KAHIHI

I was waiting for my cab. I was standing under a tree shade next to a small shop which was at the entry of a lane that led to my residential complex. It was a scorching afternoon with passing by vehicles puffing out black smoke. I dwell in a area that still has a tinge of rural setting. Old men manoeuvring their cattle across the road is a usual sight. Schools children were flocking across the roads, some with their mothers, some with their maids, and few with their school gangs. I was rejoicing this landscape.

A collision between a truck and a four wheeler interrupted my wallow. The drivers got into a brawl. Soon, people from neighbourhood joined the chaos. Later the truck driver fled and things were coming to a stand still when a gang of school children surrounded the truck, started the typical “maa-bhen” abuse and pelted stones at the truck, few of them even tried to run in search of the truck driver with stones in their hand. I was left awestruck.

Moments later my cab arrived and I was on my way to a venue where I had to deliver a speech on “Stress Management & Relaxation Techniques”.

All through the way, the act of those school children reflected upon me, the collision episode was slowly diminishing from my memory. I was still surprised at the way those children, still in their nascent age, reacted to the incident. They probably had no clue about what went wrong, whose mistake it was, or what the entire situation was about.

From where did this temperament of violence and abuse creep in? Weren’t they at an age to run bare feet into the sprawling fields or play cricket or do things that children of that age did?

My further pondering made a swarm of thoughts swirl in my mind. Foremost, the patience level has gone down generically across the entire generation, including the parents. With the kind of separations taking place increasingly it is inevitable that tolerance level of young couples has gone down. With the parents not able to manage their time and stress effectively, the frustration is passed on to the children. And in few cases children witness their parent’s agitation which gets engraved on their innocent minds, which is later practiced in the world outside, seldom noticed by their parents.

Other factor could possibly be technology; with arcade games gaining so much popularity, children today have forgotten playing strategy board games or outdoor games. These games actually help in channelizing mental thoughts and building up endurance which effectively aid individual’s physiological, physical, and psychological well-being/development. The computer games nowadays where killings, robberies, bomb blasts are primary themes teach children similar motives and have an adverse effect on children’s minds, and this is practised in the outer world again. Their minds become to prone to violent behaviour and their mindset takes a shape of thought – “eradication is the only solution”. In some parts of the country, access to weapons is easy, thus facilitating irrational killings or bloodshed where satisfaction of the ego is the only objective and impatience (inability to rationalise) the root cause.

It is the time to ask “WHY” such kind of behaviour has become so ubiquitous in our society and there is a strong need to devise techniques to alienate violence among children. While stringent rules and law regulations will not be the only solution to this problem, I am sure you will second me about the requisite veracity that mental well-being is a crucial facet of children’s young years.

Psychologists all over who have been practicing in schools and counselling about children’s mental health have stressed that it is just not necessary to impart academic and learning skills but it is also important to teach them thinking ability, coping up and communicating skills, and also few methods on behavioural aspects.

Every school, ideally, should have psychologists or behavioural therapists on their panels so counsel the children on timely basis and interface with the parents regularly to teach and seek feedback about mental wellness techniques.

Mental health services and counselling practices must be implemented in schools and our children rightly deserve it. Resources are available in plenty, they need to be tapped and there needs to be a change in our mentality too – “every individual referred to a psychologist does not necessarily equate to one being mad”. There needs to be strong measures for involvement and prevention at the earliest.

P.S. - Unfortunately, psychologists are projected as helpers, who are brought in only after the crisis has taken place, which regrettably is demeaning and certainly fruitless.

Our response to stress depends on many factors like genetic inheritance, family & childhood experiences, overall physical & mental health and our perception of stress. It has been medically proved that our thoughts and emotions influence our health – body is the state of mind. This is so because there is a strong physical link between brain and the immune system.

I wish to emphasize again that stress does not originate from air or water or plants or anything around us. Stress is seated within us and it entirely depends on us when and how much of it to liberate. So as stress originates from within us, we should make an attempt from within to eliminate it. And this is simple. Controlled behaviour and attitude can do the miracle. Our mind is the mirror of the self, and responds in the manner we think. An individual’s well being plays a crucial role in successful adjustment. Positive attitude and behavior are vital for mind and body. So it’s well said, heaven and hell reside in the person’s mind; it depends entirely on that person which side he/she wants to fall and lead a life.

Today, hi-tech innovations and scientific revolution have gripped all around us. It has become nearly impossible to imagine a thing without them. Though these innovations have made life simpler mechanically, it has deeply hampered human’s natural behaviour. The psyche to get things (results) immediately has reduced the patience levels of an individual thereby distorting the entire pattern of our society. The structure of our thinking and the building blocks of our society are changing rapidly thus creating a social and mental imbalance. Day to day examples of these can be observed in increased stress levels of employed individuals, rising amounts of divorces, adjusting with the family, fights on petty issues, unnecessary violent reactions, and so on.

Before the picture gets more worrisome, it is the time to heal the society and its habitants. Counselling has become the need of the hour, among one of the basic necessities of life apart from roti, kapda, makaan. Counselling is required for better adaptation of an individual.

Counselling comprises professional experts giving personal help to the distressed mind. More often people get wary of a counsellor, as psychologist habitually equated to someone to cures madness. People fear being called mad or someone taking medical help for mental illness. However, counselling is not about all that. It is in fact to help an individual concentrate on his/her well being.

Counselling is designed to assist a person in accomplishing the purpose of achieving a stable mind that helps induce rational thought process. It does not answer the dilemma of an individual, but facilitates the individual to resolve the problem on his/her own.

It is myth that counselling is about treating mad people or imbalanced minds. On the contrary, counselling focuses on guiding the person by understanding his psyche than focussing on the problem and treating it.

This distinct profession has its interdisciplinary base, interlinked with other fields such as sociology, history, anthropology, psychometric, psychology, ethics, and hence it is a wonderful culmination of theories (& practices) that promote the growth of an individual by self- direction.

Guidance counsellor, an expert who practices counselling, supports an individual by systematic professional process through education and interpretive procedure. This is meant to enable the individual to gain better understanding of his own characteristics and potentialities. Further, in accordance with social & moral values, this helps him to relate himself more satisfactorily to social requirement and opportunities.

With increasing pressures to achieve higher things in life, people have forgotten the basic value of enjoying life. Rather than detaching oneself from the material pleasures, people are today coming loose from nature and simple pleasures in life. It is here that counselling helps you create a balance. It does not set a vision for you, it does not give you direction in life but certainly helps you improve your patience levels and shred the ignorance that has innately leached inside you.