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Flu can spread quickly among children, especially in preschool and school environments. Understanding how it spreads and following simple preventive habits can help protect children and the people around them.

How Does Flu Spread?

Flu can spread through:

• Coughs and sneezes from infected people.
• Close contact with someone who has the infection.
• Touching contaminated surfaces.
• Touching the eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.

What Can Parents and Caregivers Do?

A few simple habits can help reduce the spread of infection:

1. Encourage regular handwashing with soap and water.
2. Teach respiratory hygiene, such as covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
3. Keep indoor spaces clean and well ventilated.
4. Encourage nutritious food and healthy habits.
5. Speak with a healthcare professional about flu vaccination and age-appropriate preventive care.

Early Attention Makes a Difference

Most children recover well with appropriate care and rest. Parents should watch for symptoms and seek medical advice when a child is unwell, particularly if symptoms are severe or getting worse.

Let us work together to create healthier, safer environments for every child.

In early childhood, play is much more than just fun. It is an essential part of how children learn, grow and develop important life skills.

Everyday activities such as pouring water, waiting for a turn, choosing their own work, repeating an activity, cleaning up and resolving conflicts offer valuable learning experiences.

Through these simple experiences, children gradually develop:

• Coordination and concentration through practical activities.
• Patience and self-regulation by learning to wait for their turn.
• Independence and decision-making by making their own choices.
• Confidence and focus through repetition and practice.
• Responsibility and life skills by participating in everyday tasks.
• Communication and social skills through interaction with others.

For preschool educators and parents, understanding the value of play helps create meaningful learning environments where children can explore, discover and develop at their own pace.

At TNPSA, we believe that play is not an extra part of childhood education. It is one of its foundations.

Let children play, explore and grow!

“The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.” – Maria Montessori

Dr. Maria Montessori, the first woman doctor of Italy, spent her entire life for the children's education. Montessori empowers children to make choices about their learning activities and explore concepts at their own pace. This freedom within a structured environment cultivates responsibility, self-discipline, and confidence as children master skills independently.

By encouraging self-reliance, Montessori prepares children to confidently face academic and social challenges in the future. Montessori fosters an inherent curiosity by allowing children to delve into subjects that pique their interest. This approach focuses on genuine comprehension and a love of learning rather than simply memorizing facts.

The hands-on nature of Montessori materials makes learning engaging and enjoyable, instilling a lifelong passion for knowledge. Montessori classrooms often include children of different ages, which naturally encourages collaboration and mentorship.

Older children develop leadership skills by guiding younger peers, while younger children benefit from observing and learning from older classmates. Lessons in "grace and courtesy" teach children respectful interactions, empathy, conflict resolution, and effective communication. Practical life activities, such as preparing snacks or caring for the environment, foster teamwork and a sense of community.

Montessori recognizes and respects each child's unique learning style and pace. Teachers act as guides, observing each child and providing materials and activities that match their developmental stage and interests. This personalized approach ensures that children are challenged without being overwhelmed and allows them to delve deeply into subjects at their own pace.

Montessori materials are specifically designed to introduce abstract concepts in a tangible and hands-on manner. For example, children use Golden Beads to understand the decimal system and arithmetic operations or Sandpaper Letters to learn letter sounds and shapes.

These experiences build strong foundational skills in language, mathematics, practical life, and sensorial learning, preparing children for future academic success. In conclusion, Montessori education offers a comprehensive approach to pre-kindergarten development, emphasizing the cultivation of independence, critical thinking, social skills, and a lifelong love of learning within a supportive and individualized environment.

Monitoring the growth and development of children is crucial to ensure they reach their full potential. Parents and caregivers play a vital role in monitoring children's progress, identifying any delays or concerns and seeking professional help if needed.

Regular health checkups with the pediatrician allow for tracking of height, weight and developmental milestones. Plotting the growth parameters on the growth chart helps identify any deviations from normal.

Children meet developmental milestones when they are ready and parents should be mindful of several key areas of development – motor skills, language, social skills and cognition. Motor skills delay presents as issues with sitting, crawling, walking or using hands for tasks like holding or writing. Language delay manifests as limited vocabulary, difficulty understanding and using words appropriately and issues with reading and understanding phonics as a preschooler.

Social delay presents with poor eye contact, absent social smile, lack of social interaction and disinterest in play. Cognitive development delays are related to difficulties in problem solving and understanding cause-effect relationships or lack of curiosity about surroundings.

It is crucial to pay attention to these areas of development; and if in doubt, the pediatrician must be consulted for further assessment. Acting early on developmental concerns can make a real difference for the child. Early intervention services are effective when started promptly.

Also, parents need to pay attention to the diet of the children. Ensure a balanced diet rich in essential nutrients and avoid junk food. Eating well is important in the early years, as it helps children to establish healthy eating behaviors which they carry forward into adulthood. Ensure adequate sleep by creating a calm bedtime routine. Restrict screen time to less than 1 hour per day. Encourage children to play outdoors. Play and interact with the child as much as possible. Read books, sing songs, make crafts, do household chores and play outside together. ‘Play is the doorway to a child's heart’. It lays the foundation for a happy and healthy childhood.

Remember that "Every child learns and grows at their own pace". So do not compare your child with others. It is more important to focus on how the child grows, progresses and develops new skills one at a time.

Awareness is the key. Keeping yourself updated and seeking professional attention when needed will help you to confidently support your child on their own unique development journey.

HAPPY PARENTING!

Yoga is not just about bending and twisting—it is a complete practice that nurtures the body, mind, and spirit. For children, especially in their formative years, yoga lays a strong foundation for a healthy and harmonious life. It helps build physical strength, improve flexibility, enhance emotional stability and mental clarity skills essential in today's fast-paced and competitive world.

Why Yoga for Children?

Yoga offers children a gentle and playful approach to self-care and self-discovery. It not only builds them stronger physically, but also plays a major role boosting immunity and appetite, fostering peace of mind and mental clarity, improving focus and emotional stability, inculcating values like sharing, and promoting harmony by bringing a deep sense of belongingness within them. In short, "Yoga helps the child to discover their natural, joyful inner-self".

How to Teach Yoga to Young Kids?

• Use short sessions (10–15 minutes)
• Include music, rhymes, and stories
• Incorporate animals and nature-inspired poses
• Make it non-competitive and playful

Yoga for Students & Youth

As Bhagavad Gita says, "Yogah karmasu kaushalam" – Yoga is skill in action. Yoga in the form of simple breathing techniques sharpens memory, reduces exam stress, increases concentration, memory, attention span and thus makes learning more effective. It serves as a positive alternative to harmful habits by offering a natural sense of high energy and bliss. Students learn to channel emotions like anger, aggression, and frustration through calming techniques, resulting in balanced energy. It teaches them to live with awareness, balance, and enhanced skills.

Yoga for a Better Society

Regular yoga practice by children can lead to disease-free body, confusion-free mind, inhibition-free intellect, trauma-free memory, stress-free breath making children happy, responsible, and capable. Let's give our children the gift of yoga and watch them blossom into vibrant, wise, and compassionate citizens ready to create a better society tomorrow.

Know Who We Are and What We Do

Early intervention refers to a range of specialized services and supports provided to infants and young children (typically from birth to six years) who show signs of developmental delays, disabilities, or are at risk of such conditions. With a background in Rehabilitation Science, Medical and Psychiatric Social Work, and Early Intervention, I have witnessed how timely support can transform a child's developmental path.

The early years are crucial for brain development. When delays are identified and addressed during this sensitive period, children show significant improvements in cognitive, emotional, social, and physical areas. Early intervention empowers families to understand their child's needs and create enriched environments to foster development.

My role as a Remedial Therapist and RCI-licensed Vocational Counselor focuses on using individualized strategies that strengthen learning, behavior, and adaptive functioning. With the right support at the right time, early intervention reduces the need for long-term services and builds a stronger foundation for a child's future.

From the lens of clinical psychology, early intervention plays a vital role in identifying emotional, behavioral, and cognitive concerns in a child's developmental journey. As a Clinical Psychologist with specialized training in Speech Therapy, I often observe how communication difficulties are closely linked to emotional regulation, social challenges, and learning barriers. At Sri Ramakrishna Child Development Center, Coimbatore, we use psychological assessments, play-based therapies, and individualized care to identify early signs of conditions such as autism, ADHD, anxiety, and speech delays. Our integrated approach ensures that speech therapy goes hand in hand with emotional and behavioral support, helping children build clarity, confidence, comprehension, and expression—essential for academic and social development.

Creating awareness about early intervention is key. The first six years of life are crucial, and timely support can significantly impact a child's lifelong wellbeing. Many parents may dismiss signs like delayed speech or social withdrawal as temporary, but these may be early indicators of deeper challenges. Through a multidisciplinary model, we work not just with the child but also guide and empower parents to support development at home. Therapy should not be feared or stigmatized—it's a proactive step that nurtures potential. At our center, we believe every child deserves to be understood, supported, and given the opportunity to thrive in all aspects of life.

Early childhood education forms the bedrock of learning, yet pre-primary schools across Odisha continue to operate in a space with no recognition from the government. While policymakers emphasize universal education, the years before Class I are often overlooked—leaving play schools and pre-primary institutions struggling for survival and quality improvement.

Why Government Recognition Matters

1. Policy Framework: Without formal recognition, pre-primary schools lack a uniform curriculum, standards for infrastructure, and safety regulations. This creates disparities in quality and accessibility.
2. Teacher Training & Professional Development: Government-approved training programs would ensure teachers are equipped with the skills needed for holistic child development—moving away from rote learning toward activity-based methods.
3. Social Respect & Awareness: A recognized sector would elevate the status of early childhood educators and make parents more aware of the value of these foundational years.
4. Child-Centric Standards: Recognition ensures schools meet child-friendly benchmarks in health, safety, and pedagogy—giving children a safe, nurturing and homely environment.

Current Challenges

• Parents see playschool as optional, not essential.
• Teachers lack structured career pathways.

The Role of AOPPSA

The All Odisha Pre-Primary Schools' Association (AOPPSA) is uniting educators and school leaders to present a common voice before the government. By advocating for recognition, AOPPSA seeks:

• A statewide framework for pre-primary education – accreditation systems to ensure quality.
• Support for training, resources, and infrastructure.
• A stronger role for early education in shaping future learning outcomes.

This is where associations like AOPPSA step in. By bringing together school founders and educators, AOPPSA provides a collective voice to advocate for policy reforms, professional recognition, and improved standards in early childhood education.

Pre-primary education is not just the first step of schooling—it is the foundation of a child's future. Overcoming these challenges requires joint efforts from educators, parents, policymakers, and associations like AOPPSA to ensure that the youngest learners get the strong start they deserve.

Conclusion

The foundation of education begins long before Class I. If we aspire for stronger learning outcomes in later years, the government must formally recognize and support pre-primary schools. Recognition will not only strengthen institutions but also secure the future of all our youngest learners.

Thank you.

I would like to begin my answer with the fact that the mother of Early Education Dr. Maria Montessori identifies the age 2 to 6 as the “Absorbent Mind”. In this age children are eager to learn everything and learn everything they see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is a stage of curiosity and non-stop questioning.

In today's world of small families, apartment homes and working women, if children stay at home at this curious age, their questions go unanswered curbing their interest in asking and limiting their learning. Even with home maker moms, the absence of a joint family system pushes moms to leave children in front of the television while they tend to household and personal hygiene chores and children end up favouring object interaction for the rest of their lives limiting conversation and social skills.

Also, unless there is a supervised and well prepared environment that can address their questions, keep up with their energy and allow them to socialize with their own peers, children will simply become bored and irritable and throw tantrums and begin to behave adamantly and act out asking more materials and do not develop human interaction. In early years of childhood, children also require a lot of sensory experiences like water play, sand play, movement activities and music.

In today's household one big loss is structure, rules and routine. Children are allowed to eat what they want, however they want, there is no sleep hygiene. Even toilet training is delayed. Early school will create a structure and routine in their minds. Lack of planning and organizing is the biggest reason for later poor school performance. In fact, in my experience, the later children start school, the harder it becomes to perceive learning as fun, simply because as they get older, their innate sense of curiosity becomes mitigated by the constant micromanagement by busy and anxious adults.

On making learning joyous early, it becomes their second nature, a meta-cognitive reflex, wherein learning becomes based on their innate curiosity, thus making it contextually fun before it becomes their job. In this age clapping and bodily gestures and few appreciative words are enough to ensure each child has a feeling of achievement and accomplishment in what they do. If learning is taken up above 3 years children tend to look forward to materials as tokens of appreciation.

In small preschools each child can be encouraged to express their needs and thoughts as compared to big schools with large number of kids in a classroom. This promotes constructive outlets for emotions and limits opportunities for misbehaviour. It can help cultivate the skills needed for success in school experiences by developing language skills, and perceptual or sensory and conceptual play like doll house play. It can help develop positive attitudes towards authority early, before they are used to getting their way around at home.

In my 18 years of experience as a Developmental Pediatrician, I can vouch that the incidence of developmental problems such as autism and ADHD have markedly increased. My first therapeutic advice in the last 15 years has been admission in a playschool. This has even prevented children from going for occupation therapy. A number of kids have been able to attend mainstream school because of the therapeutic effect small playschools provide because of their near personal attention. With more number of playschools coming up it makes this very easy. So, my recommendation would strongly encourage more number of playschools to emerge.

Dr. Manu Arun, MD Pediatrics and Certificate in Child Development. Director, Sri Narayana Development Center, Vadapalani, Chennai; Dr. Manu's Foundation Child Development Center, Nungambakkam; Dr. Manu's Foundation Inclusive Sports Center, Nungambakkam; The Learning Bridge – School Inclusion.