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Makes Living Fun

How to Keep Monsoon Diseases at Bay!

By:

19th

The Monsoons hit the south western coast of India right on time this year, making the whole country heave a collective sigh of relief.

Now that our biggest preoccupation has been addressed, the country hopes, the rains will continue their reign over all parts of India until at least October.

The rains bring cheer for the most part, but they also bring misery (Chennai and Mumbai floods come readily to mind). However, they can hardly be held responsible for our bad civic planning, callous land encroachments and mindless destruction of environment.

For parents, the season poses twin challenges: first is getting the kids ready for school and the second is worrying about flooded roads, falling tree branches, severed power lines and careless drivers when they are away at school.

Wet uniform, soggy socks and sodden school bags do their bit to add to the misery and the grim picture about life during the monsoons we have been trying to paint is complete! Well, almost, save for the most important of them all—how to keep monsoon diseases at bay! [Read more…]

How to Manage a Fussy Eater

By:

27th (1)

Have you felt like screaming on top of your lungs when the food (which you took hours to make) gets spit out in a second? You can’t shout – You can’t show your anger anywhere, but smilingly cajole your kid to take another morsel.

Yes, it’s tiring – Yes, it’s demotivating and No, you can’t starve them!

How to then make them eat? Firstly, you relax! Here are some simple ways which can reduce (not eliminate) your troubles with a fussy eater.

Children who are fussy eaters (also known as picky eaters) are particular about what they will eat. Sometimes the child will eat a small portion of the food and may refuse to eat at all at other times. Another exasperating trait they exhibit is ‘food neophobia’ or refusal to eat new foods.

‘Food training’ should start at an early age–the earlier the better. This is because children display their aversion to food to every stage of growing up. For instance, toddlers they may refuse to eat lumpy food, while older children are known to develop a passionate dislike for vegetables.

Kids are fussy eaters and they are, by no means, an exception but rather the norm. But fear not, and try out these useful tips we have put together for you: [Read more…]

Has your Child gone Internet Wild?

By:

13th

A recent social media post we received contained a composite image: In the first picture titled ‘Then’ a mother is seen dragging her dirty and badly scratched up young son home from the playground. In the second picture titled ‘Now’ the same mother is throwing her dazed-looking son—who’s mid-air, and still holding on to the joystick of the video game he’d been playing with—out on his ear.

The illustration aptly sums up an everyday situation every parent is faced with—internet addiction in children, especially those in the age group 6-14. Is the situation as bad as it is made out to be or is it an alarmist view of a harmless activity? The opinion is clearly divided right along the centre, and truth—as always—lies somewhere in between.

One school of thought thinks that parents need to seize the raging ‘internet bull’ by its horns before it enters the proverbial china shop. The other opines the benefits of making your kids net-savvy(if they are already not, that is) clearly far outweigh the former view, and it is safe to look the other way—for the time-being at least—and ignore the elephant in the room.

The trouble, however, is that the enforcers are not beyond the obvious charms of the net and routinely commit the ‘crime’ which they are supposed to curb. In other words, parents are as guilty as the children when it comes to unreasonable dependence on gadgets and internet. [Read more…]

Reading is the fun way to go!

By:

30th (1)

Imagine waking up to a world without the internet, which for some inexplicable reason has ceased to exist forever. For most of us, a life without Google, YouTube, and Facebook is a scenario nightmares are made of.

Those of us who grew up reading books (and those who have taken up reading recently) would probably raise our collective eyebrows one eighth of an inch, yawn politely and pick up the juicy crime thriller we had been reading before the ‘calamity’ took the surfing millions by surprise and sent them into a state of deep shock and utter disbelief! However, the book lovers would be more interested to find out who really committed the crime in the whodunit we just mentioned: was it the butler or was it the hollywood star staying at the Haveli as the Maharajah’s personal guest!

The world is divided into two groups: Book lovers, and those who regard the activity as one that requires infinite amount of patience to wade through tonnes of the written word– one solitary page at a time. For book lovers, however, it was books that kept them out of mischief in childhood, it was books that provided them with a window to the world in college, and it was books that kept them entertained when they started fending for themselves. [Read more…]

Enjoy Winter with Fun Board Games & Activity Crafts

By:

16th

Winter’s here! It’s time to dust those board games and have a gala time with family and friends. Playing board games is not only a fun activity but in the process, children can learn a lot of strategies and it can help develop their brain as well.

Every craft or an activity book has its own way of teaching something new and improving children’s sensory skills. Not only a child’s individual development, but also his social skills are accelerated by various board games and crafts.

Here are some of the ways board games and activity crafts can help your children:

They introduce the concept of critical thinking

Board games cannot be played unless and until you think through your next move. It helps develop the functionality of critical thinking in your child and also helps them to learn to strategize.

Board games like monopoly, mastermind and chess help the kids develop their thinking abilities and help them think in different ways.

It is very essential that kids learn to think of new ideas or ideas that are out of the box from an early age and these board games provide an interesting and fun way to achieve the same. [Read more…]

6 things that parents can do to ensure a brighter 2017 for their children

By:

1st

There are many things that we plan for our children but in the everyday rush of doing our daily chores, sometimes those things just remain at the back of our mind. This 2017, let your kids learn something new and experiment with various things in this world.

Here are some things that parents can do to help their kids have an amazing year ahead:

  • Encourage them to participate in extra-curricular activities at school

Encourage your kids to register for as many extra-curricular activities as possible in school. Let them explore and see what suits them and what does not. Extra-curricular activities will help in developing the all-round personality of your kids. They will learn to interact with new people and they will also know as to how they can socialize once they step out into the competitive world.

[Read more…]

Yoga, Patience and A Child’s Development

By:

14th

Planning for a big family vacation, are we? Actually achieving the rest and recreation you need is not that easy to achieve while you take off and touch down at your destination. Traffic jams, flight delays and waiting at the baggage claim sure does drain out all the energy from you and your family.

It is quite easy for us adults to cope with such fatigue through our checklists and stress relieving items that we pack along with our essentials. It is very difficult for a child to have any sort of control over themselves or their surroundings. In such situations yoga comes to the rescue. Here are five poses that can help your child relax. [Read more…]

Making our homes nature-friendly

By:

25thjune

 

The most striking feature of old traditional houses such as Chettinad mansion in Tamil Nadu, Tharavadu home in Kerala, and Guttina Mane in Karnataka is their non-dependence on modern technology and their use of nature to meet most of their basic needs.

[Read more…]

Surya Namaskar for a healthy and happy life

By:

4th

 

Technology has played an important role in raising income levels substantially in India and the rest of the world. But it has also brought with it a new set of challenges.

Economic prosperity is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it helps us to fight diseases better, it generates better incomes, and it provides access to better education. On the other, [Read more…]

Education Abroad: Some important issues

By:

27thmay

 

The number of Indian students choosing to pursue higher education abroad has seen an upward trend in recent years. Our student community is beginning to gravitate more and more towards foreign universities than our own.

The decision does not come entirely as a surprise when you consider not one Indian university ranks among the top 200 universities in the world. What ails Indian education system and in which areas do foreign universities score over their Indian counterparts?

Our education system mainly suffers from:

[Read more…]