Whenever you initiate an interaction with your child (be it a conversation, an activity, a game, even a trip to the park), there is a certain reaction you have in mind. That is a part of your assessment based on your own personality traits. And it may not matter how young your child is. Sometimes, your child may react exactly how you expected them to, sometimes, you are taken by surprise. Why does this happen? Personality Building and Development Every parent must have heard time and again that the early years of your child's life, specifically the first five years, are some of the most important ones. This is because they are building their own individual, unique personality even when they are infants and toddlers. The many kinds of stimuli they are exposed to help shape that to an extent, but every child still has an inherent personality which is unique to them. If we look back at our own experience at Morning Glorie, we have seen different children respond differently to the sam...

Online Homeschooling or home education is when the education of children happens outside the premises of an actual school or at a place structurally different from a typical school. It could be at home or a variety of different places other than the boundaries of a school. They are usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an online teacher with methods that are less formal and more personalized according to the needs of the child, which is uncommon at a school. The structure of homeschooling depends on the party conducting the school or the attendee that is the student, it can go from highly structured to a more open and free form of schooling. Online Homeschooling- where school comes home, smarter and better In India, Homeschooling is fairly a new concept despite being practiced in the west for a long period of time. India is a country where traditional schooling still prevails at a very large scale giving little to no importance to practical and choice-based learning which can make i...

Some years back (many more than I would care to admit to),  I remember me and my cousins had gone out with our Aunt and Uncle and parents to the market. CP in Delhi as I recall, as posh as it could possibly get. My cousin at that point was a mere toddler, I may have been in my teens. As is quite common, not just with kids, but adults as well, he saw something in the market which he liked, and wanted. For xyz reason, he was refused. The result - he lay down in the middle of the shop, started crying, and refused to get up.  By any stretch of imagination, this scenario is not an uncommon one. Parents across the globe experience it, not just with toddlers, but even older children. Barring the last year and a half, when kids have primarily been at home, we have in our last decade of experience at Morning Glorie's preschool and daycare in South City1 Gurgaon, had many parents come to us and talk about how their baby was likely to "throw a tantrum" if they did not get what they ...

Almost 11 years ago, a mother and daughter set out with a dream - to set out on a journey and build something together. But, the million dollar question was, what temple would they build? What could they do together which would take both their skill sets to complement each other? And then it hit them - the mother-daughter duo would embark on a journey to support other mothers and fathers and their loved ones, their little ones. And so, after a period of much prep and love and labour, on 1 August 2011, Morning Glorie opened up her doors to welcome all little children and their parents, who were looking for a safe and loving space as they took the first steps towards their own new journey - a child learning to leave home for the first time to embark upon a learning journey, a parent looking to balance work with home, a parent looking to take the first step towards nudging their child into an unknown world.     At Morning Glorie, we grew along with each of our children. As they r...

Our parents' generation worked hard to make sure that they could offer us a chance at a better future than theirs. Our generation grabbed that opportunity to make sure that we could provide the best for our children too. The combination of better monetary resources and availability of a variety of options for our children has meant that we are able to give them all that is deemed necessary for their holistic growth and well being. This starts at an early age. Parents invest in various learning aids and toys and books as per their child's age and development needs. We see many ads and reviews for many different kinds of products. But, did you know, your household itself can provide many of the learning aids which your toddler needs? In fact, if you look closely, the household can actually be considered one big learning aid, with many smaller aids to facilitate learning on all possible fronts? Unlike many other learning institutes, the focus of Morning Glorie's online homesch...

Every parent wants the best for their child - we do everything in our power to provide the best of opportunities to our children. This starts at quite a young age - sending your child to the best schools, giving them access to the best of resources, spending quality time with them to give them the best possible direction, as they grow older, sending them to the best of colleges, and so on and so forth. In this process, subconsciously or consciously, unintentionally, or sometimes intentionally, we tend to lose perspective. This may happen in two ways - Living Our Aspirations Through Our Children Parents living their own dreams through their children is not something new - this is something which is probably as old as time. It is perfectly natural to want our children to have better lives than we did, but sometimes, we end up with passing on our own aspirations to our children. This may be subconsciously done, but ends up guiding our choices right from the beginning. Making Comparisons A...

Typically, when we talk about a child going to preschool, we focus on four key aspects -  Peer Group Interaction This is possibly the most important aspect for a parent when sending their child to preschool. Their child's exposure to peers, and helping them learn to make friends is a key aspect of their growth and development. While this remains true for a major portion of their growing years, the foundation for this is laid as early as 12 months (for children going to day care) and 18 months to 2 years (for children going directly to preschool). It is for the same reason that parents also take their children to parks and organize playdates at home - introduce peer group interaction. A preschool adds on an element of structure and assured peer group on a regular basis. Exposure to an Environment Away from the Comfort Zone of Home Home is where the heart is, but home is also where the comfort is. It is the safe space of every child, the only world they know till the time they step o...

As we continue to deal with Covid, I am witnessing a whole variety of situations - at home, with friends and colleagues, neighbours, our parent body and so much more. My takeaways so far - 1. Maintain a positive outlook as far as humanly possible, especially if you are able to manage with homecare. Stress helps no one, on the contrary, it may be detrimental to your health and those close to you. 2. Help those that you can - with verified leads, medicines, hospital beds etc. I have personally seen my networks rally and bring help wherever needed. 3. Mask up! Please do not assume that you are safe just because you have been vaccinated or one report has come in negative. Till the virus can incubate, you are at risk, especially if there is even one case at home. Watch out for any symptoms, and even if there are no symptoms, maintain your chart - temperature, SPO2, pulse and any medication (even if just supplements) prescribed by your doctor. 4. Find a doctor - one who is available on call ...

The last one month has been tough all round. Friends, family, colleagues, children, their parents - every other household has a Covid story to tell. Someone in the family has Covid, you yourself have covid, perhaps a neighbour, a loved one - no individual is left unscathed. Either you are convalescing, or you are managing a household with Covid, or you are dealing with the loss of someone close, or if by the grace of God you are not dealing with any of the three, then you have been a Samaritan to those who need help. Morning Glorie has been no different in this regard. MG family is suffering too - some of our team members are dealing with Covid - either personally, or in their close families, so are our children's families. Things have been difficult - parents are struggling at home as they have small kids to take care of, while the teachers are managing their health too. It is in times like these that MG family truly feels like a family. The outpouring of love and support from all...

  "My child does not recognize certain alphabets" "My child tends to shy away whenever we have guests at home" "My child does not show interest in number recognition, but loves to mess around in sand" "My child loves to speak, but when I ask her to speak vocabulary with a particular alphabet, she goes silent" "My child understands shapes, but is unable to find them in his surroundings" Notice the difference in the implications of these statements - they represent some examples of the difference between what we call concrete vs abstract learning during the early years at Morning Glorie, play school in Gurgaon, and online homeschooling in India. All too often, we tend to focus on learning which can be measured, which is concrete. What we tend to forget is, every experience, new or repeated, is a learning - this is truer during the early years of life, though it is something to ponder on and incorporate in our own lives irrespective of age...

I was always amongst the youngest in my class, and for some reason, it filled me up with a lot of pride. If you asked me why back then, I had no idea, other than maybe the fact that despite being the youngest, I could outperform my peers academically. After all, we come from the generation when performing well academically was more important than anything else.   This was true however only right up till the time I went to b-school, and realized that my batchmates, who were older and had more experience were by and large more worldly-wise than I was (not true of all for sure, there were batchmates younger still who thrived in the environment). The point is, I eventually reached a stage where I felt that it was important to gain more experience before being thrown at the deep end of something I was potentially unprepared for, and it also gave me the chance to introspect what I had missed out during my earlier journey. For instance, while I was a good student, I missed out on a...

My mother, who is also my partner at work (this may seem odd, but we do complement each other in our skillsets, this makes us a good team), takes some of the batches in our online homeschooling in India program. These are live and interactive sessions, where parent and child attend together and are part of small groups of children for guided learning sessions. She also handles communication with the parent body, something we have learned is a very crucial aspect - at times, it is our responsibility to give the right guidance to parents as much as addressing queries which they may have. So two instances happened in the last couple of months, where a concerned parent called us up to tell us that their child was only interested in some of the activities, which seemed more fun in nature, while they tended to either show disinterest, or run away from some of the other activities.  Their query to us had two dimensions -  1. Should the nature of activities be changed? 2. Were we push...