The first Vishwas Open House was held on 5th August 2023.
The theme for the session was 'Navigating the journey of child development'. Dr. Renuka Dutta, a renowned RCI registered Psychologist facilitated the session. She came with her extensive experience in evidence – based approaches such as Child- centred Play Therapy (CCPT) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). She discussed the importance of a holistic view of a child's development and how to create a harmonious balance between the cognitive and social – emotional needs of children. Dr. Dutta also addressed the queries of parents on the difference between 'anxiety and fear' and 'coping mechanism'. She further shared a few techniques to create distance from our recurring thoughts such as, ‘singing the thought aloud’, ‘prefacing the thought with', and ‘relating to your thought as a separate character’. It was an engaging and interactive session. As the discussion progressed parents found a safe space to share their own fears and anxieties. It led to a realisation that we as parents and adults should give importance to the thoughts of fear or anxiety within all of us in different situations. Also, accept them as feelings and that they do not define who we are. Parents also voiced out some strategies that have worked for their children. This definitely helped the larger parent community. One such thought that stayed with all of us was of 'Petals and Thorns'. The petals represented happy feelings of the child and on the contrary the thorns represent feelings of anger/sadness in the child.