BENGALURU: Recently a group of youngsters in school uniforms, in South East Delhi, allegedly stabbed a man to death in a moving bus. It was a petty fight over a mobile phone. City shrinks, however, claim that anger is rising among Bengaluru’s young too, with increasing cases of anger dyscontrol amongst adoloscents.
“I am currently seeing six boys, as young as 9 and 13 years, with the issue of anger dyscontrol. It is shocking to know the rage these children experience,” says Ashwini N V, psychologist and director at Muktha Foundation. She adds that there has been “an alarming rise in the number of such cases”.
A private school teacher in South Bengaluru, who didn’t want to be named, tells this reporter, “We are extremely scared to even raise our voice against children as young as 12 years in class.” Children can respond with angry assaults, tearing notebooks or even damaging vehicles.
There are many schools in the city who have approached counsellors or hire counselors to deal with such cases. Ashwini says, “Yes, we do get cases referred by schools and also from parents who are told by the school to seek help for their child. On an average we see six to seven such cases a month”. Other psychologists too report the same number of cases and in the age group of 8 to 18 years.
She adds that it is important that we understand the difference between anger and aggression. “Anger is usually what we feel when we think our rights are violated. But when we are aggressive, we tend to violate boundaries and rights of others,” she explains. Young children don’t understand the difference between righteous anger and unregulated aggression. If it is not addressed it can turn into a serious and dangerous disorder.
Frustration tolerance in young children as they are about to reach teenage is very low, says Pawana Rao, psychologist and counsellor. “Children these days are used to getting what they want. Overprotective parents want to give everything on a platter. When children then hear a ‘No’ from strangers, it triggers frustration,” she says.
“One boy just broke the television set as he couldn’t control his anger when his parents refused to let him watch his favourite show,” she says.
A 11-year-old girl took scissors and chopped off her hair, and even threatened to cut herself. “This girl, says she doesn’t even understand what comes over her when she gets angry,” says Pawana.
A child as young as 12, from a well-known school in North Bengaluru, decided to leave home and explore as she was told by her teacher that life is not as easy as she thinks and that she needs to experience reality. “This girl was angry with her teacher for this comment and wanted to prove to her teacher and her parents that she can be independent. Thankfully, we found her at a station in Ahmedabad,” tells a police officer on conditions of anonymity.
Need to let kids ride out discomfort
When children are just stepping into teenage, they begin to assert their independence and find their own identity, many experience behavioral changes that can seem bizarre and unpredictable to parents. Many times it is parents who need to be blamed for these kind of cases, says Dr Himani Kashyap, faculty at Nimhans. She says that “I don’t deal with children but the young adults I see have developed anger issues as one of the parent had them. We call it indulged anger. For instance, either the client’s father or mother was too angry and would not have been able to handle his/her anger and the child has grown seeing this. Then he/she thinks that this is how anger has to be handled, by throwing things or hurting people.”
We are also moving towards alloparenting, in which the caretakers are usually relatives such as grandparents. “This means parents spend less time with children, there are conflicting parenting approaches, and children are frustrated thinking that one of too lenient and the other unecessarily strict,” says Dr Kashyap. Children have low frustration tolerance too, says Ashiwini. “Earlier, we would let the child cry, but never let the child throw things around or hurt people. A child’s anger would be expressed. Now, the parent quickly diverts an angry child by either giving in to their demands or by screaming at them. No one tells the child why he or she is being screamed at.
The aim is to make the child shut up,” says Dr Kashyap says. “Children must be taught to express their anger in an assertive and constructive manner, not in an aggressive manner,” she adds. Emotions are like waves, they peak and then dip as the body cannot sustain a high intensity emotion for too long. “When you don’t allow for emotions to ride out, then issues such as anger dyscontrol develop,” Dr Kashyap said. Identifying children with behavioural issues is not hard. Parents and teachers have to be observant, though passive aggressive behavior may be hard to identify and needs special attention, explains Ms Rao.
How to manage emotion effectively
Dr Himani Kashyap suggests few ways to identify and manage anger