Kids Summer Summit: Day 1 Highlights

Once again, the Go Alpha’s latest online summit, Kids Summer Summit, enthralled the audience and every individual associated with it. Day 1 (May 21st, 2021) of the summit was power-packed with loads of activities and insights. It kicked off with our founder Mr Gaurav Oswal warmly greeting everyone and welcoming them to the Kids Summer Summit, 2021.

Mr Benjamin Hart, our beloved Yoga Professional from Europe, took the first session of the day. A zealous and energetic professional, he is a part of the Rainbow Yoga Group, Europe. It started with him interacting with the kids and making them feel comfortable through his sweet gestures. He explained that yoga means the union of body, mind, breath, and each individual.

Slowly, he pumped the momentum up. And everyone could feel the energy radiating through screens from all across the country and letting the body free after days of being confined at homes set off the kids on fire which was certain by their smiling faces. Indeed, the best part was the real-time communication that Benjamin could build. It was by his movements and interaction achieved through close-up and far end to the screen communication.

Kids were happy to provide suggestions on how to use body postures to form alphabets. It was in response to Benjamin’s question of doing all the alphabets of the word ‘Ahimsa.’ In this way, he could deliver its meaning too. His session concluded with the outline that ‘yoga teaches us how to feel good about ourselves and others. Virtual high fives followed this as a goodbye.

Next, we had Ms. Jaya Laksmi, Teacher and coordinator at Kathalaya – India’s best Institute for Storytelling. Since the beginning, her voice and wreath of words captured the mind of everyone watching her. She narrated the story of a village named Ajrakpur in Gujarat. A speciality of this village was that humans communicated with living animals. They understood their tongue. Her narration was so vivid that the expressions on faces listening to it could tell that they got lost in imagining it vividly.

Added, she could mimic the sounds of animals, which made the experience even real. No one wondered about the hidden moral of the story while she narrated, but the end caught a twisted turn of events. It revealed that it was all about friendship and the bond shared. The session concluded with people smiling at the engaging story’s moral and kids interacting with Ms Jaya Lakshmi. They expressed who are their best friends and how happy they would be to meet them in actual life again.

The fun wasn’t over yet because Ms Athulya, Fitness coach at Cult Fit who previously worked in the IT sector, took the following session up. Her passion for classical dance led her to design a dance program for kids at Cult Fit. A brilliant part regarding this session was that her son, Arjun, accompanied her. It made way for the kids to relate more to it. It started with warming up and building space around themselves. Then there was a lot of dancing with stylish moves and grooves to the foreign and desi beats. The happiness and zeal of every one were commendable. The kids got so excited and into the session that they demanded an added desi beat to move their bodies on. The session concluded with charged-up bodies looking forward with added curiosity.

Later on, we formally invited the parents to join the session on Mental Wellbeing. Ms Zehra Kaneez, who is a Clinical Psychologist and Conscientious Therapist, took this up. Since she has experience working with all age groups, she communicated her ideas and thoughts well. She used simple language that everyone understood. She started by addressing the current scenario where some parents take their kids for mental health checkups, and some don’t. Based on the belief that one doesn’t have to do anything regarding the mental aspects, a child can grow well anywhere.

She emphasized parents take care of their mental wellbeing and keep themselves fit and healthy. It is because kids look up to their parents for everything. She explained how to look for signs that something is wrong with your mental health. She added building trust in your kids through simple activities lasts a lifetime since it becomes a value for them. Her conclusion came as an assurance that we’re all learning to deal with such an unprecedented situation. It’s okay to seek professional help, and you’re not alone.

The last session was a panel discussion where four parents shared the stage and talked about parenting in times of covid pandemic. It was all based on personal experience and constant learning through the environment. The panellists comprised Ms Dakshita Teckwani (Mother of a four-year-old and a software engineer by passion), Ms Jyoti Ahuja (mother of a three-year-old and as a physiotherapist), Ms Yuvika Sethi (Mother of a four-year-old and a lifestyle influencer), and Ms Swetha (Mother of a four-year-old and a Biochemist).

Each one of them shared going about the handling of their child in a variety of alternative ways. Ms Jyoti emphasized quality time with children and tantrums to be dealt with calmly. Ms Swetha told the parents to be mindful of what their kids do. She added we should introduce them to recent activities like gardening since it adds a lot of overall value. Ms Dakshita focussed on engagement building through various activities, and Ms Yuvika classified children as energy balls and the need to imbibe values and tradition in them by allowing them to learn from their habits. Before ending the first day of Kids Summer Summit, our esteemed panellists answered along the same lines some FAQs. Hence, that marked the end of thunder-packed and an insight-building couple of hours.