City parents soon to have a tailor-made ‘Mindful Parenting Program’ .

Pune, July 10,2018: Parents and school have a very important role to play in the upbringing of a child. However, the bond and the communication amongst these three entities is rarely found to be adequate. To overcome these problems and to improve parenting skills, city-based Kannada Sangha’s Kaveri Group of Institutes is taking the first step in a research-based initiative. The institution has been selected by the ‘Greater Good Science Centre’ from University of California, Berkeley campus, to develop a ‘Mindful Parenting Program’

The Kannada Sangha is the sub recipient of a grant of $ 50,000 given by the John Templeton Foundation. The grant period will be for a period of 2 years starting from April 2018 to March 2020. Out of over 200 applicants only sixteen were selected for the grant. Of these, fourteen are from USA, one from UK and only one from India. This initiative was undertaken by Malati Kalmadi, the Secretary of Kannada Sangha with active support from Jyoti Kumta, Program Co-ordinator and Vijayam Kartha, a crucial member of the team
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In addition, Sunder Iyer, a values educator plays an important role as a core team member.

While explaining about the program, Mrs Kalmadi said, “This training program is based on scientific approach which analyses individual parenting styles based on culture, caste or organisation. Our aim is to make the traditional parenting sustainable using scientific approach through evaluation. At the training, we are expected to share our activities and methodology and GGSC will help us to create evaluation tools which will especially aid Indian parenting.”

“Parenting is becoming more challenging day by day because of the changing environment, primarily due to reasons like the rise of nuclear families, working parents and technological advancements. This program will thoroughly facilitate in creating active involvement between parents and schools and build healthy relationship. It will help in generating a handbook for parents, based on feedback from parents,” expressed Kalmadi while citing the benefits of the program.

As a part of the program Malati Kalmadi and Jyoti Kumta have attended a few webinars and even been to Berkeley to share the Indian context and understand the research-based approach to evaluation.

Currently, Kaveri Group has started taking a first of its kind sessions for parents in three of its school viz. Kaveri International School, Lohegaon, Kalmadi Shamrao High School in Ganesh Nagar and Aundh. These fortnightly sessions are for parents of students between 4 to 13 years of age. It is a free and voluntary platform for parents to introspect and to reinforce the bond with school and child. The schools are also making special effort to include grandparents in these sessions; thereby harnessing and protecting India’s traditional practices and culture in the Parenting dimension.