Parenting Secrets Schools Don’t Teach You
Jennifer Sait, Co-Founder and Director at Kai Early Years, an educator, leader, and changemaker redefining how India views early childhood education.
From building emotionally intelligent classrooms to bridging global best practices with Indian ingenuity, Jennifer offers a true means to teach, parent, and nurture with intention.
With decades of experience across international and Indian schools, she shares powerful insights on growth mindset in teachers, balancing empathy with structure, and how schools can evolve into communities that support both parents and children.
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Key Takeaway:
1. Growth Mindset: The Heartbeat of Transformative Teaching
Jennifer begins with a fundamental insight — that teaching is not just a profession but an evolving practice. For her, the most valuable trait in an educator isn’t experience or credentials, but a growth mindset.
Teachers must constantly adapt, learn, and reflect to stay relevant to the needs of their students. The classroom, she explains, is a dynamic ecosystem; the moment a teacher stops learning, the system stagnates.
A growth mindset allows educators to embrace change, incorporate new methods, and create environments where curiosity thrives — preparing students for an ever-changing future.
2. Finding the Balance Between Structure and Empathy
When Nicholas asks about balancing empathy with structure, Jennifer emphasizes that both are essential pillars of effective education.
Structure ensures consistency, clarity, and fairness — it’s the foundation that keeps schools organized and functional. But empathy gives that structure its soul.
She stresses the importance of open dialogue within institutions — where teachers feel supported, heard, and empowered to question or adapt policies to real-world contexts.
At Kai, structure isn’t rigid; it’s fluid, adaptable, and human-centered, shaped by trust, transparency, and shared understanding.
3. Bridging the Best of Both Worlds – Global Practices and Indian Ingenuity
Jennifer’s global experience has shown her that while international systems excel at structure and documentation, Indian educators are unmatched in creativity and resilience.
She describes how Indian teachers can turn even the simplest materials into learning tools — a reflection of deep innovation rooted in adaptability.
Her vision is to merge global frameworks with Indian inventiveness, building classrooms that are structured yet spontaneous, disciplined yet deeply creative.
4. Failure: The Most Powerful Teacher
Addressing one of the most relatable parenting concerns, Jennifer reframes failure as a crucial part of growth.
Parents, she says, must allow children to fail — and then reflect. Failure isn’t an endpoint but a starting point for resilience.
She draws parallels to adult experiences of regret and learning, urging parents to focus on the “what next” after failure, rather than the failure itself.
In her words, “Failure is the best way to learn — but reflection is what turns failure into growth.”
5. Connection: The Core of Healthy Parenting
For Jennifer, emotional connection is the foundation of child development.
Children thrive when they feel secure, understood, and loved — both at home and in school.
She encourages parents to build meaningful relationships with their children by understanding developmental milestones, staying informed through reading and dialogue, and prioritizing emotional awareness.
Parenting, she reminds us, is not instinct alone — it’s a skill that grows with intention and awareness.
6. Parents Are Learners Too
Jennifer’s philosophy extends beyond the child — she believes parents must also grow, learn, and unlearn.
At Kai Early Years, parents are invited to participate in workshops and classroom experiences that help them understand the science behind play-based learning.
These sessions are not merely educational; they are transformative, reshaping how parents view their role in their child’s journey.
“Parenting evolves with the child,” she notes. “We’re all students in this process.”
7. Partnership Between Home and School
Education, according to Jennifer, thrives when parents and teachers work in partnership.
Parents must provide context — a child’s interests, personality, and emotional patterns — that helps teachers personalize their approach.
Simple gestures, such as sending a note about a child’s mood or difficult day, can make a profound difference in how teachers support them in class.
When home and school communicate effectively, children experience consistent emotional safety and academic growth.
8. Beyond Academics – Building Emotional Intelligence and Joy
Jennifer strongly believes that the early years are not about academics but about building emotional intelligence, curiosity, and joy in learning.
At Kai, the dual curriculum model — Montessori and IB — ensures that children are not forced into a single mold but are encouraged to explore their individuality.
Every child learns through connection, movement, and play. The goal, she says, is not just to teach, but to nurture happy, confident, and self-aware learners.
9. Kai Early Years: A Vision Beyond the Classroom
Jennifer describes Kai not just as a preschool but as an ecosystem designed for holistic development.
From The Academy of Strength (a physical development space) to Healthland Pediatric Center and Paper & Pie Café, every aspect of Kai’s design caters to family well-being and convenience.
Through Kai Circle, they’re building a platform for research, innovation, and leadership in early childhood education.
Kai’s vision, she explains, was born out of a simple question: “How can we make early education truly meaningful for families?” The answer became a living, breathing community that supports both parents and children.
10. The Final Word – Presence is the Greatest Gift
Jennifer closes the conversation with a message every parent needs to hear:
“Connect with your child. Make eye contact. Take interest in their world. Give them your time.”
In a world where attention is divided and schedules are packed, presence is the most powerful form of love.
For her, connection isn’t just emotional — it’s neurological, developmental, and deeply human.
Nicholas (Host): What's one teaching practice or mindset you believe genuinely transforms a student's learning experience?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Well, first of all, thank you for having me today. I really appreciate it. It's always a pleasure to be able to talk about the passion and what we do every day with regards to teachers. Your question was to teachers, right? I think that what we really look for when we're hiring, especially, is one critical factor, and that is to have a growth mindset.
If teachers do not have a growth mindset, that's when you tend to see stagnancy within classrooms.
I think it's really important that we are looking continuously at what the future is for the children that we have in our classrooms today, and to be able to understand that we continue to evolve as practitioners and continue to learn and go through different professional development opportunities and so that growth mindedness needs to be there with every teacher.
Nicholas (Host): How do you balance empathy with structure, especially in international or high demand school settings?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Structure and empathy! That's a great question because it is a challenge, and with regards to structure, I think that's something that everyone in the organization needs to understand; What is structure? What does it look like? When it comes down to why do we need to have structure, the why is always something that we focus on.
So whether that structure comes down to, say, the systems and processes in an organization, the different policies that are there, the documentation, why are those important, and why do we need to be adhering to those?
When we're looking at, say, empathy—when you have a policy, for example—how do we then balance different situations or contexts with empathy?
If we understand that there's maybe a challenge with being able to implement that policy or there's a challenge that's come up, in some way with a teacher with the teacher handbook.
So I think that it's really important that we have a really robust culture in terms of being able to have an open dialogue and it really comes around to building culture. So that is something that is really important for us to build very intentionally.
It's probably one of our key focus areas, to make sure that culture is the core of what we do. That everyone in the organization feels part of what we say is actually a family. They are part of our Kai family, and so from that context, what does that look like for them?
There's an open door policy, there's a way that I can come in and have conversations with leadership, challenges that I'm facing, if I don't understand an aspect of structure, can I come to you.
So it's looking at different situations and contexts and seeing people for who they are and building culture around that, and a lot of understanding of why we do things.
So that brings the aspects of the balance of structure and empathy.
So it's not rigid in that sense.
We adhere to policies. We adhere to systems and processes but we're also constantly looking at how we need to maybe adapt those systems and processes or adapt those policies because we understand there's always going be a new situation, a new context.
Nicholas (Host): You have worked across global and Indian classrooms. What's one international practice that you have adapted, here and what Indian practice would you say should be on the global landscape?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): With regards to the international aspect, I think one thing that I immediately saw when I had first kind of come into the leadership realm in an international setting or Indian setting is the need for teachers to understand why they are doing something and so there's an understood purpose to what we're doing and that builds then the structure around why we're doing what we're doing.
With the Indian aspect, one thing that I just love about Indian educators is that they are so innovative. You can really have no resources almost, and an Indian educator will be able to come up with some plan or some activity for children, and I think that that's such an amazing talent to have, even for kids. I think that's one thing that I really admire about children in this country—that even if you're just given a stick, they will come up with some way to make fun with that stick, to have a great time with it, to come up with a game, but you won't necessarily see that in all Western cultures.
They have many more materials, more options of things, and that creativity level is not necessarily as widely seen as what I see in India.
Nicholas (Host): As a parent yourself and the teacher, an educator rather, what advice would you give to parents who struggle to let their kids fail, to experiment, to fall?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): So, let me clarify. When you say fail, failing in what way?
Nicholas (Host): An expected task, a task that's been assigned to them.
Jennifer Sait (Guest): I would say first as a parent, let's reflect on ourselves. We've all had times that we have failed.
We can all think of something that we regret or that we didn't do well at or maybe think back to our own schooling days when you got a grade that you didn't expect, whatever the situation may be.
Did you learn from that? Did you try harder the next time? Did you do something different? There would have been growth for yourself, I'm sure, and so to be able to have that understanding yourself as a parent, we can then help children see that often failure is the best way that we learn.
So, it is okay to let our children fail at something, but what do we do next about that?
Do we just let them fail and that's the end of the conversation? No. What is the reflection stage?
Then after that, how do we have a conversation with the child to help them realize first of all, it is okay, but what could we have done better and how do we facilitate that conversation?
Nicholas (Host): So I was listening to Dr. Swati talk about self-esteem and how being rebuked or chastised for an attempt can impact their neurochemistry in ways that might be irreversible to an extent. What does healthy parental involvement look like in the early years of a child's development?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Healthy parental involvement, the first thing, is connection with your child. And for that, everything is around relationships for a child.
When they're first born, it's a relationship with their parents. When they go into school for the first time, it's building a relationship and comfort with their teachers.
So we really want to make sure that we understand that as a parent, we want to build strong, healthy relationships around our children.
How do we build social skills, say for our children?
Again, that comes down to building relationships with other children, so that's one thing that parents can do to be really involved as a parent. It's also being able to be aware of this time in a child's life.
So depending on whatever age your child is and whatever milestones they should be reaching, be well informed of that.
What can you do? Reading different parenting books or watching/listening to podcasts, whatever that might be, even in small chunks, it doesn't have to be anything major, but trying to be aware that this is something I should know in terms of my child's development, what my child is going through, what are the little tips and things I can do to be a mindful and conscious parent.
There's a wonderful book I just completed reading by Dr. Shefali, who's a parenting expert and she talks about the ego of a parent and the inner child of a parent.
There are so many ways that we parent our children because parenting doesn't ultimately come with a guidebook.
You're handed your baby in the hospital and sent home with your child, but there's no manual, there's nothing.
So how do you begin to do that? She talks about how children are raised by parents and from however they were raised, or the opposite, because they look at what they did not enjoy from their childhood.
So it's being aware of things like that, being a conscious parent, being an involved parent, being connected with your child.
Definitely, when it comes to schooling aspect, you need to be aware, be in conversation with the school, build a relationship with the teachers and staff to be aware of what is happening, how you can support your child.
Teachers are always eager to give ideas and tips to parents, they may not always feel comfortable to do so, so it's great for parents to ask and to build that relationship with the teachers too.
Nicholas (Host): So it starts with, to me it seems like accepting the fact that it's not just the child who's developing, it's the parent too. There's an educational curve for the parent as well, and the sooner they're aware of it, the sooner they function toward that goal of developing oneself, they'll be able to help the child develop better.
Jennifer Sait (Guest): That's one thing we, at Kai Early Years, were really particular about—in being able to help and support parents to really understand what this time is in their child's life, how their child is developing.
To be able to understand also what practices are going on in the classroom, is my child just playing, but they're actually learning through play.
What does that look like, we actually do different parenting workshops. We have them come in and experience a lesson so they can see for themselves how a child is learning through play.
So being involved, attending those is important. I understand parents have busy schedules but try to make those attempts to go to different workshops and to be part of your child's learning journey.
Nicholas (Host): When you watch your own child learn, is there anything that you notice?
Other parents might not, given your positioning, your experience in this field as an educator, is there anything that you notice that other parents might not when it comes to your child in a learning environment more specifically?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): It's a very deeply personal one with regards to my children and especially with my spouse being in the same field where everything we do is together in education. So given our current circumstance, we are always analysing children.
We very much are, I mean, we look at everything very holistically. So if I am, I'm watching my child, let's say in a playtime at home with the neighbours, I'll be looking at their social skills.
How are they interacting? If there's an argument, you know, in the community amongst the children, how did they handle that? I'll be going into a reflection conversation with them looking at, you know, trying to understand different people's perspectives and what could I maybe have done better or done differently, and what caused maybe this reaction?
Sometimes we have to analyse ourselves too and say we shouldn't be analysing so much.
I think though, a lot of times sometimes we just say, you know, let's just be, let's just be with our child. and I think one thing that we, you know, are conscious of coming back to the conscious parenting, you just have to build that relationship with your child.
So sometimes we just say, look, this is just playtime. This is just time for us to just bond with our child and see what they want to do. Let's not analyze, but let's just have fun, so we create those spaces for us to go and do a nice family activity.
My boys are particularly really big into fishing, and so we go fishing very often. In fact, my husband just took the boys yesterday to three different fishing locations and they really enjoyed it, so we're always trying to look at different opportunities for them.
At the same time, we'll look at, you know, what is it that maybe we can expose them to that they don't have opportunities for?
'Cause we're looking at the holistic development, so it, we are trying to balance that aspect of, not overanalysing too much, but we are very mindful, just given our backgrounds.
When I say also the personal aspect coming to schooling from my older child. It was definitely an experience, I think because he had quite a few transitions between schools for some time and what we saw that there was something that wasn't quite right in his academics and, there was some inconsistencies.
So it was really only a lot of conversation with teachers and a lot of collaboration between us, as parents and teachers, that relationship building that I spoke about, that we were able to identify actually that he has DD (Developmental Delay).
So that is something that we were happy to be able to discover and we're working so well with the teachers to be able to come up with, you know, ways to be able to support him, and we see him now thriving and being able to pick up on things.
But it was only because I think that I had that background as an educator that I was able to pick up on those very subtle aspects because it wasn't necessarily seen through the school system where he is currently at.
Nicholas (Host): So you would say that proactivity is crucial. You have to be very mindful and actively think about the development of the child and look out for these things. Is what you're suggesting, how important is that? Because some parents, to put it a little conversationally, kind of just go with the flow, right? They just let it happen. There are established processes, established structures in terms of structure. They think they are putting their child into a structured environment when they put them in a school. So how does a parent know when to pay more attention?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): So there are different types of parents, and like you said, there may be one, I've placed my child in a really great school and things must be going well.
There's a structure, there's a curriculum. The teachers are there, they're supporting them. I'll attend the PTMs and if there's anything major, I'm sure it'll come back, but what do I look for?
They're not aware of what they should be looking for, and I think that, like I said, by having conversation and dialogue with the teachers in terms of what is happening.
Setting context for the teachers is very helpful, so that's one thing that's something that I've done as a parent is in terms of being able to set context for my child's teachers, what is happening at home? What is their personality like? What are their interests in? What supports differentiation in the classroom as well? What motivates my child?
Those are things that parents can do to support that relationship between home and school.
So by setting that other context, because teachers do have curriculum, they have routine, they are being able to observe your child and support in many ways.
They will never have the entire context of your child, what happens at home? What environment are they coming from? What background are they coming from? What language are they speaking at home? Those are all factors that need to be considered within the classroom environment as well.
So I think communication is a really important aspect. That's what you can do as a parent, communicate to your teachers and let them know what is the context at home, what's happening.
If your child, let's say, had a really bad day or really bad start in the morning, just sending an email and saying, please provide some extra, TLC (Tender, Loving Care) to my child is something that would go actually a long way because unless your child is emotionally ready also when they enter the school day, then they're not ready to learn, because their mind is somewhere else.
Something's bothering them, so even a small thing like that parents can do.
Nicholas (Host): Would you say that some parents are, quote unquote, instinctively better at parenting? In your experience, what have you seen? Is it something like some people are just naturally better at it? Is it something that can be learned to be a better parent?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): It can absolutely be learned. Absolutely, and I'm gonna take this back to your first question about what do teachers need?
Being growth minded, and I think if parents are too and you're willing to learn and you are willing to continue to educate yourself in small ways, it doesn't have to be anything major.
But if you're willing to do that, then that's the very key. So instinct. I mean, I'm no expert I would say at being able to understand all parents and their backgrounds and context. But I would say that you do see different types of parents, and they all have their own reasons.
They all have their own backgrounds and their own histories and context, but what can they do? They can be cumulative and they can be open to learning and understanding.
Nicholas (Host): Would you say that you were always growth minded? Is that something that changed in you as an adult?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): I would say I've always been highly curious, so yes, there's a connection there. I've just always been a curious person myself and always been a person that's set high expectations for myself.
Nicholas (Host): You mentioned Saad, co-founder, spouse.
Are there any educational philosophies that differ between you and him, your approach to certain things and how do you handle, how do you reconcile any differences that might arise?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Philosophies, I think we are very much on par, very much on par with exactly what the philosophy is.
When it comes to implementation, obviously we are different people. We have our own histories and way we've grown up and we have different styles of working in some sense.
But I have also seen how we've really blended together, working together for so long and being on the same mission together and having this striving for the same vision, and so we really are very much aligned in philosophy.
Nicholas (Host): Could you tell me a little bit about the birth of this vision and how it developed?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): So with Kai Early Years, we were very excited. Saad had met actually a friend and they were having a conversation one evening about preschools.
This is our other co-founder, Abhinav, and he had expressed some ideas that he had with regards to how preschools could be better, and it's particularly in terms of space.
The conversation just kind of grew when Saad and I had also looked at it in terms of vision, we said, what next?
Because our other campus Legacy, so Kai Early Years transitioned from Legacy Early Years, and we were also looking then what next to give back to society. Because we were looking at the 35 mile mark from Mrs. Preeti Sait, who's founder of Legacy School, and she's a Montessori at heart.
So when we looked at this from the context of what can we do for this next phase of education, we were offering the Montessori program.
We also understand that if Dr. Maria Montessori was here today, there probably would've been some level of evolvement in her approach.
When we look at the IB curriculum, we also look at the aspect in terms of being able to understand that that's what's needed for coming for the future. We need students then that are coming from different global perspectives and different skill sets, building these attributes. So we looked at them in terms of our curriculum.
That's where we came up with the dual curriculum that we wanted to offer here at Kai. So we offer both the Montessori and IB dual curriculum, which is unique. We're one of those only schools in the world actually offering this.
I believe there's one other in the US that I've heard of. I'm not aware of any others, but from that context, we're really excited to offer this, apart from that, the vision, we really wanted to be a place for families, and I think that's something that many people don't understand until they come to the campus because we are here as a school and here to educate children.
We are a preschool, but we are doing much more than that. The vision extends beyond to support parents to be able to support the community and build awareness of the importance of early years, and we are trying to push boundaries in that.
That's why Kai Early was built as a flagship campus.
First, we wanted to be able to say, look, the early year is very important.
There's a lot of emphasis on older grades, but this time the child's brain is rapidly developing. 90% of the brain develops by age five, and so this is the time we should be looking at, so coming back to the vision then, we need to be able to support parents to understand how you can be a great parent.
We are looking at educational programming for parents, we bring them different opportunities, not just for our high parents but for anyone from the external community who'd like to come in and learn about how to be a more effective parent.
Different workshops, different topics, and then we have the community center, which extends our vision.
So a happy, healthy parent, one that has more time in this busy lifestyle we lead.
How do we support these parents? That's where the community center comes into play.
We have the Academy of Strength, which supports parents with health and wellbeing.
We have Paper and Pie, the cafe, there to support parents.
Let's say a working mother who wants to rejoin the workforce after having a child, she wants to do something part-time but drops her child off to school and only has a couple of hours, what does she do? She can go over to Paper and Pie, even work out of there.
We have a lot of parents that drop their children and work out of Paper and Pie for the day.
We have Healthland, the pediatric center, making it convenient to go to pediatric dentistry for your child, everything all in one.
With Healthland, parents can meet a pediatrician, get vaccines, dentistry done, and in emergencies, there are accessible doctors on-site, this ecosystem we've built.
Extending further, we launched Kai Circle, our Center for Innovation Research, Collaboration, Leadership, and Empowerment.
The vision is to extend further, supporting teachers outside our community with professional development, improving quality, and also supporting parents more widely through events, book clubs, and more beyond our Kai Early community.
Nicholas (Host): So to close, is it more about letting the child be a child, be in the moment and grow ‘naturally’, as opposed to accelerating development, fuelling growth into an upstanding citizen as most parents view it?
What would you say education is more about? Letting children be themselves or preparing them to be adults?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): When a child is a child, the child needs to be a child.
When we educate, we follow the child, as in Montessori. But what does that mean? Does that mean not promoting their development?
Yes, but intentionally we do it allowing the child to be who they are.
We need to be mindful where the child is at, know each child individually, who they are, their level, interests, and help them reach their potential.
We strive to develop them within the bounds of being a child, with connections and relationships.
In brain development, so much is laid in this critical period.
Not just academics but skills, self-esteem, love for learning—all being laid now.
So we need to be mindful, let the child be a child but know the child and help them reach their potential.
Nicholas (Host): Right. Interact with the child. Let it be an interactive, mutual learning process, not just prescribing things.
Jennifer Sait (Guest): We can learn from children, we as adults, educators, and parents are all learning and developing, and that's an important takeaway.
Nicholas (Host): If you had to give one parting message for parents watching, one important takeaway, what would it be?
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Connect with your child, make eye contact, take interest in their interactions and their interests, and make sure you give time to your child.
Nicholas (Host): Thank you so much for your time and insight. This has been very educational, so thank you very much.
Jennifer Sait (Guest): Thank you so much.
So that brings us to the end of the Edexlive podcast by The New Indian Express.
Thank you so much for joining in. If you'd like to listen to more of our inspiring stories, log on to Edexlive.com/podcast, or join us here on the Edexlive podcast every Wednesday as we talk to brand-new change makers every week.
