I was speaking with a couple of friends the other day. They have a 3 year old who does his preschool classes online, and had some concerns. 1. The activities in the classes seem too rushed - each activity was only 5-7 minutes in duration 2. Their child wasn't doing the writing activities in class and they couldn't get him to do it even otherwise, which was leading them to lose patience at times 3. Due to juggling household and professional commitments they were not able to spend time with their child, and when they were with him, they were trying to get him to do the classroom activities 4. Their child was getting cranky at times Understanding a child's perspective Impact of the Pandemic and lockdown The pandemic hasn't been easy on any of us. As adults we are able to rationalize a lot of things. The children are not. A toddler under 4 years of age is probably unable to articulate what they are feeling. It is up to us as adults to understand what they ar...

A child's nutritional  needs are very important. As parents and caregivers, we need to ensure that the right set of nutrients are available in a child's meals. These broadly fall under the same heads as what an adult needs in terms of the food groups, with a few minor variations - the number of calories, protein and calcium intake for growth, and so on. Most of the young parents would probably have a diet chart given by their pediatrician, and most of them are able to follow it reasonably well. However, we do sometimes get a different set of queries in this regard - 1. My child is not eating enough 2. My child does not like to eat healthy food Let's take this up point by point. My Child is Not Eating Enough Medical research says that for the most part, barring any serious medical condition, children do not go hungry. When they say they are full, they have eaten all they can, and when they are hungry, they ask for food. The more important thing to note is ...

 …Till we were struck by a miniscule virus – the Covid 19. It is important for the child to continue to have the additional support in their most important brain development phase – the two to four-year-old age bracket – when the brain develops rapidly to almost 80 percent of a fully developed brain. It is important for the child to have external support to develop cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and motor skills. It is important for the toddler to be exposed to a peer group and caregivers other than parents, whom they could observe and imitate for holistic development to happen. It is important for the child to be in a more conducive environment at school where they could indulge in their favourite pastimes in a non-judgemental atmosphere. It is also important for the child to continue to have an environment where they can interact socially with their peer group. This environment is now being denied to the children of this age bracket of two to four years. Many yo...

“Stunt, dwarf, or destroy the imagination of a child, and you have taken away their chances of success in life. Imagination transforms the commonplace into the great and creates the new out of the old,” said Lyman Frank Baum, the famous author of children’s books who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels, more than a century back. I must have been around two years old when my parents decided to send me to a playschool. My mother was a stay-at-home mom – and my younger brother was born a year and a half after me. It must have been tough for her to take care of two boisterous little ones all on her own. I may have been away from home for maybe only three hours in the morning; but it probably gave her  much-needed space to get ready for the battles of the day. What I still remember distinctly from my playschool journey is  a yellow coloured inflatable water pool in which around 10 or so children would gleefully jump for water play. We were a happy lot, without...

It is a difficult time all round. We have now completed four months since the lockdown was first announced. Most of you continue to juggle between household chores, professional commitments and child care without any third party support. Day cares remain closed, and understandably so, the risk is still too high. Honestly, even if day cares were to be allowed to reopen, it would take a lot of weighing the pros and cons to get to the stage where you would be comfortable in sending your children out of the house. Parents, lots of strength to you. You are all heroes for managing this. But things obviously are difficult for children too. For the smaller ones, perhaps this is just the way of life they know. Staying inside the house is all they can remember having ever done. But the slightly older ones are facing their own challenges. And when you share those challenges with us, we can only hope to offer an encouraging word of hope. A child, when he went out on a drive with his parents,...