PW invited parents of Greenwood High International School, Bengaluru to share their New Year resolutions and their importance

“Our family’s New Year resolution is to reduce screen time and invest in family time. The outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic forced teaching-learning to move online for my children — Parth (11) and Dhruv (6) — and restricted their movement outdoors since mid-March. This has resulted in excessive screen exposure. Therefore, we have all resolved to use digital devices minimally, spend more time with family and engage in activities such as cooking, helping with household chores and playing board games. I believe our resolution will help us stay together and strengthen family bonds.” — Neelu Agarwal, homemaker.

“Our resolution is to spend much more unstructured time together, free of electronic screens. Since our busy lives leave us little time to spend with family and friends, we intend to replace the hollowness and superficiality of the considerable time my daughter — Thejaswini S.V. (class VIII) — spends onscreen, with family chats and banter. We believe conversation strengthens the mind’s ability to draw meaning from conversations, and helps us understand each other better. We are confident it will help our daughter develop valuable life skills as well.” — Santosh Thangavelu, founder and principal consultant, Ubermensch.

“This year, our family comprising my three children — Ishan (class VII) and twins Arin and Ahaan (class III) — collectively decided against making one specific resolution and enjoy every day as it comes. We have also decided to reinforce some basic values — to be kind to people around us, take extra care of our health, learn to share and show gratitude for things we are blessed with. Every day, we will remind ourselves and each other to live up to these values in our daily prayers, do a good deed every day, help around the house and spend at least an hour outdoors playing a sport.” — Bhavna Ganjoo, homemaker.

“New Year resolutions are promises to ourselves that we will do things differently. 2021 is an exciting year as we have all come out stronger with our varied experiences of 2020 including the novel experience of our children — Sairaja Arjun (11) Aadya (7) — adjusting to the new normal of online learning. We made a resolution to step into 2021 with positive minds. With teaching-learning moving online, we are making conscious efforts to reduce television watching to make family time. Also on our agenda is to introduce our children to the joys of sharing and caring for the needy.” — Achuta Ramayya, Business Head, Trade2online Pvt. Ltd.