's a criminal offense yeah so that is a big problem so we don't have that freedom to keep the child at home or like to H School him or you know educate him in a different system they have to go to school and it's a criminal offense on the parents if they are standing between the child and the child's right to education in Germany also it's like that UK also so it's like that in Europe This is there so your child needs to conform to that

51:01 Education system and it has to be inside that education system until age 18 this is very de it's very suffocating for us because our child has different needs and struggling in school yeah I want to send my child to school and like wa on with my life that is what I really want but I can't do that yeah yeah understood so in India if my child is really good with let's say like tennis I can tell the principal like see I'm going to him to school only half days or two days a week and he's going to do tennis for the rest of the three days that's possible in India here it's not possible no thank you for sharing that yeah so I know we have covered quite a bit on the kid side and you know kind of touch a little bit on the you know thanks a lot for being very you know open to convey some of the information the challenges that you and your family has to go through like you know with the healthcare side so is there anything that we have cover that you want to bring up you know especially for someone who's living in Netherlands and

52:02 Or like in Europe you know thinking about moving to

52:06 India well I think I think there is some level of privilege associated with being able to make that kind of move for a lot of people it is not possible and I don't know even for us it's going to be extremely hard but what what I've noticed is there is a you know will I be missing out on opportunities for my children if I mooved to India that is a big fear I think that's like with a lot of people I've spoken to they will they will endure and honestly I see like parents I have like so many friends like so stressed so stressed and I see my friends in India they are also stressed but you know like a different kind of stress it's just having family having that support system I think it is it it it it makes a huge difference like unless like someone doesn't have like

53:06 Good family or something I think you should not hesitate to move to India because India is up and coming it has it has like all the opportunities especially for children you know now the new schools it's not perfect by any stretch of imagination but you have flexibility you know you can find a school which fits your child and there are all kinds of schools like there are I've seen almost every school in Chennai because I've done so much research and there are there are moneri schools there are walr schools there are scho democratic schools there are Forest schools everything is there in Chennai this is only Chennai and I think I know Bangalore has more I know Bombay has more yeah Chennai is relatively small compared to Bangalore Bombay Delhi and all every kind of school exists there's a school called Good Earth School in Chennai it's very like green and like you know has very sustainable kind of focus and all that fantastic they have so many there are wal of schools I've gone to the Chennai walr school and like spoken to the staff there they're very

54:07 Very good very nice so that if in that school they don't touch the pencil till they are seven that's in Chennai not in Europe yeah they have that in Chennai so I'm saying do your research yeah do your research because don't assume that it's not there in India it's there yeah yes of course there'll be like adjustments you'll need to make there'll be like you know moving to any country is a huge adjustment for any family so those kind of things which you have the comforts you don't have here maybe sometimes you won't have that the comforts you because they're just different yes but overall if you have like is if you have like these huge life questions then don't hesitate because I ultimately it's your country nobody can kick you out of your country that is one big thing visa and all that is a huge stress of a lot of people nobody can kick you out of your country you speak

55:07 The language you it's your people and you know if you have a nice family then that's an extra bonus if you don't then that's different so I would say like have a bit more open mind I would say no oh which is very true I mean I think people might still have this wrong perception of what's available in India maybe it's been a long time since they have traveled or they even have exploded so just be open-minded it's not like taking a step back it just like things have changed and you know evaluate your you know information and make a right decision I think at the end of yeah absolutely absolutely So yeah thank you very much Miss pavitra for taking the time and being very candid and being open to share a lot of details you know especially with you know several aspects right I think your life in Europe and you know about your kid you know some of the challenges some of the things that you as a family you have to go through and how you're thinking about moving to India that could help

56:08 You know your son and you know the quality of time that you're talking about so really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your journey with us thanks for the opportunity AES I hope you know it's helpful for other people contemplating this move and hopefully we'll all meet in India sometime yes you should you should like have a meet up for Dy rores you know at some point definitely and keep doing your amazing work I think it's really helpful for a lot of people yeah we do thanks a lot thanks aash yeah