The Parentune Expert Panel
was a part of the recently held World Children Expo (WCE ’13) where they undertook a unique parenting
workshop in India on, “Raising
happy children”. Parentune café and workshops are in line with
the parentune mission of empowering parents to tackle real time parenting
issues. The parents were unanimous in admitting the unexpected parenting
challenges thrown at them. There is perhaps ample around us to reflect the
phenomenal changes in terms of work culture, technological advancement and
Internet boom. All this and more have pushed joint-families to give way to
nuclear families and have more and more working mothers. Urban parenting today
needs an approach updated with today’s time.
Driven by the awareness around the challenges faced by the urban parents the Parentune expert panel - Dr. Ann Simi John, Clinical and child psychologist, Ms. TanujaSodhi, Nutrition and fitness expert and Mr. NitinPandey, Founder CEO of Parentune, Child development and education expert, conducted the parenting workshop “Raising happy children” at WCE. The parenting workshops offered insights to strengthen and smoothen out the parent-child bond by addressing several important areas covering nutrition and fitness, handling aggression in children, how role-modeling is no longer a choice and more. Here is a crisp assortment.
1) As a part of ever growing abundance in urban
lifestyle we find ourselves over-feeding our children offering them calorie
dense foods and empty nutrients. Moreover, with all the safety issues and time
crunch we find ourselves and children doing less of physical activities. So, as
a consequence more and more children are fighting dangerous side effects of the
likes of obesity and juvenile diabetes. In such a scenario the importance of
healthy eating and active lifestyle cannot be over- emphasized.
2) In case you notice the aggression in your child,
watch out for the root cause like insecurity, frustration, unexpressed anger,
some recent change at school or home, death of a pet or of someone in the
family and avoid curt reactions to child’s anger. Parents can perhaps help by
offering acceptance and by being firm in letting the child know that it is not
OK.
3) Educating children about the importance of being
assertive rather than aggressive, by leading by example in person. Role
modeling can do wonders in this area. So think before you abuse in mid of a
traffic rage or an argument with a friend or a colleague over the phone.
4) Children are good copycats and they learn crucial
behavioural lessons from their own parents, so parents can definitely help by
consistently displaying a behavior in action that they would wish their
children to emulate.
