LUCKNOW: The Bureau of Psychology in the UP State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) will give tips first to the teachers and with their help to the parents on the way the children should be dealt with in the changing environment and emergent stresses in the changed post-pandemic scenario.
According to the sources in the bureau, the experts feel that to cope with the emerging new normals related to both the lifestyle and studies owing to the pandemic, counselling of parents is a must to help them understand the challenges being faced by their children and enlighten them accordingly.
Keeping these factors in mind, the Bureau of Psychology is readying the guidelines for the parents besides preparing training modules for basic and secondary level school teachers.
As per the scheme of things, first, the teachers would be trained and then they would be roped in to help counsel parents so that they could deal with the kids in this new digital age, said a senior psychologist at the bureau.
According to the psychologists, parents often come across unusual behaviour of their child who fails to put enough efforts to score good marks in tests. “Lack of concentration due to distractions at home and related distress could be the reason for their poor and ‘not up to the mark’ performance in various walks of life,” says a noted psychologist Pallavi Bhatnagar.
“This calls for the counselling of the children but usually parents are hesitant to take them to a psychologist despite clear signs of distress, lack of focus and lack of confidence,” says a senior psychologist of the bureau.
Often parents expect their children to achieve what they had once aspired for. In such a situation, parents exert undue pressure on children and often set the goals for their life contrary to their area of interest and aptitude, says Bhatnagar. This attitude of the parents leads to various complications for the
children who keep on striving to fulfil the dreams of their parents often slipping into depression and other behavioural manifestations.
“This retards the growth of the children and they fail to give their maximum in whatever they are doing,” she adds.
Meanwhile, the bureau is designing counselling and training modules for teachers through whom parents would be counselled. The design includes the parents of mentally-retarded and handicapped children too, said another senior psychologist of the bureau.
He added that the teachers of government-run primary, upper primary and secondary schools of the state using these guidelines and lessons could prepare parents to better handle their children. This can be done in the meetings of the School Management Committee (SMC) and the Parents Teacher Meetings (PTMs).