Child psychiatrist ties up with Amsterdam varsity to start workshop series in Pune
Confused about the right solution for your child’s problems? With the aim of helping young parents develop creative methods to solve the varied problems of New Age children, Pune-based child psychiatrist Dr Bhooshan Shukla has embarked on a creative parenting workshop series aided by Amsterdam’s Vrije University.
Explaining the four-month-long project, Dr Shukla said the idea of creative parenting was to come up with out-of-the-box solutions to resolve issues with children rather than resorting to traditional methods of punishment, reward, anger and shame.
“The traditional advice on parenting skills passed on from generation to generation may not be relevant in this New Age generation where the issues, handicaps and roadblocks faced by parents are different. The expectations, norms, trends and challenges faced by the children are also totally different. Nowadays, parents don’t have any accumulated knowledge on problem-solving skills and hence they have to develop their own solutions to problems. But sadly parents have lost their creativity as they too have been victims of the same education system that saps creativity,” said Dr Shukla.
He explained that at the workshops, parents would be given situations and asked to come up with creative solutions.
“We wouldn’t be giving them any ready-made solutions. Instead, we would do exercises that would help them come up with solutions so that this is beneficial in the long term. For example, if there are elders at home who watch TV for the entire day, but you want to restrict your child’s TV viewing hours, how would you do so? How to tell children they can’t have a mobile phone even if their friends do, how to explain sexual advances, how to use play sessions to tackle serious issues like addiction and cheating?” he said.
A group of 20 parents from two city-based private schools would be involved in the workshops and at the end of the sessions, a module on creative parenting would be prepared that would help other parents in the same situations.
Explaining the role of the foreign varsity, Dr Shukla said they are keen in learning about the challenges faced by parents in a developing country. “They want to study if using creative parenting techniques can help lessen the burden of these parents and what those techniques could be, so that it could help other parents too. A researcher from the varsity, Emmy de Wit, is in Pune and would be a part of the programme till its conclusion,” said Dr Shukla.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}