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Mansa Clinic in Aundh, Pune runs child emotional wellness programmes including the 'Smell the Roses, Beat the Thorns' resilience initiative, led by Dr. Vidya Ganapathy. Programmes cover emotional regulation, stress management, and social skills for school-age children through interactive group sessions - alongside parenting workshops for adults.
A 2022 Aga Khan Foundation study found that 54% of Indian schoolchildren between ages 10 and 16 reported chronic stress. Schools in Pune's competitive academic environment - particularly in localities like Aundh, Baner, and Kothrud where entrance coaching often begins before secondary school - place enormous pressure on children at ages when emotional coping skills are still forming.
Dr. Vidya Ganapathy, who has worked with children across a clinical and community context for over 18 years, holds a clear position on this: the foundation of sound mental health is laid in childhood. A child who learns to name their emotions, tolerate frustration, ask for help, and recover from setbacks is not just a happier child today - they are a more resilient adult tomorrow.
The emotional wellness programmes at Mansa Clinic are not crisis intervention. They are investment - the kind that pays off across a lifetime.
'Smell the Roses, Beat the Thorns' is Mansa Clinic's structured resilience programme for schoolchildren, developed and delivered by Dr. Vidya Ganapathy. The name captures the programme's philosophy: life has beauty and it has difficulty. The skill is in being present to both - without being overwhelmed by either.
The programme is run in interactive group sessions, adapted for different age groups from primary through secondary school. Sessions use games, stories, role-play, and guided discussion rather than classroom-style instruction. Children engage actively rather than sitting and listening.
Topics covered across the programme include:Dr. Vidya Ganapathy runs parenting workshops for adults with a consistent observation: the most powerful intervention in a child's emotional development is not what happens at school or in therapy - it is what happens at home. How a parent handles frustration, conflict, disappointment, and stress is the most influential model a child has.
The workshops are interactive and practical, not lecture-based. Topics include:Mansa Clinic is available to deliver awareness programmes on child mental health for schools, teachers, and parent groups across Aundh and greater Pune. These sessions are designed to build a shared language around emotional wellbeing - one that travels between home and school in a way that reinforces rather than contradicts itself.
If you are a school administrator, teacher, or parent group coordinator interested in organising a programme, please contact Mansa Clinic directly to discuss format, timing, and curriculum.
Dr. Ganapathy's conviction that mental health foundations are laid in childhood is not a slogan - it is the clinical insight that drove her to design these programmes alongside her psychiatric practice. Her training at NIMHANS Bangalore, her 18+ years of child psychiatric experience, and her Comdeall certification give her an unusually comprehensive view of how children develop emotionally - and what derails that development. Her workshops are consistently described by Pune parents and teachers as practical, evidence-grounded, and genuinely enjoyable.
