New Year is the time for reflection and resolve for most of us. Reflection on what we did right, what we did wrong in the year gone by and what we want to change in the year to come and ‘resolve’ to make that change happen. This year, we enter the New Year on a sombre note disturbed with widespread news of agitation, brutality and violence. While there is an active push for stricter laws and deserved punishment for the accused which is absolutely needed at a larger scale, I continuously wonder what it is that I can do as an individual and a member of the society we live in.
After a lot of introspection, I still have not found a good answer but one thought that continuously comes to mind is I can play my role by doing my bit in shaping children into responsible adults. I feel fortunate to be surrounded by children at work and home who enrich my life by just being there, fully in the moment. It does not take much to connect with children; they are there willing to engage with anyone who makes himself or herself available to them.
This New Year I resolve to encourage my children at school and at home to engage more with me as a parent and a teacher and less with Chhota Bheem or Karan and Kabir.
I resolve to keep my kids away from the crassness of Chikni Chameli or Munni and expose them to more of Magic School bus and stories by Sudha Murthy, Anushka Ravishankar and the likes.
I resolve to play more cricket, hide and seek and chess with my children than let them play PSP and Wii with boxes. Iresolve to just talk more at snack time in school and on dinner table and evening walks at home rather than SMS and email.
I resolve to create more opportunities for children to play; play which is serious business for children, from preschool days to adolescence and a practise for adult life.
I resolve to work to make my apartment complex, my gated community safe for children to play without fear I resolve to make myself more available to my children to express their feelings, feelings of love, joy, anger, sadness.
This New Year I resolve to give my children both at school and at home the biggest gift of all – Quality time. On behalf of the whole Intellitots family, I wish you a very happy, safe and playful new year.
Pooja Goyal, is the Founder, Director of Intellitots. Pooja is an engineer from IIT Delhi and has done her MBA from INSEAD, France. Pooja is a serial entrepreneur and having worked and lived in the US, Europe and India, she blends a successful track record at companies like Adobe Systems and Palm with her passion for education in the early years. She has worked extensively to develop world class learning oriented programs and products for the early years. She is a children’s book author, a singer, a mother of two adorable girls and above all an educationist with a passion for impacting the early years.
