From getting angry and frustrated to taking revenge and even brutally killing an innocent just to postpone an exam, the extreme behavioural changes in school children is highly alarming. Shalini Saksena andSangeeta Yadav speak to principals, sociologists and psychologists to find out why and how a student's profile has changed so drastically
He is an excellent piano player but extremely weak in studies and has exam phobia. He was often found bunking classes and would be seen in the music room. His rude behaviour kept his classmates away. They feared him, he would abuse and physically assault his classmates at the slightest of provocation.
At home, witnessing regular fights between his parents disturbed and frustrated him leaving him unable to focus and concentrate on his studies. As the exam and the parent-teacher meeting drew closer the desire to get both postponed grew and he came up with a plan that even the most hardened criminals would think twice before acting on it. The Class XI student of Ryan International School, Bhondsi, took the life of an innocent — a student of Class II studying in the same school. He bought a large knife and sneaked it inside the school. looking for an easy target, the accused lured seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur in the washroom and brutally killed him by slitting his throat.
During interrogation, the accused confessed in front of his father and other witnesses said: “I went blank and just did it. I just wanted to postpone the exam.” Reports say that during the interrogation, the CBI officials noted that the culprit ‘is yet to stabilise mentally’.
However, this is not the first time that such a brutal crime was committed by a student. In 2007, students of Class VIII Euro International School, Gurugram, Akash Yadav and Vikas Yadav shot 14-year-old Abhishek Tyagi at point-blank range when he was waiting to board the school bus to go home. It was a tiff that led to the killing. Akash fired four shots and gave the gun to Vikas who fired once. Parents of both accused were also prosecuted for negligence. After coming out of the juvenile home, Akash was again booked, at the age of 21, along with his friend for shooting another friend, a history-sheeter, Manish Goga (23).
Social activist and advocate Ashok Agarwal feels that such cases may be far and between, but times are not far behind when we will see more. “What happened with Class XI student of Ryan International School, Bhondsi, was the manifestation of what he was undergoing that ended in an act of violence where a Class II student paid the price. We may not see aggression in most children, it doesn’t mean it is not there. It is there under wraps but steadily growing. It may not necessarily come out when he is in school, it may come out when he grows up. The increased aggression in children translates from parents and society. Parents live under constant tension. The anxiety to pay EMIs on time, to buy a new car, to know what the neighbours have done, road rage, all this has created an environment where every person is suffering, only the degree is different,” Agarwal tells you showing a dismal face of the society.
Meera Nair, principal, Amanora School, Pune, tells you that though in the past few years, there has been a categorical shift in students’ behaviour, it would be incorrect to generalise as every child is moulded differently.
“The students are impatient and they not just want to know everything, but they also want to know it fast. The aggression is reflected in their body language and retaliation towards norms and rules. When they are asked to not do something, or always focus on the studies, they start rebelling,” Nair says.
Agrees Vandana Arora, principal, Nahar International School. “Children get frustrated when they see the knowledge gap between them and their parents or teacher. They start disrespecting elders and rely on the Internet for information rather than turn to parents or teachers,” she says.
Since children are becoming more assertive, confident, opinionated, optimistic and risk takers, the flipside is that they are also becoming extremely sensitive to personal criticism, unable to handle failure or loss, arrogant, short-tempered, demanding and disrespectful. “Everything they do or feel is exemplified many times over and projected. It is a difficult task to cut through all the hype and get to the core personality of a child,” Deepa Shetty, principal, Gopi Birla Memorial School, says.
The basic challenge each parent and teacher is facing is ingraining basic values and etiquettes in a child. “Gone are the days when we followed the instructions given to us blindly. Children try to compare and reason with the values and ethics of the bygone era with current ethos. Parents should sit and talk to the child about what is good or bad. They need to be exposed to an environment where the values and etiquettes are practised so that the child picks it up gradually,” Arora feels.
Technology, through an integral part of our life, has not been a great influence on the quality of our lives as well. “Children today are digital natives and not digital immigrants like adults. Free time, play time and family time have been replaced by gadgets and the Internet. They rarely find time to have a face-to-face with other human being and so find themselves at a loss during social situations,” Shetty says.
But where is this killing instinct coming from in today’s childrenIJ “It is the environment which they have been exposed to. like the recent Blue Whale Challenge that was easily accessible to a child. A three-year-old child or a 12-year-old adolescent both are very susceptible to the challenge that is there. When they come to challenging themselves, they can become self-distraction and cause any kind of harm to themselves or others. Thus, it is important how much quality time parent and child are spending to know each other. You need to give freedom but with moderation,” Arpita Chakraborty, principal, Manav Rachna International School, Faridabad, explains.
Clinical psychologist Dr Pulkit Sharma tells you that increased anger and aggression among children today is a manifestation of three things. First, there is no one to guide a child what he should watch. You open YouTube or some channels; there is a host of violent shows. Or there is a lot of information coming your way that says one should not take any kind of nonsense. The games, songs and the kind of films and the characters that are there, there is celebration of negativity. Earlier, the hero had a positive message to give.
Second, there is lack of role models. What the child learns right from the beginning is that to succeed and saving your ego is the most important thing today. So children are becoming hedonistic. In other words, whatever they desire, they want it to be fulfilled and feel good about it. In this case, the Class XI student couldn’t come to terms with the fact that because he had not studied and not give the exam, he couldn’t deal with the shame. In order to safeguard the ego, he took this extreme step and his skin will be saved.
Third, the frustration level is on the rise. Parents are giving flawed values. Earlier, people were able to contain their anger. Today, that is not there. If one is angry, one hits out. Since the general perception is that it is good to express.
“Either there were grandparents at home or not, our parents came home by 5:30 pm or so and spent time with their children and guided us. The value system, though on the verge of a breakdown even then, people still had some idealism in them. Today, parents come home late and even if they are home early, they are constantly attending calls or are on Skype,” Sharma explains and adds that we are not teaching our children that is okay to fail and how to deal with it is accentuating the problem.
Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal, Sprindales School, Pusa Road, points out the children’s lack the ability to cope up with situations and they need to know their true self. “Society is struggling today and I’m worried about how today’s generation is growing up. Children have bright ideas and are innovators but to nurture that ability, there is a need to have a balance between excellence and how to cope with anxiety, stress, emotional instability, competitions, insecurities and most importantly failures. To add to all this is coping with fulfilling high expectations, the unrealistic goals to achieve and be materialistically driven by having the latest smartphone, branded clothes, or a high standard of living. When it is not there in their life, they feel frustrated, angry, disturbed and unhappy and it comes out in a destructive form. Some take a wrong route, others work hard,” Wattal says.
What really worries Sharma is the mental state of a child who is able to use the other as a means to an end. “What is happening today is that one is using the other — a human being — as a thing as one would use a tissue, to be used and discarded or how a tiger views a deer — a means to satiate his hunger. This behaviour is unsettling since it is a rising trend in metros,” Sharma says and links this to what had happened in the Nirbhaya case where for the juvenile, she was not a human being; she was just ‘something’ which satisfied his need,” Sharma tells you.
The average mental make-up of a child is different today. There have been instances where some senior students have walked into the school with a knife and stabbed a teacher or even a put a gun to the principal’s head when he was denied admission ticket for Class XII Boards. Such behaviour is a reflection of the school, society and parents. There is a need for introspection when the child acts aggressively.
“We shouldn’t blame the child. It is for the parents and the society to see what they need to do to prevent such behaviour. As a child, he is under your protection. If you want to put the blame, then one should stop calling him a child. Students in schools and colleges are constantly under stress. But nobody is interested in looking at a child’s mental state. If our society progresses, it is very good. Even if it remained stable it would be nice. Unfortunately, this is not so. We are deteriorating on a daily basis. There is no respect for the elders. An average life of a middle-class family is spent struggling to meet ends. It is no wonder that we see increased mental illness in students from Classes V and VII. A parent can no longer be a father or a mother to their child. They need to be his friend,” Agarwal says and gives an example of a young student who after watching some scenes from a horror film had a mental breakdown. So much so that she is now undergoing treatment at Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences.
To identify children with behavioural issues, there are symptoms that one can look for. “It requires an observing eye and understanding of the child’s psychological development. Teachers should be trained to identify what the child is going through internally. If the child is not behaving normally and being very silent, teachers should inform the parents and counsellors and be professionally equipped to deal with the child,” Arora says.
Being manipulative and escapist is another. “If one sees a child manipulating things time and again and lies for small things, he needs to be watched over. Then there is low frustration tolerance. If you tell a child to do something, can he do that or does he get frustratedIJ The third is impulsivity. Does a child do things when he gets angryIJ There are some children who don’t think and just act on the spur of the moment in a cold-blooded manner without thinking of the consequences,” Sharma says.
Ian Davies, head of school, Garodia International Centre for learning Mumbai feels that the modern society, quite rightly, emphasises the rights of children to have a voice in their learning and education and to go for soul searching to understand what they want and why.
“To learn well, students need to be aware of themselves and their own skills, strengths and weaknesses and thus they appreciate the environment in which they learn well. They should, in a professional and respectful manner, expect teachers and schools to deliver the very best circumstances for them to learn effectively and safely,” Davies says.
The external conflicts include the family disconnect. “The child’s behaviour gets affected by what he sees around him. When we spot a child with dysfunctional behaviour, we try to find out if he is a single child who is overindulged or living in a dysfunctional family set-up where the parents have no time for the child or are alcoholic or have conflict with themselves or if there is a matter of single parent or divorce between the child. Parents have abrogated their responsibilities. Parents don’t say ‘no’ to their child due to the fear that their ward will become a rebel. Parents also don’t want to accept and cope with a child’s frustration and tantrums. Parents should know what is going on in their child’s mind,” Wattal tells you.
Agrees Chakraborty adding: “An unsupervised child will make uninformed decisions. If they have any questions for their parents and if the parents don’t have time for their child, it shuts him up. later, when the parent wants to approach the child, the child no longer wants to listen or talk to the parents. The bottled up emotions lead them to anger, resentment and hatred.”
The most important thing is to have a heart to heart dialogue with a child and create a channel of communication. “We need to make the environment non-judgmental towards children so that they can speak freely and fearlessly. Give them the skills to utilise the knowledge in the right direction. Give them the opportunity to act instead of being passive listeners. School need to build the curriculum around emotional understanding. Instead of just focus on the development of the knowledge base of the children by being a knowledge provider, they need to develop emotional understanding in their children. Not creating a competing environment but collaborating environment helping to improve each other. There is a belief system change that needs to be required which happens with a lot of teacher training and counselling. Students should be made to feel motivated and inspired all the time and how their need to be taken care of. Both parents and child need to be collaborating with each other. Every adult needs to work on themselves to be a better role model for their child. We constantly become conscious of our own behaviour,” Arora opines.
Due to the present scenario, counselling is mandatory in every school, not just for children but for teachers and parents as well. “Schools are under constant threat. To create a nursery of empathy, care and love schools, as well as the parents, have to have a certain level of authoritativeness and discipline towards the child. The schools should keep all the stakeholders together to provide 360-degree counselling. Nobody should ever give up on the children but help in transforming home to society,” Wattal says.
Col Kolakutty, chief warden at the Manipal University, feels that the growing aggression and wantonness among children is the bad side of technology and easy access they get due to indulgent parents. “It is a highly challenging job to man 8,000 students living in hostels but we at Manipal use technology to counter the problem. There are strict monitoring through social media, in-house online groups and high tech security measures that keep an eye on all hostellers. In any case at such higher institutes the students do go haywire as this is their first outing out of home but they settle down pretty fast as studies take a lot of their time,” the former Army man says.
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