Who is watching if Santa is being good?

Every one loves Santa Claus, our generation loved him because he stood for hope, a caring grandfather and someone who is fair, after all he gives gifts only to kids who have been good throughout the year.   Well, he has a gold book and a black book and he watches children all year long and makes his entry in the gold book every time a child is good and a child gets a black book entry if they have been wicked or naughty.

But who is keeping track of whether Santa has been good? Did you know that Santa could be smelly? Santa can grope little boys and girls inappropriately? Santa can be a drunk or a drug addict? Santa could be having many contagious diseases?   Let’s be practical, the Santa Claus that your child encounters is a hired man/boy who is just wearing a suit, and trying his best to convince the kids he is Santa. How much do we know about these Santas that we so willingly ask our kids to go and hug, shake hands with, sit on their lap? In countries around the world there have been instances where ‘Santa’ has been arrested for drinking, touching kids inappropriately etc. so this means that there could be a pedophile lurking behind the beard and rosy cheeks? Isn’t it the perfect opportunity for them? As   parents are urging their kids to ‘go to’ the Santa, ‘go kiss’ the Santa, ‘go sit’ on his lap.

Well, sad as it may sound, it’s time to keep an eye on these new age Santas. Warn our kids and watch them carefully when kids are with Santa. But how would you be able to keep an eye on all the Santas that your kids encounter this year? There is the Santa in school, the Santa at the mall, the Santa at a child’s party, the Santa in your own housing society.

 Keep a watchful eye on all Santas with these pointers-

1.     Ask your child’s school/housing society/or friends, to have a safe parent or teacher dressed as Santa and not hire one from outside.

2.     Get the hired Santa suit laundered.

3.     Talk to this Santa about the dos and don’ts with the kids; ask them to only shake hands with the kids and not to take the kids on their laps.

4.     Not to kiss or get kissed.

5.     Always have at least two other safe adults monitoring Santa.

Warn your kids about Santa Claus without killing the myth and belief.

1.     Teach your kids to only shake hands with Santa

2.     If you are clicking a photo of your child with Santa, be vigilant about Santa’s ‘hands’.

3.     Please do not ask your child to hug or kiss Santa. The suits that they hire are hardly clean so let’s not pass unnecessary germs to our kids.

4.     Teach your child about good touch bad touch before meeting Santa, and talk to your child that even Santa cannot be allowed to give bad touch

Try to keep your child’s belief in Santa alive as long as possible but important that you also believe in safety of your child. Maintain a balance. Merry Christmas.

Why is it wrong to buy a colouring book for your 2- 3 year old…

One of the most common gifts that children get during the early years is a colouring book.  Children can be budding Hussains and Picassos and create drawings based on their fantasy and imagination but that would not impress adults as much as ‘how well you have coloured within the lines!’

So should we stop giving colouring activities to young children? No, we should but we should understand the stage and age in which colouring activities have relevance.

So lets understand the first 4 friends that help children write well, they are called Scribbling, Doodling,  Drawing, And Colouring. Let us meet Mr. Scribbling- ( please don’t look for any gender bias here!) he is a free bird, loves to just move around the paper and let the crayon or colouring pencil take charge. Loops, twirls, straight lines, curves, all excite Mr. Scribbling and make him happy. He is happy because this activity helps the child exercise the wrist and finger muscles and have fun. This activity also helps children explore with the movement of the writing implement without being tied down to ‘fitting into a shape’. Mr. Scribbling also nurtures children free expression and helps them love the feel of the crayon or colouring pencil on paper. Mr. Scribbling is most happy with very young children up to the age of 3 years.

The second friend is Ms. Doodling and her forte is a repeat in forms and shapes. Ms. Doodling makes kids repeat the patterns in their scribbling. Common shapes that now emerge in children’s doodling are rounds and lines, you can see some repeat patterns emerging. Ms. Doodling is also happy that at this stage kids are able to talk about their doodles, though not in too much detail but will be able to name what they have made. But when they begin doodling they have no idea what they are going to doodle, after they doodle they start seeing pictures in their doodles and start talking about them.  Ms. Doodling also is most happy with very young children up to the age of 3 years.

The third friend is Mr. Drawing and he is the master of imagination, thinking, creating. He helps children think and plan what to draw and paint before they begin the drawing. Their drawings now look like representations of the real world. Size and proportion may not be correct and they may end up drawing all over the page. Simple details may be missing from their drawings like fingers or nose or ears. Mr. Drawing does not like restricting children during drawing, he wants kids to have the freedom to draw what they want, how they want and with whatever colour they want. So don’t reprimand or correct children if they draw a red sun or green sea.

The fourth friend is Ms. Colouring and she is actually the first cousin of Mr. Writing, she lays the foundation of form, structure, and focus. She wants children to colour a picture within a form outline given. She says it helps kids control their hand movements to fit within a given area or line and this will help them in future to write the letters within a given area (lines in a sheet). She advices adults to give colouring activities before giving writing to children and to start with smaller, simpler shapes before giving them big shapes and pictures. She says that 3-sided crayons and 3 sided colour pencils are the best implements to use for colouring activities and that magic colouring or colouring with paintbrush is not recommended. We asked her why and she said, paintbrush is to paint a picture, silly, not to colour a picture! Ms. Colouring also says that when children are given colouring activities after having given enough opportunities to scribble, doodle and draw then they are not frustrated and are able to now fall into a controlled colouring activity. But she also warns, that is children are given colouring activities all the time and not given the freedom to express with drawings then it can lead to frustration and children will end up scribbling instead of colouring (naturally as they have not enough experience of scribbling so they will scribble at any given opportunity).

So we asked the 4 friends for their final advice for all adults on when to guide children and when not to, and this is what they had to say-

1.     Mr. Scribbling said ‘Do not guide’- let kids choose when they want to scribble, with what they want to scribble and if they  start scribbling on walls and tables just gently put a paper or slate in front of them and remember they are scribbling for fun not to create master pieces!

2.     Ms. Doodling said ‘Do not guide’- kids love me and now doodle a round and say it is an apple or the sun, they draw a line and say it is my mummy, don’t try to correct them as it is a stage of seeing forms and pictures within different shapes. Just let them doodle.

3.     Mr. Drawing said ‘Do not guide’- fantasy and imagination are with me and so when kids draw don’t correct them or guide them. Let them imagine, let them create, if you allow them to imagine then they will be able to colour.  And if you want to know about their drawings then say, “Tell me about your drawing” instead of saying “What have you drawn?”  

4.     Ms. Colouring said ‘Do guide’ - my stage is important for children to understand how to control their hand movements and limit their lines and scribbles to a given form. If children have enjoyed Mr. Drawing before me then they will be able to colour well, if not then….and if children are able to colour well then they will be able to write within lines. And yes children will need guidance as they colour, guide them gently by saying, ‘the apple does not like it when you colour outside the line’. And here is a secret, if kids are able to eat on their own without spilling from their bowl or plate then they are able to colour well within the picture lines. That is why in the Montessori method self-help skills are given importance before writing skills.

Now that you have met the famous four I hope you will be able to decide when to give activities like drawing and colouring to young children. My next blog is on the other stages of writing…

Reach out to our youth before we lose them

 Podar Institute of Education conducted this survey with young boys and girls in the age range of 20 years to 25 years.  India, today, is called a youthful country as we have more youth today and they are looking for a future. The purpose of the survey was to find out, is our youth healthy, happy? Do they have a vision in life? Do they know the difference between right and wrong? Are they resilient?

The survey was conducted with 700 young boys and girls, to keep the figures exact we took 350 boys and 350 girls, age range was mixed between 20 years to 25 years. The results were heartening and disappointing, as we can see that there is hope for our youth and our youth have ideas but a lack of leadership, a mentor and this can lead our youth astray. This is especially important today with so many youngsters falling into bad company and incorrect philosophies. Its time we mull over the results of this study and work towards giving our youth, leaders that they can emulate, family that can support and not criticize, and parents that can understand and not expect.

The survey was done as an individual interview for those who did not want to fill survey form. It was started in first week August and we completed it around 10^th November, we went to public places that are frequented by youth like malls, coffee shops and even railway stations. Our students of Podar Institute of Education conducted the survey and then the results were compiled by our core team. (no we cannot name the students who did the survey or the people who compiled the results)

We want this survey to highlight to parents, that they need to bridge the generation gap between themselves and their young boys and girls so that our youth find it easy to take advice or find solutions to their problems by approaching safe adults rather than finding online help or falling prey to drugs etc.

Our country presently has the highest number of youth and we need to take care of this human resource as they are going to build future families, take care of children, and make decisions for our country. If they are going to be depressed or have broken marriages then the emotional intelligence of our youth will be diminished and lead to bigger problems for the growth and development of our country.

Relationships

How many relationships have you had till date?

	NONE	JUST 1	MORE THAN 1	MORE THAN 5
BOYS	18%	21%	30%	69%
GIRLS	32%	23%	28%	17%

Is it an open or secret relationship?

	OPEN	SECRET
BOYS	43%	57%
GIRLS	28%	72%

Do your parents know about it?

	YES	NO
BOYS	34%	66%
GIRLS	23%	77%

Why are you in the relationship?

	FOR FUN	BECAUSE MY FRIENDS ARE	FOR SEX	BECAUSE I LIKE HER/HIM
BOYS	21%	28%	28%	23%
GIRLS	13%	32%	12%	43%

Career

Have you decided your future career?

	YES	NO
BOYS	32%	68%
GIRLS	46%	54%

Why have you not decided?

	WANT TO ENJOY LIFE	PARENTS WILL DECIDE	WAITING FOR FRIENDS TO DECIDE	AM CONFUSED
BOYS	25%	23%	22%	30%
GIRLS	12%	45%	34%	9%

What is the reason for your choice of career?

	I LOVE IT	MY PARENTS WANT ME TO	HAVEN’T THOUGHT ABOUT IT	IT IS A STATUS SYMBOL
BOYS	23%	13%	38%	26%
GIRLS	34%	45%	12%	9%

Emotional health

Do you think you are happy?

	YES	NO	SOMETIMES
BOYS	42%	28%	30%
GIRLS	32%	48%	20%

Do you feel depressed?

	YES	NO	SOMETIMES
BOYS	32%	40%	28%
GIRLS	43%	35%	22%

How often are you depressed?

	ONCE A MONTH	ONCE A WEEK	EVERY DAY
BOYS	39%%	38%	23%
GIRLS	32%	38%	30%

Have you done anything about it?

	WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT	YES	NO	NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT
BOYS	22%	12%	42%	24%
GIRLS	28%	8%	32%	32%

Do your parents know about it?

	YES	NO
BOYS	12%	88%
GIRLS	14%	86%

Have you ever contemplated suicide?

	YES	NO
BOYS	68%	32%
GIRLS	72%	28%

Have you ever attempted suicide?

	YES	NO
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	41%	59%

Have you sought therapy after such thoughts/actions?

	YES	NO	YES BUT DID NOT FOLLOW THROUGH
BOYS	18%	60%	22%
GIRLS	12%	54%	34%

Knowledge and experimentation with sex

Do you know about sex?

	YES	NO	MAYBE
BOYS	74%	18%	8%
GIRLS	51%	28%	21%

How did you learn about it?

	FRIENDS	BOOKS	PORN SITES/VIDEOS	PARENTS
BOYS	27%	22%	43%	8%
GIRLS	8%	38%	52%	2%

Have you had sex?

	YES	NO
BOYS	78%	22%
GIRLS	71%	29%

At what age did you start having sex?

	ON OR BEFORE 13	BETWEEN 13 AND 15	AFTER 20
BOYS	34%	48%	18%
GIRLS	12%	32%	56%

Do you know about all sexually transmitted diseases?

	YES	NO	MAYBE
BOYS	23%	43%	34%
GIRLS	38%	22%	40%

Do you know about keeping you/ your partner safe from pregnancy etc?

	YES	NO
BOYS	58%	42%
GIRLS	72%	28%

 Have you ever had a pregnancy terminated?

	YES	NO
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	41%	59%

Use of social media

How many social media platforms are you on?

	1-3	ALL OF THEM
BOYS	32%	68%
GIRLS	21%	79%

How many hours a day do you spend on it?

	30 MINS -1HOUR	1-5HOURS	5-10 HOURS
BOYS	11%	38%	51%
GIRLS	8%	42%	50%

What do you use it for?

	TO MAKE FRIENDS	TO KNOW ABOUT THE WORLD	TO IMPRESS FRIENDS	JUST TIME PASS
BOYS	34%	12%	32%	22%
GIRLS	38%	18%	38%	6%

Thoughts on marriage and kids

How important is it to marry?

	VERY IMPORTANT	NOT IMPORTANT
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	42%	58%

When should you marry?

	WHEN YOU ARE READY	WHEN YOU FIND THE RIGHT PERSON	BEFORE THE AGE OF 25	NEVER
BOYS	42%	22%	10%	26%
GIRLS	23%	21%	38%	18%

 Should it be a love marriage or arranged marriage?

	LOVE	ARRANGED	DON’T CARE
BOYS	49%	28%	23%
GIRLS	39%	43%	18%

Thoughts on divorce

	OK	NOT OK
BOYS	52%	48%
GIRLS	38%	62%

Thoughts on extra maritial affairs

	OK	NOT OK	DEPENDS
BOYS	40%	22%	38%
GIRLS	39%	43%	18%

Physical health

Are you physically fit?

	YES	NO
BOYS	56%	44%
GIRLS	43%	57%

How hours a day do you exercise?

	LESS THAN AN HOUR	MORE THAN AN HOUR	RARELY
BOYS	18%	42%	40%
GIRLS	28%	34%	38%

Do you exercise at home or at the gym?

	HOME	GYM
BOYS	32%	68%
GIRLS	68%	32%

Self image

Are you happy with your looks?

	YES	NO
BOYS	32%	68%
GIRLS	21%	79%

Are you happy with your skin tone?

	YES	NO
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	18%	82%

Are you happy with your weight?

	YES	NO
BOYS	39%	61%
GIRLS	19%	81%

Are you happy with your body type?

	YES	NO
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	22%	78%

Would you consider cosmetic surgery?

	YES	NO	MAYBE
BOYS	28%	62%	10%
GIRLS	58%	22%	20%

Thoughts on sexual abuse

Why is there so much rape and abuse?

	TOO MUCH PORN	WOMEN TO BE  BLAMED	MEN HAVE NO SELF CONTROL	LACK OF LAWS
BOYS	32%	15%	18%	35%
GIRLS	38%	8%	12%	42%

What do you think should be done about it?

	STRINGENT LAWS	SOCIAL REVOLUTION	BOYS TO BE TAUGHT RESPECT
BOYS	42%	36%	22%
GIRLS	59%	3%	38%

Do you know any friends that have sexually abused someone?

	YES	NO
BOYS	38%	62%
GIRLS	21%	79%

Do you know any one who has been sexually abused?

	YES	NO
BOYS	26%	74%
GIRLS	48%	52%