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Every parent wants to be the best parent in the world and the
right way to do that is to raise the best kid in the world. What is a best kid?
A kid that is physically, emotionally and socially perceived as the best. Therefore,
in this race to raise the best kid, parents often forget about what the kid
wants to be. Many a time’s children feel like they are not living up to their
parent’s expectations.
Childhood
Memories
When we were crying
inconsolably over the tiniest wrong in our lives, they would say,” You are a
brave girl/boy. Brave kids don’t cry.” From there starts our journey of
pretending to be brave.
A study conducted by WHO stated that 6.5 per cent of the Indian
population is suffering from some form of serious mental disorder. The number
of these cases that share their problems with their parents is even more less.
The primary reason for this is that their parents do not talk to children about
mental health.
It’s not always parents fault to think of mental health as a
baseless claim as they have never been made aware of it. Depression is often
negligently considered equivalent to ‘going through a rough patch’. But
depression is certainly not a patch that one could just skip or move on from.
It needs proper treatment like any other health issue.
‘It’s Just a
Phase’
In India, there is significant stigma around the word
‘depression’. People going to a psychiatrist or a therapist are often
considered as deranged. This is what petrifies parents the most. They don’t
want people to think of their perfect kids as insane.
Depression makes one tired. It exhausts them.
They can’t help it. When someone is sluggish and does not want to get out of
bed, it’s not always because of laziness. At times when a person is not feeling
well, parents should have a proper talk with their child.
Depression should not be seen as a phase. It is not something a
person can just snap out of. If not treated, it may consume a child’s life,
even to a point that the person starts to seem like a different person, totally
unrecognizable.
Priest
vs Psychiatrist
The solutions suggested by parents are mostly
erratic. Some of them think that a demon has possessed their kid or it is a
result of evil eye. Indians, no matter how progressive they are in their thought
process, at times think that a holy ritual can make all their problems
disappear. Hence, they seek help of a priest instead of a therapist or
psychiatrist.
We cannot blame Indian parents alone. As even in developed
countries like America, parents are not able to reconcile with the fact their
kids have a mental issue. They try to find various solutions on their own, from
taking a child for ice cream to taking him/her on a vacation. These are just
temporary solutions.
What Causes
Depression?
Depression does not discriminate between a happy household and a
not-so-happy-household. Going through the morning newspaper to all the social
media sites, one can find a hundred things to upset them. It is just that some
people are more sensitive to their environment than others.
Parents have this nature to blame themselves for their kid’s
problems. This sterns from the genuine concern of a parent. Even when parents do everything for their
kids, they may have other problems in their life. The right thing to do is to
not make it about themselves and care for their children.
Parents should stop setting so many high expectations from their
children. It is not a competition between their child and their friend’s kid.
It does not have to be seen as a failure if one has to consult a doctor.
It Is Okay to Ask
for Help
We have been programmed from birth to act strong, and often we
find ourselves in a position where we start relating expression our problems to
being presumed weak. When we ask a child to be strong, it further reinforces
this, and might lead to his never opening up again to his parents.
Apart from the fact that comparing your problems with someone
else’s is just plain rude, it does nothing but make the person sharing his/her
problems feel really small. Everyone is unique. What problems are easy for you
to deal with might not be that easy for someone else. There is no sense in this
comparison.
Often teenagers and children are told that this is not an age for
them to be depressed. There is no age for depression. If there is no age for a
child to be physically hurt, there is certainly no age for a child to be
mentally depressed.
Be Gentle
People fancy themselves as great advisers. We might not be able to
deal with our own problems but we certainly know how to make others feel
better. We need to stop counseling depressed people on our own. Often what we
say might end up making them feel even worse.
Parents often want to hide that their child is depressed. This
associates shame with mental illness. This will only make him/her feel less
about himself/ herself. Rather let the child decide if he/she wants to tell
someone about it or not and support their decision. The taboo needs to end.
Can you tell a
person with fever to just stop having fever and move on? No, right. Similarly,
a person with depression cannot simply stop feeling sad and move on.
Rather than
telling your child what to do, you should be focusing on what you can do for
him. Asking him this exact question would be a lot better than asking him to
cheer up.
How to Deal With a Depressed Person
Dealing with a
person with depression needs tremendous patience and strength. It can be
physically as well as emotionally draining. The more you read about it, the
more you will understand that people with depression are very sensitive to
their environment.
If you want to be there for a person with
depression, you have to read as much as you can on this topic to be able to
help them well and not unknowingly cause any harm, because the less you know
about depression, the more there is a chance that even your most sympathetic
efforts will only backfire.
There is always a deep reason for a child’s behavior. Some
children might be very aggressive and explosive. These children should be
handled with utmost care. There might be a reason for sudden change in
behavior. Instead of punishing the child, he/she should be talked to. These
kids need proper help.
Listen, Think and
Act Accordingly
We need to improve our habit of listening. Instead of making a child understand that his/her mental illness is just a phase, we need to listen to
what they have to say. Also, spreading awareness is the most important thing that we could do
right now.
The more we talk about depression, the lesser is the stigma around
mental health. As good humans, we should stop gossiping about the troubles
faced by people. At the end I would just like to say that ‘kuch toh log
kahenge, logon ka toh kaam hai kehna’. So stop shying away from going to a
doctor.
Written By - Trishla Gupta
Edited By - Adrija Saha
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