Lessons from a death: invest in fortifying minds
A person taking the life of one’s own child has to have a disturbed mind. A 39-year-old woman, CEO of a Bengaluru-based AI start-up, is alleged to have smothered her own four-year-old son to death in a hotel in Goa; she has denied the charge. The police claim she stuffed his body in a suitcase and took a cab to Bengaluru—only to be found out, thanks to the alert hotel staff, the police and her cab driver. She was reportedly upset with a court ruling in her divorce case that had granted her estranged husband the right to visit their son. She is said to have attempted suicide, too; the police described her as being “disturbed”. We have to assume the mother’s innocence until her guilt is proven, but an innocent life was snuffed out before it had barely begun.
It is also true that reports of people killing their own family members, including children, before committing or attempting suicide are not uncommon in India. In most such cases, individuals facing crises find themselves at dead ends—helplessness that drives them to extremes. Most of them seem to have no one to turn to for sane counsel. It is a grim reminder that concrete steps are urgently needed to fortify young minds so that they can emerge positive with grit and determination to face such situations. It needs to be an important part of the education system. But school counsellors face a challenge: how to encourage adolescents to open up to share their innermost feelings, insecurities, worries, problems and experiences?
While counselling in confidence is common, there is a lack of adequate ‘class counselling’ in most Indian schools. The latter is a proactive way of engaging an entire class of students to openly share thoughts under the supervision of qualified counsellors. It is described as a fun activity, but the children gain confidence in sharing. They develop trust in others. They understand the benefits of expressing their feelings while sharing. Even the more introverted ones often find themselves opening up, influenced by their peers. Most significantly, they realise the importance of turning to someone when faced with seemingly unsolvable problems, a state of helplessness which otherwise could lead to tragedy. Our education system is still very young in dealing with the development of social skills. Now is the time to invest in them, so that stronger, never-say-die minds evolve in the future.