Kicked off my Youtube Channel

Hi All,

i have been pondering over for a very long time on having a youtube channel where i could share the activities we do with our son and his progress, but every time decided against it. Not that i don’t want to conceal information on my son’s progress or any of our faces, its the thought that would it come back to me or my son in a negative way in future ( Also i have to learn new apps for editing those videos !!). Last time when the thought came, took a determined decision that i would share whatever that would help/motivate/support a fellow parent through videos as well and began the Youtube channel. It kind of gave us a new found motivation to try out more things with my son now.

We found over a period of time, that my son likes to watch videos of himself doing activities or playing outside, that kind of excites him. We have used it as a opportunity to teach him as to what he was doing in the video and about his surroundings, we poke questions like when did we go to that place or with whom we went to that place while he watches the video, we get quicker response from him. We also use this as a tool of redirection, like when he is adamant on any particular thing, we play his most favorite video by casting from our phone to the Television, which instantly redirects his attention.
So we kind of began taking videos of every outing with him and the videos are showed to him during speech therapy sessions or at home and made him to narrate what he is doing, what is that place, where is it, did you like it, etc ….. Narration or Expression language skills are at an average for my son, he is kind of lost for words when he wants to express an emotion, so he keeps quiet or jumps to nearest familiar emotion like laughing or exhibiting sadness with his lips.
We took so many videos (never with an intention to share in in youtube) for working on his narration, comprehension etc, to a fact that we need to backup videos from mobile device to laptop very often. When me and my wife decided that we are going to share his videos on youtube, from that day onward we took extra caution while taking videos (like having a cleaner house at background, we look all dressed up and neat even while at home, ensure that i am not shouting at my son or his sibling, and most importantly ensuring both my kids are wearing a dress etc…)

Currently i have uploaded few videos that were taken in recent times, would upload videos of his earlier years as well as and when i find those. We are from southern part of India (Chennai), and our mother tongue is Tamil, however my son has been trained in English by the therapists as the therapists are trained only in English to provide therapy services. So we kind of speak to him in English, and in parallel we are also working on his communication in Tamil as well. You can also find few videos where he speaks in Tamil as well.

(A Psychologist mentioned that your mother tongue is related to your body and emotion, unlike a foreign language. He gave an example, that if i am going to abuse you in your mother tongue, you would definitely feel sad or cry or get angry, it would provoke an emotion, however if i abuse you in a foreign language which infact you understand very well, you will not have the same emotional response, the words are foreign to your body and emotion. Not sure if others feel the same way here …!)

Below is our youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbmj3NaOOX5jiJ7ozrMfRxQ

Hope it gives a sense of motivation, satisfaction, guidance, or healthy competition to try such things for your child with an sole objective of positive progress in our child.

Please feel free to share these videos or links to any one known to you, who might find it helpful….also provide ideas/suggestions/tips that can be tried at home….

Regards.
Saranya and Karthikeyan
karthiksaranyaparents@gmail.com