When the pot boils over

Jasmin Pannu

A chirpy young girl jumps off her school building in broad daylight. A 20-year-old doctor-to-be puts an end to his life. A youth walks into his principal’s office and shoots her at a point blank range. Most horrifically, a youngster chooses to slaughter an innocent seven-year-old with the sole aim of putting off the imminent exams.

The psychology of youth is in a mess. “The essential line between right and wrong has totally blurred,” says Ramnita Sharda, associate professor, Department of English, HMV College, Jalandhar. “A teenager’s mind is incapable of channelising the natural human aggression that builds up in them. Sadly enough, most of the parents are either incapable or too involved in their own lives to help the adolescents in this tender age,” she adds. Just how can a boy of 17 have an access to his father’s lethal weapon is a question that irks the public mind. 

“Parents must not ignore any early signs of aggression in the children,” says Nidhi Sidhu, mentor at Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana. She says parents need to lovingly yet firmly raise their children and clearly define the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Onus on parenting

“We often see parents making a mockery of law and order right in front of the children, a typical example being bribing a traffic policeman to avoid a challan?” says Inder Kiran, a teacher with more than two decades of experience with youngsters. “Leave aside the fear of law, the kids are not even taught to be respectful to their teachers,” she complains, talking of parents who are always ready to lunge into a fight against the school or teachers, even if their child has only received a righteous scolding.

In fact, it is contradictory and almost shocking to see how parents today are capable of pinpointing the cause and yet seem helpless. Manoj Bajaj, a highly involved father of two teenage girls, rues, “The communication with our children has dipped to an all time low. Everyone is so engrossed in their own gadgets that it has become a huge task to penetrate into a child’s mind.” He feels making an effort to give exclusive attention to your children will make it easy for them to share their issues with you.

The challenge

It is intriguing to see how trapped youth often feel in the wake of academic pressure and amid almost non-existent professional counseling. Mannat Sobti, an undergraduate student of psychology, feels not all children can cope with the ever-increasing expectations of their parents and teachers. “What we need is not punishment or fear of law. We need someone to listen to our worries and help us cope with pressures.”

At the end of the day, it all boils down to unresolved frustration, which the parents and teachers are miserably incapable of handling. In the words of Chitvan Singh, a Ludhiana-based clinical psychologist, “Such youngsters show a total lack of empathy and tolerance.” She says the fact that the young boy had easy access to the dangerous weapon is a major blot on our parenting. The solution is not a tough one to find. Filling the life of your children with a little love can help. For Priya Verma, mother to a growing up daughter, the succour lies in parents sensitising the children about the difference between right and wrong and giving their social circuits a little break.

Bottomline

The aggression, stress and anxiety are here to stay. While we cannot ward it off, we can surely learn to handle and channelise the frustration to its most reasonable end. As the mentor, Nidhi Sidhu points out, “Whether you are a distressed teenager or a helpless parent, see a counselor before it’s too late.”