Help!, my child won't play alone...

 Some kids are just born independent. They play on their own when they’re barely two years old, they just run around the home and reach for the nearest tree branch, eager to climb to the top of the world without our help. But most of the children have a difficult time separating from their parents, even for a few minutes. Even if we ask them to play with their favourite toys, the parents will not be spared and will always be disturbed. 

Some kids play independently with great concentration and loads of creativity and others need a playmate or a parent to play with. To make them focussed on a given task, the task should be a passion for them and hence a variety of tasks should be tried.

A few of them I would like to highlight here:

1. Create a task that set's them up for success: A simple task such as repeating a tongue twister will engage a child atleast for half an hour and can be a solo activity, which the child gets engaged

2. Don't lock the children in a separate room: Children who are naturally dependent on parents hate being isolated. Allow them at your workspace to play with their favourite toys

3. Pose challenges for the children, so that they do it creatively: Asking a child to just do gardening will not be interesting to a child, but if the same task is given to the child as become a smart farmer, the child will now start using all the IT techniques he/she has learnt to do the same.

4. Give smaller and easier tasks initially and then proceed for bigger challenges: If you want your child to be IT savy, Don't teach the kid with a programming language, but start giving the kid some smaller logical constructs or begin with a simple programming language like SCRATCH programming.

5. Teach every aspect of life: Teaching is not restricted only to textbooks, but one can teach using Television serials/ movies / youtube videos / video games too. The child should be exposed to relevant digital media/ text books / video games, so that a child learns from it.

Since many of the current generation parents would have not faced these problems, since our childhood has been a part of large extended family. Today's kids from nuclear families face these problems. 

In view of it, we at CRACS labs have brought about an innovative product in the form of an app, which can supplement all these activities. It offers 30 activities in the form of an app and the child is expected to do all these activities and upload it back using a smart phone. The salient features of this app are:

1. It provides 30 talent activities to engage a child

2. The activities are arranged in a age wise manner, so every child in a given age group will be able to solve the task without depending on their parents.

3. Points are alloted for each activity and upon uploading the activity, the child will be awarded the points and will be shown in the dashboard

4. Every month, a competition is held for the children and their activities which they have uploaded will be accessed. Prizes are awared for the child who had performed these activities well. This encourages a child to perform a task more creatively and promotes competition too. 

If you wish to know more about this app, you can contact me or attend a webinar today night.

To attend a free webinar, register yourself: https://forms.gle/JStNYkw24j7ZX2ps5

Dr. N. Rathankar Rao, 

Researcher in Cognitive Sciences