Daily Times

“Who are you if your story begins to change? Do not be so loyal to your suffering that your healing doesn’t stand a chance.”

Almost every morning heart wrenching incidents become the national headlines that seize our national imagination. Sometimes paedophiles rape innocent children and depressed commit suicide. Their absurd behaviour and gestures give clear signals to everyone about their mentally challenged condition but we are the nation get relief by living in denial state. Could intervention at the right time help them from mental digression?

In addition to rapid physical growth, young children also exhibit significant development of their cognitive abilities. We tend to forget that mind is nurtured through proper upbringing and education. What we do today will affect our life in future. By birth everyone has instincts if not checked and controlled this can lead to mental illness and criminal behaviour. While observing developed countries, we noticed that 10 years old children are capable enough to manage their thoughts. But where do we stand? Our society is in dire need to address the children according to their mental levels by educating them through cartoons, poems and story books.

During childhood children are unaware about their reproductive organs but when hormones start playing with them their imagination captured by their hormones. The puberty stage is most important and crucial time for any individual as they open up to the new world where they are facing some biological as well psychological changes. Their hormonal secretions make them to feel intimacy towards opposite sex. According to Napoleon Hall the most constructive and destructive emotions are love and anger. It is the utmost duty of teachers and parents to discuss these feeling with children’s to explain these are beautiful and natural but needs to be properly channelized because unless this is done it will lead to mental digression and unfulfilled life. Parents must adopt the balance approach to overcome the constraints that might condition the strains.

Books are food for thought. Children first encounter with the text-books and here role of teacher begin with enhancing the cognitive abilities of students by maximizing their learning potential. The I.Q of any individual is just like Mercedes car and driver of that car is our thinking patterns. If your driver is not skilful then no matter how expensive the car, accident is inevitable. Proper upbringing and education empowers the individual to change the way they think and act for sustainable future.

The I.Q of any individual is just like Mercedes car and driver of that car is our thinking patterns. If your driver is not skilful then no matter how expensive the car, accident is inevitable

Sadly, our education system focus on rote memorisation but global standard shows that three “Cs” confidence, character and creativity must be the part of personality of any educated person. Does our education system develop these three “C” in our students?

If we look up to the develop countries creative thinking is real essence of their education system because it leads to new inventions. According to Edward De Bono, it’s a skill and not just a matter of individual talent. Creative idea must have some value. Our schools are following the unique patterns rather than creative one.

Our private schools demand high fees, but the level of education does not meet global standards, importantly teachers don’t give exact picture of children to parents and they keep on passing students even if they are not progressing. Sadly, how can we expect emotional maturity and study oriented behaviour from these students.

The condition of government schools is despicable, lack of infrastructure, broken furniture, absence of facilities and inappropriate criteria for teacher selection. These loopholes of our education system along with the inappropriate upbringing lead to pervasiveness of violence and intolerance in our society.

Our society is on downward spiral facing many social issues. Talking about grief, Loss and death are still biggest taboos. We are an intolerant and traumatise nation because of social, political and security issues. Government is covering these loopholes by uniform curriculum across the country that is not solution rather it is the content of curriculum that makes the difference. It enables the student to think out of the box.

Government should manage the religious content in the text-book. Over exaggeration of jihad along with its beautiful consequences (virgins) unconsciously make our youth obsessed with basic need. In turns it wants them to attain the martyrdom without appreciating the beauty of life. We should not lose sight how quickly things can go out of hand if we cannot resolve issue on time. Child’s mind is fragile. They can be fuelled with scientific knowledge that led them to creativity.

Focusing only on rote memorisation for good grades will produce the slave mentality and emotional attitude towards life. Children would be unable to differentiate between needs and wants. We should nurture the mind of youth in a way that they take responsibility for their own actions and thinking. If we do not use the time/space we have in our universities and schools to provide this canvass to student. How can we enable them to stand on their feet and become productive member of society?

The writer is Clinical psychologist