Aditya Hore
Ahmedabad: Celebrating the occasion of Father’s Day which is coming on June 21 this year, Centre for Communication of Child Rights -an SLS-PDPU initiative in partnership with UNICEF, Gujarat Media Club, Gujarat University and Creative Yatra.com, organized a webinar on “Reimagining Fatherhood” theme to discuss and touch upon changing contours of fatherhood, role in parenting and upbringing of children.
The webinar had famous personalities and thinkers of Gujarat as panelists like, RJ Dhvanit, Dr. Narayan Gaonkar, Dr. Sonal Pandya and Anil Puspangadan.
“Papa Hai Toh Possible Hai” is a phrase which everyone accepts and panelists discussed about how important role a father plays in his children’s lives.
Dr. Pandya, a professor and HOD of Department for Communication and Journalism in Gujarat University moderated the whole webinar taking questions from the viewers as well. She started the webinar by giving the example of “Papa Kehte hain bada naam karega” song and shared how plethora of emotions work when we listen this.
“Father is deemed to a person who has huge expectations from his child but before that how one should become the best father to his child and how should his role be defined?” asked Dr. Pandya, while starting the discussion with the panelists.
Dhvanit Thaker, a well-known Radio Jockey, explained a father’s role with different examples from Bollywood movies like ‘Bluff Master’ and ‘Secret Superstar’. He very well distinguished between how father should be and shouldn’t. Giving got examples of how the actions of a father affects more on child’s mind and upbringing rather than his words, he justified why our society is also lacking on respecting women today.
“How will someone start respecting women when over the years he had never seen his father respecting the women in his family? Actions speak louder than words, hence fathers should understand that their action is what the child will imbibe eventually” said RJ Dhvanit.
Meanwhile, Anil Puspangadan, a freelance writer and a former crime reporter, shared his journey as a single parent and how he struggled upbringing his children.
“I was working as a crime reporter in a news daily and it was really tough for me to leave my child home alone and work whole night writing stories, it’s really hard to up-bring children single handedly but my child eventually understood my work and supported me” said Puspangadan.
Working with UNICEF India as a Health Specialist, Dr. Narayan Gaonkar explained the importance of understanding children at their different stages of age, starting from a toddler till completing teenage, how parents and fathers in specific should treat their child.
“I think parents should become same as their children while talking to them, understanding the child’s mental state is very important” said Dr. Gaonkar.
He also explained the importance of considering children’s opinion in daily conversations and activities, “Fathers should ask their children their views on different topics and make them put an opinion, considering their say which will make them feel valuable in the family and send a vibe of togetherness” he added.
Perhaps, penalties also discussed about the different issues which fathers and parents in general are facing during this lockdown.
With the increase in the period of lockdown due to Coronavirus Pandemic, children suffered a state of isolation from their regular life, schools being closed and their playtime being confined in rooms, children tend to have more screen time these days.
Adding to that, even schools scheduling to reopen through virtual classes will stimulate the use of Gadgets which would ultimately lead to more of stress and anxiety in children.
All the panelists firmly agreed on the fact that more screen time would negatively affect the child’s mental and physical state.
RJ Dhvanit and Dr. Gaonkar emphasized that schools should take the help of neurologists and pediatric doctors before starting the classes online as screen time exceeding 2 hours could be very harmful for children and their mental health.
Father’s Day which comes on the 3rd Sunday of June every year is coming with 3 more occasions this year namely – International Yoga Day, World Music Day and Solar Eclipse.
Here’s the link to watch the full webinar: https://www.facebook.com/ElixirIndiaOrg/videos/280971559621849/
