By Lubna Nazir malik
It was just a while back when the whole world celebrated Children’s Day wholeheartedly. Social Media was bombarded with videos and photographs of a range of celebrations in schools and colleges. While watching and reading about all the activities, I was compelled to write something. I would implore parents and educationists to work with children who are suffering alone, hiding their emotions and getting worse day by day . This specifically highlights children with emotional ailments. Painful reality is that as a society we don’t accept this as an ailment and instead of addressing the causes and looking for the treatments we try to either avoid it or ignore it and hide it from others which adds fuel to the fire and the children reach to that edge where things become worse from worse. As a head of an institution I am aware of so many children in my school who are suffering from anxiety and are facing so many other related issues attached to that but it is very hard for us to tell the parents or parents acceptability towards this is very low.
Let’s discuss the signs of child’s anxiety
• Anger management issues
• Sleeping disorders
• Aggressive behavior
• Lack of focus
• Lack of planning
• Extreme response on a very small issues
We as parents and society put an undue pressure on children to be perfect in front of others instead of being natural . Yes, that is truly us. Instead we should train and guide them to be good human beings and successful citizens without making them anxious and without giving them added pressure. Children nowadays are already under undue stress as compared to our times. And maybe we are one of the reasons as we put our kids in a race of being the best .
Our child should be the most beautiful, most intelligent, most sporty and the list goes on . We do not accept or applaud the achievements of others’ children and this lack of tolerance is the cause of all the mental health issues.
I have seen parents fighting with admin for a certificate which he or she did not truly deserve but for the sake of this worldly fake impression on others they want their child to have it. COVID-19 has no wonder increased mental health issues but the story wasn’t good even before that. Please start thinking over it. Start sitting with your children, giving them a listening ear and kind assurance. Every kid has his own time to shine. So don’t hurry them through the process; sit with them. Don’t compare your child with anyone; remember he is the unique one, created by almighty and his or her own unique traits are what makes them an individual. So enjoy them and praise them. Don’t feel shy to consult a therapist always consider it as just an ailment like many other physical diseases and should be taken care of. Be there for them , bring their smiles back at any cost.
In the end I quote: “Respond to your children with love in their worst moments, their broken moments, their selfish moments, their lonely moments, their frustrated moments, their inconvenient moments, because it is in their most unlovable human moments that they most need to feel loved.”
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