Wizkidzcarnival is a beautiful platform to showcase your child’s creative spirit. Recently my child’s story was published in a magazine. Having a child who loves writing is a great thing. If you want to nurture your child’s writing interest, follow Wizkidscarnival. From prose to poetry, fiction to nonfiction, painting to oration, they have a plethora of magazines. As I flipped through the magazine, I was awestruck by the little creative minds. The team is super helpful & offers guidelines for the work to be published. So, if you want your kids to don their creative hats, follow Wizkidscarnival & let your child’s creative work get a way into their magazine.

Wizkids’ newspaper is a brainchild of the magazine. It accommodates short & crispy 2-minute reads. I started reading this newspaper as they are “nuggets “to your creative mind. It is a good read for kids. The content is well-designed and easy to understand. The content of the newspaper is apt for all ages of children. It’s so colorful and eye-catching that children cannot resist exploring the whole newspaper. The design of the newspaper is visually appealing.

It is a very interactive and engaging newspaper. It is an ever-growing magazine in content and layout. The stories the children showcase show that the team is very much in touch with contemporary challenges and the atmosphere around our kids.

I would firmly stay up to date with Wizkidscarnival. The way they are enhancing the content and thoughts is marvelous. Keep Rocking.

My son is an ardent lover of books. I feel that reading books alone will not help improve their vocabulary. They need to express themselves articulately. Wizkidscarnival offers competitions like Master Orator, Tell Your Tale, Recite It, Show and Tell, and Color Wizards helps them express their creative selves. I encourage him to participate in as many competitions as possible. Winning feat was never our priority but bringing out the writer, performer, and the Lil creative master in him was ours.

Ina nutshell,
Transcribe all the disjointed thoughts, arrange them into a list of appropriate categories, put them in a nutshell, and say it is Wizkidscarnival!

Mobile phones are dear and so is all the information that they provide us with the click of a button; connectivity, news and snippets regarding sports, Bollywood, Hollywood and anecdotes that bring a smile on our faces. In a nutshell, our mobile phones offer entertainment at all places if we have an internet connection. And that is a big ‘IF’. So, instead of getting into the habit of being dependent on our phones, let’s wean ourselves away by keeping our identity separate from our phones. We can do this gradually. I would recommend keeping your phone handy but away from our eyes while travelling. Well, that can be a good start. How?

Let me tempt you. Indian roads are the best entertainers. Yes, they can be dangerous but if you , children, look around while the elders are navigating the chaos, it sure can be interesting. Remember, once you start driving you won’t get this privilege of seeing, staring and smiling. For the beginners, when you are on the highway, remember to read the one liners behind the trucks. They are hilarious. Some examples besides the usual: ‘ Buri nazar vale, tera muh kaala,’ ( May your face be blackened , you , possessor of evil eye)or ‘ Nazar laga, Joota kha’( Glance with an evil eye and I will hit you) are like ‘ Iraq ka pani, aur kitna piyegi raani?’( How much oil , fuel are you going to drink, dear vehicle?) or ‘ Amiro ki zindagi, biscuit or cake par, driver ki zindagi, clutch aur brake par’. (The rich indulge in biscuits and cake, the driver’s meal is clutch and brake.)And don’t be surprised if brake is spelled ‘break’.

Driving inside the city is another experience. My lasting impression of New Delhi is one particular traffic jam where I had plenty to gaze around. When I peered outside the car window, I found one man sleeping soundly on his ‘charpoy’ amidst all the din of the honking and impatient people. As I watched him amazed, I saw three cows plonked comfortably on the pavement while commuters took the brunt of inconvenience. A man stopped by and even fed the cows ‘rotis’. As our car gradually moved, I saw children enjoying a game of cricket. They were of all age groups. While some were involved in the game, others were running around, enjoying themselves in all the heat. They were sweaty but happy. While the children played dangerously close to the moving traffic the women sat gossiping while their hands were kept busy chopping vigorously. It was a world in itself. Very different from ours but it was a complete one. And they seemed happy too amidst all the squalor, poverty and heat. A lesson learnt!

If you want more convincing to stay away from your phone, make it a point to read the sign posts, banners and the boards on the shops. Internet Surfing takes a new dimension when one finds the board proclaiming ‘Internet Suffering,’ or dye your hair is translated to ‘Die your hair’. Your appetite can either go for a toss or increase manifolds when you read ‘Deliacieous Burjer’ instead of delicious burger. Grocery shopping is boring when Zucchini becomes ‘jugni’ , Avocado is pronounced as ‘Acado’and bell peppers are called ‘lal aur peeli hari mirch’( Red and yellow capsicum). You have to suppress your smile at the comfort of the shopkeeper for clubbing all the varieties of capsicum together but quoting a very high price for the ‘rang-birangi’ (coloured)Shimla Mirch (Capsicum). ‘Badi mehengi hai, madamji,’ he tells your mother.

Lost in the city? Leave the GPS system and ask directions from the vendors and shopkeepers. They are precise with their own unique, local landmarks which can be someone’s house or a famous shop. If you go to a rural area, especially in the rural areas, strangers go out of the way to see that you reach your destination. And the gossip on the way is mind boggling. Details of your family and to whose house you are going are shared unabashedly. Once you reach the destination, your self-proclaimed guide cum saviour does not turn back but accompanies you into the house whose occupants go overboard to thank him. You feel foolish making the long journey to be neglected and ignored. But once you notice the camaraderie , you are amazed at the strong ties and bonds.

You, usually, don’t find people gossiping by the road when you travel abroad. But in India, people meet by chance and end up exchanging the well-being of each other’s families . If you happen to accompany the elders of your family for a walk, you get a peep into another aspect of their personality. They make you notice things which you considered frivolous till that moment. Their chat with the cobbler, the vegetable vendor , the ‘dhobi’ etc. are an eye opener. This is what makes our society a close knit community which is being eroded by too much technology in our lives.

I agree technology has brought entertainment at our doorsteps but let us not allow it to dictate us. Let us enjoy some moments sans technology. Capture moments with the camera in your phone but do capture some moments with your naked eye. The memories that I most cherish are those of the long walks in which I accompanied my maternal grandfather listening to his stories of the city, his life in the army during the World War and how he made me notice houses on the way. Each abandoned house had a story. His narration fed my imagination that translated into my essays and poems that I penned in exam. And I passed with flying colours with my essays and paragraphs being read out aloud in the class to the envy of my competitors. So observe, understand and enjoy! We are lucky to have theatre play in front of our very eyes. No ticket to be bought, no internet connection to be paid!

Times have evolved and so have childhoods now-a-days. The Digital Age, also known as The Information Age has had a huge impact on the kids. According to UNICEF, youth (ages 15-24) are the most connected age group. The good old television has been replaced by I-pads, computers and smartphones.

Children are born with gadgets in their hands and they are practically living in a virtual world. Habits have evolved drastically for the trend of playing outdoor games has declined and they are glued to their screens. Video games and social media have taken over causing chronic fatigue, sleep deprivation and exhaustion.

According to Anita Tayal, a high school counsellor, owing to vanity-based concepts being shared on social media, there is an unnecessary comparison amongst teens on the basis of height, weight, complexion causing a rise in the cases of cyberbullying.

COVID has made things worse for the students. With classes being held online, and interaction with friends being done the same way to maintain social distancing, it has caused time mis-management. This fact has also been substantiated by the American Academy of Paediatrics. Their study shows “soaring rates of mental health challenges among children, adolescents, and their families over the course of COVID-19 pandemics, exacerbating the situation that existed prior to the pandemic.”

Ekroop Kahlon, a junior school teacher has observed that kids belonging to the age group of 7-12 years “have an extremely limited span of attention. In the beginning, the concept of studying in a classroom and sharing space was alien to them.” She added that a “whole lot of them struggled with making friends and interacting with their classmates. Restlessness and unnecessary whining were very common symptoms among kids.”

Nowadays, both the parents are working, so their own interaction with kids is bare minimum, let alone with the neighbours. Furthermore, the physical interaction of kids with their parents has decreased causing kids to face problems like alienation, borderline depression and loneliness. The trend of social engagement has evolved for children who are not willing to chat face to face, but feel more comfortable within the 4 walls of their rooms simply because they have the option of quitting the chat according to their convenience.

The Counsellor also added that “due to a shift from joint to nuclear family structure, there is a paucity of company of cousins inside the house and owing to safety concerns, there is a lack of neighbourhood friends outside the house.”

An interesting suggestion by Counsellor Tayal is that schools should have one full day devoted to play time once a week. They should be allowed to spend free time and encouraged to play casually to enforce the fact that “one can enjoy without worrying about any consequence and for pure entertainment.” Formal coaching in sports is a must for it imbibes confidence and healthy competition, but at the same time, she said “it has a sense of responsibility of performing well attached to it.”

The parents can take simple steps like going out for walks, limiting screen time, involving them in basic household chores can work wonders. Making them spend time with their grand-parents just so they know that life can be lived in a different yet enjoyable way is also a solution. Drawing them away from the screen without making the kids feel that it is being done to them forcefully is a good way to parent.

Jasmine Khaira, a working from home mother of 2 kids shared her opinion. In the beginning of the pandemic, when there was uncertainty as to how long it would last, she, like many mothers, noticed a change in the consumption pattern of her kids. To curb the problem of excessive content consumption, she made them watch TV for a particular period of time and joined them in playing outdoors. She said that, both “have been asked to adopt one hobby and pursue it religiously and they are allowed to search for more information online.” She added that “not only will this make them tech savvy, but would also allow them to surf responsibly. The suggestions that pop-up are related to their interests and they are able to get better ideas.”

Being a millennial, “we were exposed to gadgets at a much later stage i.e., around late 20s”. She added that “the problem is with how much content is being consumed and how much of it should be consumed.” Many parents, she said, are not able to “judge as to how much or how little should a child be allowed to spend time on screen and to prevent the side effects, they simply ban use of all gadgets which causes a child to be rebellious. This is not a possibility because if kids are not tech savvy in this digital world, they will feel handicap in the future.”

To spend some “extra time with our kids we have even revived old school trends like playing hide and seek, vish-amrit, house-house (or ghar-ghar) as well as educational non-computer-based games like Name-Place-Animal-Thing which have become obsolete”. Once a month sleepover with cousins to watch a movie or show together in a common room has now become a practice.

When contrasted with informal style of physical activity, old school games are important because running around aimlessly helps in releasing oxytocin in the brain. Counsellor Tayal also added that “it helps in improving emotional, intellectual, and behavioural development.” Nature also plays a major role in the growth of a child. Going out in fresh air, running around aimlessly, chasing random dogs, playing self-invented games with a group of friends had its own charm. Letting one’s imagination run wild is a very important mental exercise.

Now that the world has changed, it is not wise to draw them away from gadgets for that’s how the world will run in future. The need of the hour is to teach them balance i.e., balancing interaction with the physical world vis-à-vis the virtual world so that they can have the best of both worlds.