Day 2 – Kids Sports Summit

The second day of the Kids Sports Summit was even more enthralling and informative than yesterday. Aditya Mittal, the world’s 5th Rank U14 chess player, took up the mantle as the first speaker of the day. He was accompanied by his mother. The topic of their session was, “Identifying and encouraging your kid’s interest”. Aditya has played in under 14 leagues, on the international level. Through this interactive session, we wanted to share a parent’s perspective on the subject matter. How can you identify your child’s interest at an early stage? How do you support them? It can be extremely difficult for parents to support their child’s interest at such an early age because you have to visit numerous places and help them attend various classes, which can be extremely taxing, both mentally and financially. She talked about her experience and how she went through all of these things. Aditya also had to cope with his studies and his chess career but his love for chess made the choice easier for him. As a result, Aditya accomplished numerous honors and accolades because of his passion for chess. The enormous support he received from his parents was the crux of the whole discussion.

Next up was a puppet show hosted by M. Santhosh Kumar. He had 3 separate dolls for his act. Parents & Kids loved this puppet show not because it was pure fun but due to the fact, it conveyed lessons. Through his dolls, mimic and ventriloquist M. Santhosh taught important life lessons like how kids should be during the lockdown, what kind of food they should eat, how to stay safe and protected against Covid-19, etc. It was more of a learning session than anything, but Santhosh was able to capture everyone’s attention throughout the end.

After this show, we had a panel discussion on “How to engage children in this new era”. It was hosted by Shalini Jaiswal (Director of Academics and Teacher Training at Maple Bear South Asia), Mayank Solanki (Youth prodigy & Educationist), Meghna Yadav (Child Psychologist), and Ansul Garg (Director, Bangalore School of Performing Arts). They discussed how due to this pandemic and subsequent lockdown, many teachers and parents are finding it hard to manage children. Kids themselves are finding it quite difficult to manage their studies while being stuck in their homes. This stagnant form of lifestyle has taken a toll on their mental and physical well-being of children, as more and more of them are feeling anxious. Parents are also worried about the lack of peer to peer to interaction and its impact on their child’s social development. They emphasized the importance of the school environment as it has a deep impact on the Emotional Quotient (EQ) of the kids. Parents were asked to remain vigilant about their child’s emotional, mental, and physical state during these times. They should keep it in mind to not force anything upon their children. They are quite the warriors themselves for surviving this pandemic and should be praised for it. In conclusion, instead of pressurizing kids, they recommended keeping an eye on their development and give them space.

Day 1 Highlights

Day 3 Highlights