Jamshedpur, May 3 : Our parents don’t understand, this is a common complaint heard from the adolescent children these days.
To address this concern which sometimes results in depression and can even lead to suicide, Jeevan, a voluntary organisation working in the field of helping the depressed and suicidal people, organized a half day workshop on ‘Good Parenting in Changed Environment’.
More than 300 parents of students of std 7 and 8 of about 20 schools of Jamshedpur participated in the workshop held at Kerela Samajam Model School Auditorium. Teachers from various schools across the city also attended the workshop. Dr Mahavir Ram, founder of Jeevan, a well known suicide prevention outfit of the town, welcomed the guest speakers, parents and teachers from various schools.
The workshop was conducted in two sessions. The training part was conducted by Mr Gopal Sharan, a professional trainer while the psychological aspects were covered by Dr Manoj Sahoo, a well known psychiatrist from TMH.
Sharan provided the important inputs like the importance of spending Quality time with children. He stated that children have a tendency to copy what they see. Hence it is important that the parents practice before they preach. Snubbing a child when he/she shares something breaks their connection with the parents. Patient listening can develop a better bonding between the children and their parents.
Dr Sahoo enlightened the parents on the physical and psychological changes taking place in the children during adolescence. He said a connection can be developed with animals but not with reptiles. In anger humans behave like reptiles. So, parents should not react when they are angry. It could permanently damage the relationship of the child with his/her parents. He told the parents not to react but to respond and reflect.
Nandini Shukla, Principal, KSMS, having a wide experience of handling children, also shared her views.
The parents found this workshop really beneficial as many of them in spite of knowing the problems their children were facing, didn’t know the right way to handle them. Both of the sessions being interactive, the two faculties clarified as many inhibitions of the parents as they could.
On the occasion, Dr Mahavir Ram said, ‘Jeevan’ has plans to organise such workshops for parents of children of various age groups on a regular basis as it helps in relieving stress and pentup emotions and benefit those attending to a large extent.