Ask any parent, and they would tell you that 2025 has been a roller coaster ride. School schedules witnessed unprecedented disruptions, the kind that were last seen during the covid-19 pandemic years. Early on, the Indo Pak conflict led to classes being suspended for some days, bringing with it a sense of uncertainty as well. Kids went back to hybrid classes several times this year—be it due to rain, storm or the never-ending smog. As Wi-Fi networks groaned under the demand for increased bandwidth, parents scrambled around to fix their schedules to accommodate these changes, which often were announced at the last minute. Given the anxiety that news of conflicts and disasters brought, many urgent conversations took place to soothe worries. After this year, many parents plan to update their resumes with newly-acquired skills of “anytime anywhere counsellors” and manic multi-taskers.

2025 also saw new words being added to the Gen Alpha lingo. Parents, who had just about begun to level up, found themselves back to square one as tweens and teens updated their vocabulary with words like “bussin”, “gyatt”, “mewing”, and “fanum tax”. New trends such as Ghibli aesthetic and “6 7” went viral—I am yet to fully understand what the latter means.

2025 will also be remembered as the year the Swifties woke up from a trance as their idol’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, was not all they thought it would be. Some even shifted their allegiance to K-Pop Demon Hunters, which became a global phenomenon. Gen Z lost its head over Saiyaara, and later 1975’s Sholay turned out to be a big bonding exercise for families, with three generations watch ing the classic on the big screen together. Kids got newer idols in the form of the Indian women’s cricket and squash teams, who showed a lot of grit.

With new visa rules and increasing intolerance towards migrants in the West, families started to look towards South-East and West Asia for higher education, a trend that was buoyed by new partnerships between leading universities. This is a shift that will continue to unfold in the coming year as well.

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If there was one issue that kept parents awake, it was vaping—with students as young as 12-13 turning to e-cigarettes and vape pens due to peer pressure. Parents, counsellors and teachers started working together on preventive education, though many are still struggling with it. One also heard of different styles of par enting this year—‘plastic wrap parenting’, marked by excessive control of the child being the most talked about.

Singers from the ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters’ perform in the US on Christmas. The film has become a global cultural phenomenon(Getty Images via AFP)

All in all, it turned out to be a busy and exciting year for both kids and parents. For me, it was a landmark one as my daughter entered her teen years and became my unofficial tech support. Small new rituals entered our lives: Bonding over Lego, thriller series and theatre. 2025, to me, was defined not by milestones or internet dictated labels, but by these small-big moments with her. There are many like me—fellow parents, educators, counsellors, authors—whose year was enriched by such conversations with children about books, apps, OTT series, and social media, that led them to reflect on the world in newer ways.

Expression over perfection: At The Art Studio Mumbai—a studio that provides art education programmes for all age groups—facilitator and founder Purnima Sampat noticed that by the time children reached grades 3-4, something changed in their art. The fearless scribblers begin to hesitate. “Children began to sense a gap between what they imagine and what their hands can make,” she says. They started to equate ‘good’ art with realism, and the gap started to feel like failure. This year, she came across Ish by Peter A. Reynolds in a bookstore and read it in class. In the book, Ramon stops drawing because his brother laughs. So many kids identified with that. And then came the word ish. “My animal is horse-ish”. “This is sort of castle-ish”. “One child looked up and asked, with genuine relief, ‘So… ish is allowed?’,” she shares. “From that point on, fewer papers were scrunched. Children stayed with awkward marks longer. They explained what they were trying to do instead of apologising for what they hadn’t achieved.” Ish did what no amount of explaining could—it gave children permission, in a language they understood, to keep going.

Understanding pride: For Siddhant Shah, Granddad’s Pride by Harry Woodgate was an eye opener. “We never think of discussing gender and queerness with our grandparents, especially in India. This book broke so many mental barriers for me as well,” says the disability access consultant and founder of Access For ALL. It gave him newer tools to work on themes of gender and intersectionality with kids. Granddad’s Pride is now part of Access For ALL’s pop-up library called READ_ Inclusive at schools and corporate spaces. The teachers were a bit skeptical of allowing the team to keep this book in the schools, but it led children to have complex conversations on the topic in a non-judgemental space.

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A doll that looks like us: Mumbai-based couple, Nidhi Taparia and Ashutosh Parekh are always looking for experiences for their seven-year-old daughter, Amodini, that push the boundaries of imagination. This year, the young child learnt to go beyond the manual while building Lego sets and create stories around them. The family spent quality time reading Julia Donaldson’s books and chatting about the various characters. That opened newer doors for them to make the most difficult subjects easy to talk about. “Barbie has always been a point of contention between my husband and me. This year, when artist friend Varunika Saraf gifted us Nilah—the good doll, that solved things for us. Created by a craft venture in the Nilgiris, this doll looked like us, was rooted in the Indian context and was sustainable,” says Taparia.

Reconciling conflicting opinions: Author Vibha Batra had some rather interesting conversations with middle graders at litfests and workshops this year about the Harry Potter series. “How do you reconcile the author’s hateful comments on issues such as trans rights with the love for the books and movies by her. Is it possible to love a series while not agreeing with the author? How to make peace with that? This has led to some pertinent discussions,” she says. And with the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premiering this year, there were also discussions on the casting, especially for the role of Hermione. “We talked about diversity and colour-blind casting. Why should the race or colour of an actor be a limitation? These were some of the questions asked,” shares Batra.

John Skelley as Harry Potter and Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy in ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ (AP)

Social media as a space of relief: At a recent literature festival at a school, Anushka Ravishankar, author of books such as Moin and the Monster, entered into a discussion with students from grades 11-12. Their contention was that social media is to this generation what books were to earlier ones. To her it seemed like a curious comparison to make. “One young girl felt that they could not talk freely to their parents or teachers because of the generation gap, so they used social media as an escape from reality. Social media seems to provide them the kind of solace and relief from stress that books provided us,” shares Ravishankar. But the young girls also appeared very aware of the dangers of social media. One had experienced stalking, and they all knew that cyber-bullying was a very real thing. “At the end, we agreed that communication between parents, teachers and children was crucial, and that we should all aspire to some gadget-free time every day,” she adds.

Expressing complex emotions: When Ayesha Chenoy penned The Rose Bush, she didn’t realise that it would be the gateway to many complex conversations. While the younger readers responded to ideas of separation and fairness— ‘Why is the garden divided?’, ‘Why can’t children play together’—with the older children, the discussions became more layered. They began to recognise parallels with real-life divisions between communities, beliefs and even families, and started questioning who builds these walls and why.

Understanding privacy: For Gurugram-based parent, Radhika Kapoor, navigating conversations around the Roblox game was a big challenge. Discussing digital safety with her 13-year-old, reviewing her activity to keep her safe while also respecting her independence has been akin to walking a tightrope. “The platform’s user‑generated games could lead to my daughter stumbling upon content with explicit language, violent themes, or predatory chatrooms,” she shares. Privacy feels fragile—personal details can be scraped and strangers can message her without my knowledge. In‑game purchases tempt her with virtual items, sometimes leading to unexpected real‑money charges. This past year has led to a lot of important and constructive discussions between the mom and teen on this topic.

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Nothing like the warmth of family: For Lounge team’s newest-minted mom, Jahnabee Borah, no book or toy could measure up to the joy that came with spending time with family. This November, she travelled from Mumbai with her six-month-old to visit her great grandma in Assam. “There is a 100–year-old age gap between her and my daughter. That is so rare and precious,” she shares. Her aunts and cousins made the most of this visit, regaling the little one with Assamese limericks and Bihu songs. “One evening, the Bihu jam session hit a crescendo when my baby moved her hands up and down, babbling loudly, and shaking her tiny body to the rhythm. Everyone else joined in and we got a moment to remember forever,” says Borah.

A relook at history: Author Lavanya Karthik recently conducted a session with children and teenagers about her book, A Demon in Dandi, at a literature festival in Kochi. The book is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of the Dandi March and inevitably the conversation turned to the idea of swaraj and eschewal of all things British in favour of swadeshi products. “The hero of the book is a child, who struggles to follow Gandhiji’s principles while also being deeply attached to a book of stories about Sherlock Holmes. I asked the children if one could be a Gandhian and still be attached to something very British. Nearly every hand in the room went up and we had a range of interesting responses—from complete disapproval of the character and his fence-sitting to a strong defence of British contributions to Indian life like the English language, cricket and the railway system,” she shares. An energetic debate followed, and Karthik saw some very well-reasoned arguments for and against a complete boycott of foreign ideas and products.