Co-working spaces, cafes, libraries: How preschools are reimagining family support

Some urban preschools in India are expanding beyond classrooms to offer co-working, cafés and flexible care for parents. The shift reflects how smaller families and caregiving pressures are pushing early learning spaces to support entire households.

In Short

• Urban parents increasingly seek childcare that also eases daily caregiving pressures
• Healthy Planet in Noida combines classrooms with co-working, cafés and care
• Founders say trust and emotional connection matter as much as infrastructure

For decades, the role of a preschool was straightforward: children learnt, parents worked, and the two worlds remained largely separate. But that idea is quietly changing in India's cities.

Today, some preschools are becoming much more than early learning centres. They are creating spaces where parents can work while staying close to their children, grab a cup of tea between meetings, join parenting circles, or simply find a few hours to breathe. The child is still at the centre, but increasingly, the family is too.

The shift reflects a broader change in urban India. Nuclear families are replacing joint families, grandparents often live in different cities, and working parents, especially mothers, are juggling careers without the support systems previous generations relied upon.

According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's Time Use Survey, women in India continue to spend significantly more time on unpaid domestic and caregiving work than men, even when they are employed.

Several workplace studies, including Deloitte's Women Work report, have also highlighted caregiving responsibilities as one of the biggest challenges affecting women's careers and wellbeing. Against this backdrop, family-friendly childcare spaces are beginning to fill an important gap.

WHEN A PRESCHOOL STARTS FEELING LIKE HOME

At Healthy Planet TGA Early Years School in Noida, the idea goes beyond classrooms and playgrounds.

"We stopped thinking of ourselves as a preschool and started thinking of ourselves as a community that supports childhood," says co-founder Dr Suhasini Kanwar.

The campus includes a co-working space, cafe, extended care options and family programmes that allow parents to remain connected to their child's day without stepping away from work.

Kanwar says today's parents no longer want to be "kept outside the gate."

"Families have grown smaller and more scattered, so a working mother is short not only on time but also on the support system that once surrounded her," she says.

For many parents, she adds, the biggest benefit is not the infrastructure itself but the confidence that their child is genuinely cared for. "The practical pieces matter, but what parents talk about most is trust. They know their child is understood and loved here."

The school has also built an intergenerational model where young children regularly interact with older adults, something Kanwar believes helps rebuild the sense of community that modern childhood often lacks.

NOT A SCHOOL, NOT A PLAY AREA

A similar philosophy shaped Big Little Hood, founded by Ayushi and Suviena in Noida.

The founders intentionally avoided defining the space as a traditional preschool.

Instead, they imagined it as what Ayushi calls "a second home", a place where parents and children could simply exist without constantly feeling the pressure to perform.

"Parents are extremely overworked and overwhelmed," she says.

"The changing nuclear family setup and the need to always be productive has slowly taken away the art of being present, which is perhaps the most important part of parenting."

Ayushi believes social media have also complicated parenting by making it feel more performative.

"Parents are flooded with information and ideas but often become less confident about trusting their own instincts."

To respond to these realities, Big Little Hood introduced toddler hours for younger children, after-school programmes for older ones, flexible co-working spaces, parent meet-ups, community bazaars and informal support circles.

Many working mothers, particularly those returning from maternity leave, found the space especially valuable.

Instead of encouraging immediate separation between parent and child, the environment allowed children to gradually build confidence while parents worked nearby or simply enjoyed an uninterrupted cup of tea.

"The child could slowly begin playing independently while the parent worked or finally drank a hot cup of tea," Ayushi says.

IT TAKES MORE THAN A CLASSROOM

Both founders believe that the future of early childhood education will increasingly involve supporting families rather than focusing only on children.

Kanwar argues that the bigger challenge today is not an education crisis but a "connection crisis."

"Children are growing up in a world where genuine human relationships are becoming harder to find. Schools can help rebuild that social fabric," she says.

Ayushi echoes a similar sentiment.

"As a society, we need more spaces that look at families holistically, not only learning for children or productivity for parents, but places that allow both to connect, rest and find a community," she says.

She also points out that many parents enrol children in preschool earlier than they would ideally prefer, simply because they need some support after years of full-time caregiving.

With the National Education Policy placing greater emphasis on developmentally appropriate early childhood education, she believes there is now greater room for alternative family support spaces that bridge this gap.

THE VILLAGE RETURNS, JUST IN A NEW FORM

The idea that "it takes a village to raise a child" is often repeated, but for many urban families, that village no longer exists.

In its place, a new ecosystem is beginning to emerge.

Some preschools are becoming neighbourhood communities where children learn, parents work, grandparents participate, conversations happen over coffee, and families find support beyond structured lessons.

These models are still relatively few, but they reflect a larger shift in how early childhood spaces are being imagined.

For many parents, particularly working mothers, balancing meetings with mealtimes, the value of these places lies not simply in childcare, but in knowing that someone is helping carry the invisible weight of parenting.

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