The OddMod system is the culmination of her research based graduation project titled ‘Empathy in a Post-Pandemic World’. The intention of this project is to enable empathy in the generation of children who have been isolated from their peers due to the Pandemic.The shared trauma that this generation is experiencing will impact their holistic development. In the absence of friends to play with, with most interactions having shifted online, being home all the time under the well-meaning but the constant eye of parents, results in limited and controlled social interactions. This affects their socio-emotional development in a big manner.
The OddMod system is designed to exercise their ‘empathy muscles’ in a fun but educative way. It intends to do so by enabling their ‘ability to create knowledge’, and by providing opportunities to practice ‘perspective taking’, creativity, and imagination continuously. It also helps with emotional literacy, self regulation and collaboration. The OddMods toolkit is a set of ambiguous shapes (family of objects) that can be put together by children to create different kinds of creatures, to imagine the worlds they live in and to give them different physical and emotional characteristics. It is part of an open-ended OddMod system that stimulates and stretches the child's 'empathy muscles’ through the various ways it can be played. It also helps develop their communication skills and social skills by participating in community building exercises.
The ability to empathize affects our children’s future health, wealth, authentic happiness, relationship satisfaction, and ability to bounce back from adversity. It promotes kindness, prosocial behaviour, and moral courage, and it is an effective antidote to bullying, aggression and prejudice.
Children, Empathy, Pandemic, Socio-Emotional Development, Toys
