panaji amidst the urban isolation a group of middleclass working parents living in and around panaji are stealing time away from their busy lives in search of extended families for their children as a fruitful alternative to the fading joint family system excessive use of gadgets a materialistic outlook lack of discipline and rebellion from their children had left the group of five couples in despair clueless desperate for the right answers and anxious that their children will face isolation in their adult lives the couples formed a forum to share their experiences the discussions slowly evolved into understanding of the problems which led the parents to answers and eventually positive results when there is no electricity in only your house one panics but you are calm when the entire colony does not have electricity similarly parents tend to magnify the problems in their minds by thinking only their children are beyond control but sharing helps understand that others are facing similar issues says neelaprabha telang a homeopath from socorro who initiated the idea of the parent group among her friends the parents now call their group the progressive parents forum where they are trying to pass on the same benefits of experiencesharing and problemsolving to other couples by initiating them into it through parenting workshops by professionals forum members are hoping to expand the idea of parent forums so that in an indifferent society a group of children are brought up with similar values and are not isolated in their adult life in families today where mostly both parents are working one does not like to entertain too many guests and the families are nuclear so we have the forums meetings in each others homes on rotation basis and the children get to mingle as we hold our discussions this gives a sort of extended family to the children they may not be comfortable sharing their problems with parents at times and have some other adult to open up to telang says the forum now has seven couplesincluding two from pondaand meets once every month it is mandatory for both parents to attend the meetings the children are also encouraged every few months to share their views on what they expect from their parents the forum has not just helped the children but has helped us as couples to improve our relationships says member umesh dhavalikar children using gadgets was initially among the major issues we set common rules for usage and implemented the rules though our children initially complained when they saw that the other children were also being subjected to the same rules it helped them accept the rules adds the civil engineer from caranzalem the parents choose subjects of relevance for each forum meeting and even sex education was incorporated after sexrelated violence came into the limelight in a major way after the delhi gangrape the forum has organized a workshop next month with punebased family and child psychiatrist dr bhushan shukla around 30 other parents