2nd Early Childhood Education Colloquium : Act Now to Raise Stress Free Resilient Children!

New Delhi: The 2nd early Childhood Education Colloquium was organised at India Habitat centre, New Delhi By Early Childhood Association (ECA). The Colloquium focused on key issues like safety of young children, addiction to screens and how to reduce stress of learning in the early years to nurture life skills in children so that they grow up as resilient youth who can contribute positively to the development of their families and country.

Dr. Swati Popat Vats, President of ECA said "It is important to rely on teaching & parenting ‘instinct’
rather than copying what other parents and schools are doing. Aspirational value is driving the society
rather than sound judgment of what is good or bad for our own kids. As a result there is lot of stress from
early childhood onwards affecting the resilience of young generation. There is an urgent need to address
such issues by engaging with early childhood educators, parents and policymakers, and that is what we
aim to achieve by organising such events"

Dr Vats spoke on the important topic of Nurturing Resilient Children and Youth & how the 3 S –
safety, stress, and screen addiction impacts resilience.
Excerpts from her talk-Resilience-which simply put is the ability to recover quickly from difficult situations. Resilience is built if you allow children to feel their emotions and allow them an avenue to release their emotions. If one can’t feel, one can’t empathize. There are 7 elements of resilience, the seven ‘C’s – Competence,
Confidence, Connection, Character, Contribution, Coping and Control. These are the qualities that
teachers and parents need to inculcate in their daily interactions with the children to nurture resilient citizens of tomorrow. These can’t be taught, but can only be passed on through daily engagement with
children.

Stressed children can’t be resilient. Hovering is a stress. The tendency of parents/teachers to hover
around children is causing them stress. Adults taking decisions on their behalf rather than guide them
through encouragement and not interference, is affecting their resilience. For educators, specially of
very young children, it is important to do developmentally appropriate activity to avoid Stress in them-
i.e. to determine if the child and her stage is ready for that activity before undertaking the same.

Academics being thrust upon young children in nursery itself- with the expectation that they should learn
early, start writing early, start doing maths early etc., is causing stress which is hampering their healthy
development and affecting their resilience. Such stressed children grow up to be stressed youth who may
then get hooked on to drugs etc to get out of such stress.

Screen addiction in young children, be it of smart phones, play stations, I-pads or television is another
challenge that we must address. children are given such devices from a very early stage to keep them
engaged, entertained and off the back of parents etc. The ability to change channels at a touch of button,or swipe of finger is raising fidgety children with short attention spans. The overexposure to blue rays from these screens which we normally get for the sun that stimulate growth hormones in children, is causing very early onset of puberty in children now a days. We have young minds not mature enough to handle early onset of sexually active stage. Issues like Blue Whale Challenge are a result of screen addiction .So, it is important to limit screen time by engaging children in physical activities.

One of the best was to nurture Happiness is to prepare children for adversity they are guaranteed to face
In life-there is no life without adversity. It’s all about scaffolding, encouragement and giving confidence of
resilience. Nothing is impossible for a child if an adult believes in the child.

Dr Swaroop Sampat Rawal (Actor and former Miss India), Member-Central Advisory Board of
Education & VP, ECA spoke about Effective Communication skills in early childhood education
The other Key speakers at the Colloquium were
Mr Subir Shukla, Quality Advisor, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Ministry of Human Res Development
Ms Susanna Goho-Quek, Artist and author of Children’s picture books Ms Sonal Ahuja, Founder, House of Learning & Director, Shri Ram Foundation Pre School Ms Bina kapoor, ELT Consultant-NCERT & Author-CBSE ICSE, Children fiction & trainer Ms Anuradha Govind, Principal, JM International School & Jt. Secretary- Delhi State PSACWA.

Ms Nisha Jain Grover, Founder and Director, Vatsalya Legacy Pvt. Ltd.A Panel Discussion on ‘Whether the children are more safe at Home or School’ was also organised at the conference with ideas, experiences and suggestions from experts, educators and parents on the
issue.