\nDear Parents,<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
On behalf of Kota City, I take this opportunity to welcome your child to a city of wonders which processes the young minds of this country and fuels their passion to become the architects of Modern India.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nMy humble request at the beginning of this letter is to read this with some patience and time and it would be ideal if both the parents can read this together.<\/span><\/p>\nIt is the dream of every parent to see his child touch the pinnacles of success and reach places which only a few can afford. Every parent plants a seed in the mind of the child which over a period of time bears fruits but after careful nourishment and tendering since the seed is so tender that any mishandling may fail us from realizing our dream.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nIt is a very difficult situation for parents to leave their child in a place where they do not live and things become still difficult when the purpose for which the child is left behind is for dedicated and committed efforts in scaling excellence in education.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen parents look at the huge billboard signage\/hoarding\/ newspaper clips depicting pictures of young beautiful children who have achieved what they dream for their child, the resolution to inspire and motivate their children becomes still stronger.<\/span><\/p>\nGood\u00a0career in the field of Engineering & Medicine, as the case may be, is more or less like certain insurance in terms of decent earning and living standards. I sincerely think that in most of the cases, this is the very reason that makes us dream such careers for our children.<\/span><\/p>\nThere is nothing wrong in thinking\u00a0on\u00a0a certain kind of Assured Career Insurance for one\u2019s child since limited resources and\u00a0high\u00a0degree of competition demands one to think ahead of times.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, I think we all agree that the World\u00a0too\u00a0has changed drastically in the last 15-20 years so much so, that most of the facilities and services that were available for a limited few are now available to many due to the huge progress in technology which was witnessed in this period.<\/span><\/p>\nArt, Entertainment, Professional Sports, Literature, Health & Fitness, Entrepreneurship, Journalism, Photography, Event management, Music, Adventure, Destination tourism, etc. to name a few too witnessed immense growth in comparison to the bygone era.<\/span><\/p>\nMany of these even created a new niche which not just nurtured creative potential of the human mind and its capabilities but also were very successful career options.<\/span><\/p>\nWell, the point is not about asking you to see them as better options but certainly to see them also as options.<\/span><\/p>\nIt is a matter of fact that today, young children are facing\u00a0immense\u00a0amount of pressure relating to their academic performance and due to the same many of them go through various levels of stress.<\/span><\/p>\nEven if we consider that a certain element of stress would exist in competition\u2026 parental support, care and the right kind of family situations would help the child to cope with any difficult situation.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, current reality is that due to the lack of right kind of conditions and support systems, many children are going through stress uncared and unattended for and in a few cases such situations disabled the children to such an extreme extent that they committed suicide\u2026<\/span><\/p>\nDon\u2019t get frightened suddenly as to what is being said about your child\u2026. Your child is perfectly safe and sound and you have no reasons to worry, but you have reasons to have concern of your child which I believe you will understand as we read my letter further.<\/span><\/p>\nI consider myself a very unfortunate person because I got a chance to read around 20-25 Suicide Notes of Young, Brilliant, Beautiful and Wonderful Children.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nAm I giving so many adjectives to such children because they committed Suicide?<\/span><\/p>\nI am sorry\u2026.\u00a0Answer\u00a0is No\u2026 They were in fact, as I said earlier, Young, Brilliant, Beautiful and Wonderful Children.<\/span><\/p>\nA Girl with an amazing command of English language in her suicide note (grammatically perfect 5-page Suicide Note with beautiful running handwriting) thanks her mother for giving up her career for raising the children\u2026. Subtle hint that she was pricked on this matter again and again\u2026. Another girl wants her grandmother to become her mother in her next birth\u2026. Another requests her parents to allow her younger sister to do what she likes and not what they like\u2026.<\/b> One tells candidly that he was manipulated to study science which was not his taste\u2026. Many simply write in fewer lines that they could not fulfil the expectations of their parents<\/b>\u2026. Rather few say they were not really capable of doing what is being asked for by them\u2026. All of them thought that Death was a much peaceful and effortless action than going through this dilemma of artificially doing what parents want them to do\u2026.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nAs they say \u201cTip of the Iceberg\u201d reveals little and hides mountains within, similarly apparent Suicide Cases reflect numbers but reality or the hidden mountain is all those children who did not opt to take this extreme step but certainly are going through stress\/worry\/anxiety due to pressure on performance.<\/span><\/p>\nMany Parents cannot believe after the disaster that it was their own child who took such a drastic measure and I don\u2019t mean to hurt their sentiments any further but the reality is that the child was mentally looking for some blade of grass which a drowning man searches for\u2026. That blade of grass could have been your simple appreciation of his efforts\u2026 your solacing words of comforts of asking him to do his best and forget the results\u2026 your absolute unconditioned appreciation of his extraordinariness\u2026.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nIn return, what the child got was threats of performing still better\u2026psychological manipulation by repeat and re-telecasting of the hardships you have gone through for the sake of family\u2026. comparison with better performers (neighbors, relatives, children of colleague, ancestors\u2026could be anyone)\u2026 sharing imagination on the loss\/notional gain of social status being dependent on child\u2019s performance.<\/span><\/p>\nWe need to understand that statistically speaking not many children commit suicide in comparison to the total number of children coping with such academic pressure if we analyze the numbers but life analysis tells us that their hopes and dreams are overlooked and hurt\u00a0many a times\u2026. So it is high time we pause and contemplate a bit\u2026<\/span><\/p>\nI need to take a pause here since I hear many of you saying kids do not like many things which are good for them\u2026. So the question I tend to hear from you is\u2026 Should parents go children\u2019s immature ways? Not necessarily\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nWell\u00a0let us try to see what all good things they resisted\u2026. Eating right, sleeping right, talking right, behaving right, seeing right, listening right, reading right etc.<\/span><\/p>\nChild actually observes parents and never follows anything blindly\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nMoreover,\u00a0there is one thing which is certain\u2026. Child analyses and looks at the parents to see whether in case any of those things preached\u00a0are\u00a0followed by parents to begin with and if so\u2026. Whether their parents are really loving, joyful, peaceful and happy by doing so\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nThey tend to pick up only those habits of their parents that make them happy and peaceful\u2026<\/span><\/p>\nIn case you have seriously messed up situations, your child may even not like you\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nIt may appear strange and extremely annoying\u2026. But there is a possibility of your child not liking you\u2026. This comes in many forms and shades\u2026. Absolute dislike, not liking\u00a0few traits\u00a0of yours, not liking you by comparing you with someone better, not liking you for your over protective care and concern which you may think as love but is suffocating for the child, not liking you for your double standards (we may have\u2026) etc.<\/span><\/p>\nSo, is it the objective of this letter to make you realise that your child dislikes you?<\/span><\/p>\nAnswer again is a big No\u2026. Your child does not dislike you\u2026 I am just making a point that unconsciously we may have created such a situation, which we need to undo\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nChildren are parents\u2019 responsibility and we are no one to teach a parent their responsibility nor do we intend to do so\u2026. Parents really think good for their children\u2019s future but the point I need to make is that your dreams are always limited to your experience of what is good\u2026 what is successful\u2026 what is the best thing\u2026. Well, the truth is your child may surpass your imagination and reach places which you never even dreamed of\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nWe all come from different segments of the society in terms of social & economic status, culture, religion, belief systems etc. However as far the natural principle of upbringing a child is concerned they remain the same everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\nI am not an expert in Parenting nor have many credentials in \u201cRight Child Care Practices\u201d and I fully understand that different kind of children\u00a0need different kind\u00a0of interventions yet I would request you to divert little attention to these fundamental aspects relating to child management.<\/span><\/p>\nCreating the right kind of atmosphere for the child to grow and flower in\u00a0homeby making home a really happy, loving and peaceful place to live.<\/span><\/p>\nUnderstanding the needs of the children\u2026 There are two extremes in this case\u2026 Making the child go through terrible hardships to realise \u201cYour\u201d dreams is one end and the other end is over-pampered care\u2026. Both of them definitely do not work\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nTake time to switch from teaching mode to learning mode from the child since children show you the way to be really happy and peaceful at times\u2026Instead oflearning\u00a0form them we tend to always assume the role of teacher\/preacher\u2026<\/span><\/p>\nAllow the child \u201cto be\u201d on his own terms and here I mean especially the child\u2019s engagement with nature and world around and empower them with the right kind of communication skills which are more accommodative\u2026. Interaction with the other gender due to their coming of age is not an aberration but a normal process, which you can keep a note on but not try to prevent it totally.<\/span><\/p>\nSpend time with children without complaining of your office, life situation, problems, hardships all the time\u2026. It may be really too late before you want to spend and there is no more time available\u00a0with\u00a0the child\u2026 Why? Because we may have made him just like ourselves in an effort to tutor him\u2026. We certainly are not the benchmark for the child.\u00a0Many a times, we may be regressive rudimentary types in comparison to the ability of the child.<\/span><\/p>\nJust a final thought. Are we interested in making the child realise \u201cYour Dreams\u201d at any cost or should it be like creating such situations that the child realises \u201cHis\/Her\u201d Dreams?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nI could have simply attended a Parents Counselling Session during admission and spoken on these issues but\u00a0usually\u00a0it so happens that in such gatherings we are conditioned and influenced more by\u00a0impression\u00a0of the person sitting next to you or people who think different.<\/span><\/p>\nNothing wrong\u00a0in\u00a0disagreeing but it is best to disagree on own terms instead of getting influenced by others\u2026. Finally, I would like to tender my unconditional apology for taking your time and telling you things about Child Management in which I am no expert and my words in this letter have been gathered by my limited experience in Kota dealing with similar cases and certainly there are great men who have inspired me to put my thoughts before you\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\nBe the Best Parent in the World!!!!
I am sure there is no competition there\u2026<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nYours Sincerely,
Dr Ravikumar
District Collector, Kota<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
An ernest request to all the students and parents\u00a0who are reading this:<\/p>\n
Please\u00a0take expert guidance when in doubt. We, at YourDOST are\u00a0here to provide you access to world class\u00a0counselling services\u00a0and guidance from career experts and psychologists. Please seek support<\/a><\/strong>. #StayHealthy #StayHappy #StressFreeIndia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a\u00a0caring home to a pressure cooker city\u00a0like Kota, it’s never an easy decision for both parents and kids. With the increasing number of students succumbing to this pressure lately, there are\u00a0more questions than ever.\u00a0 Do these suicides happen due to exam failures? Are parental expectations a major cause for this? Recently, we discovered a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abuse","category-emotional-abuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}