BENGALURU: At only age 16, this teen may face a murder charge. He has allegedly stabbed 14-year-old Harsharaj, a class 10 student to death over a girl. Juvenile delinquency cases are on the rise in the state. And this boy now joins the list.
But what provokes a child to become delinquent? Counsellors and school authorities blame bad parenting. Most of these children who show delinquent behaviour come from families who could not give them a firm foundation.
Counsellors in the city say these kind of crimes are increasing among middle class, lower middle class and single parent families. Exposure to constant violence in mass media and its influence on young minds is also a cause for concern, they say.
Dr Bharati Singh, youth counsellor and founder of Samudra Foundation, said, “Children are impressed by the violence showed as heroism in our films today and this needs to be avoided.
I have cases wherein many children during counselling say they are disturbed with the crime serials/violent movies that their parents watch. A few children whose both parents are working, or those raised by a single parent will have hidden anger, depression and dissatisfaction which needs to be addressed at an early age. Children are visual learners and we are creating wrong role models by exposing them to violence. They will adopt whatever they see,” she added.
Dr John Vijay Sagar from NIMHANS said the anger and frustration of children needs to be recognised at an early age and rectified. “In most cases home setting will be the reason. Many children have behavioural problems which need to be addressed at an early stage by giving them better treatment. Children with behavioural issues react fast as they are impulsive and cannot control their emotions. Injuring other children is one such. Though parents find it difficult to handle such children when they are little, the same needs to be rectified when they are seven or eight years old. Parents also need to teach their children to handle emotions, manage and understand them. Otherwise, instant reaction will become a habit. In some cases even academic stress leads to such problems which need to be addressed.”
However, according to academic experts and teachers, the present education system is equally responsible for this. D Shashi Kumar, Head of the Brain Research Centre, an educational research centre, said it is due to the unconditional rights children have today.
“There is no space for positive reinforcement at any level and children have become uncontrollable. There is no punishment, no detention and all these are reversing. This is really a sorry state of affairs where both schools and parents are put under confusion because in some cases no counselling is effective and children become wild,” Kumar said.