Parents should talk to their kids regularly
Children are much pampered at home these days. Since schools try to discipline them, they do not want to leave their comfort zone and attend schools regularly. Recently, I met with a student, who was being bullied at school and ultimately had to change the school to find a suitable peer group, but this is not the general trend.
Children, nowadays, are addicted to a lot of distractions like Facebook and other networking tools. They not only want to skip schools, but also avoid sports regularly. Hence, all of this cannot be attributed to deep psychological problems, but to rather newly-created distractions.
To help children, parents should be moderately strict. Parents should speak to their children when they do not want to study and make them realise the importance of education. If there are deeper problems that a child faces, parents should communicate and engage them on an emotional level to learn about their problems at schools.
Dr Viraj Darode,
clinical psychologist
Parents should be friendly with their children
On several occasions, we have faced a similar situation with our son, who goes to a day boarding school. As the meals are served at the school, once my son’s friend forced him to eat his share of the vegetable. On another occasion, my son was pushed into the swimming pool by his sports teacher, as part of the training.
My son used to love playing with water, but he did not like swimming.
Both these incidents troubled my son deeply, and my wife and I found him crying in bed once. Somehow my wife sweet-talked him into confiding his problems in us.
In the first instance, we spoke with the parents of the boy and solved the problem. Later, we arranged a meeting with the principal of the school and switched his swimming classes with karate classes.
As a parent, I noticed that my son is a shy child. We found that open communication and a lot of listening was the right way to make him open with us. Parents should be friends with their children.
As parents, we must never make fun of our children and should always respect their feelings and thoughts. Most of the time, parents adopt a dictatorial approach, which does not help in dealing with such situations.
Vivek Yatnalkar,
parent
Family problems can affect child’s psychology
In 17 years of my career as a school principal, I have seen a lot of changes among students and their family composition. I have noticed that a lot of families, nowadays, are either going through divorces or break-up of the extended family system.
Such family problems make the children more insecure and frustrated. Since these children cannot express their frustration or other emotions at home, they want to bully other kids at school or take the other extreme and become completely isolated from social life.
Approximately 90% of children regularly attend schools and complete their studies. The rest of them have problems and lag behind in studies due to consistent quarrels at home or other issues. These kids want avoid the anxiety of catching up with other students and hence they refuse to attend school regularly or finish their homework.
In these cases, we usually try to identify such children through the help of our teachers. We try to solve their problems on an individual level through discussions with parents and counselling at schools.
Medha Kirkole,
principal, Mahesh Vidyalaya
Parents should make their kids feel safe & secure
As parents, my husband and I are very open with our 11-year-old daughter, so that she can confide her problems to us. A relation between parents and their children must be always a two-way one, wherein children feel comfortable to express themselves and get equal reciprocation.
Parents must understand their children’s situation and deal with it sensitively. My daughter feels very comfortable to speak with me about any difficulty or problem she faces. As both of us are working, I stay in touch with my daughter through phone. By talking to our daughter and understanding her problems, we, as parents, have always made her believe that we are always there to help her out.
This has made her confident and mature enough to deal with situations on her own. We have never had a problem with her at school. She has always loved to go to school and has even been appreciated for her progress by her teachers.
Preetha Nair,
working parent
We motivate him by explaining the importance of school
My son, Rohan, is very naughty. He is a brilliant student, but he sometimes tells me that he does not want to go to school. He complains about his teachers and peers.
I try to explain to him the importance of teachers by telling him that they are as important as his parents in his life. When my husband and I explain these things to him, he understands and agrees to attend school regularly.
I also try to motivate him by telling him that if he does not go to school, he cannot become a successful person like his father.
He does end up getting into fights at school, but we constantly keep in touch with his teachers and try to mend his ways. He does not have any major problems with studies or in social life, but he simply is very playful.
Shubhanjali Patil,
parent
Teachers should engage kids with fun activities
Nowadays, there is a positive trend among young educated parents where they start preparing their children at a young age to attend school regularly. As these young parents are well-educated, they create a curiosity in children about schools and also prepare them mentally to be independent at an early age.
Working couples usually place their children in childcare, which prepares them well for the anxiety of leaving home at an early age. However, it is parents’ primary job to prepare their children mentally to attend schools by generating a curiosity about education and school.
Later, schools and teachers come into the picture. They should organise games and other fun activities which would help students to adjust to the new environment.
Students, who are not mentally prepared to attend schools, lack a fighting spirit to deal with their peers. If their peers hit them or are rude to them, these children simply try to make excuses or feign sickness in order to avoid school. In such situations, it is important to consult teachers concerned or seek the help of counsellors.
Most importantly, parents should communicate regularly with their children about their feelings and provide support and care.
Archana Kanitkar,
school counsellor
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