Teaching Kids to say NO to peer pressure.
The single important factor that pushes youngsters to take to tobacco, alcohol, drugs or adventurous sex is undoubtedly peer pressure (PP) that they find themselves ill equipped to resist. And its effect at a vulnerable age can be so overwhelming that the feeble voice of resistance gets easily drowned to submission.
The source of this lack of assertiveness could well lie with how kids are trained by parents and schoolteachers . Our conventional mores of upbringing encourage obedience, submissiveness and respect for elders, features that funnily work against us when confronted by delinquent seniors.
“Training in assertiveness and teaching children to say NO is unfortunately lacking in our parenting and teaching skill-kit”, says Raashi Khanna, a professional counsellor. It is therefore not uncommon to see docile children yielding tamely to peer pressure during adolescence and accepting that first fag or drink from seniors due to an inability to say NO.
If the presently rampant drug addiction in Punjab is another example to go by, most victims are not the aggressive assertive sort, but weak obedient ones who got coerced due to their inability to stand up and assert themselves.
Since counselling students cannot be left only to professional counsellors, teachers of primary and middle schools as well as parents need to be trained to don the counselling cap to empower their kids to resist peer pressure. It is bound to be challenging, as the very concept of encouraging kids to be assertive often goes against the conventional ethos of “obedience” that is held in our minds as a hallmark of good Indian upbringing.
A simple method that some schools have employed is getting students to “role play” characters of victim and peer through skits and plays. In an inter-school skit competition organised by HOPE Initiative, several schools used this method to make the point effectively among different sections of students.
One may argue that submissiveness may not be the only underlying factor, as addiction victims in occident or affluent societies do not seem to be overtly submissive. In them the reason is often lack of close interpersonal relationship with parents, compounded by loneliness often contributing to their vulnerability.
Once hooked to tobacco, alcohol or drugs, getting off the hook can be a formidable challenge. Despite their annual ritual new-year resolutions, most tobacco addicts for example never seem to be able to stop until a health event such as a heart attack scares them enough to quit.
Unlike tobacco sudden cessation of severe forms of alcohol and drug addiction is often associated with painful withdrawal symptoms such as body pain, hallucinations, sleeplessness and even fits, requiring medications under the guidance of a psychiatrist.
In milder forms however counsellors employ a technique called CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) that helps the victim understand how his thinking (cognition), influences his behaviour (such as drinking), thus helping him to mend his ways.
It is time that schools and parents resorted more to counselling to fortify the health of our youngsters and our society.
The single important factor that pushes youngsters to take to tobacco, alcohol, drugs or adventurous sex is undoubtedly peer pressure (PP) that they find themselves ill equipped to resist. And its effect at a vulnerable age can be so overwhelming that the feeble voice of resistance gets easily drowned to submission.
The source of this lack of assertiveness could well lie with how kids are trained by parents and schoolteachers . Our conventional mores of upbringing encourage obedience, submissiveness and respect for elders, features that funnily work against us when confronted by delinquent seniors.
“Training in assertiveness and teaching children to say NO is unfortunately lacking in our parenting and teaching skill-kit”, says Raashi Khanna, a professional counsellor. It is therefore not uncommon to see docile children yielding tamely to peer pressure during adolescence and accepting that first fag or drink from seniors due to an inability to say NO.
If the presently rampant drug addiction in Punjab is another example to go by, most victims are not the aggressive assertive sort, but weak obedient ones who got coerced due to their inability to stand up and assert themselves.
Since counselling students cannot be left only to professional counsellors, teachers of primary and middle schools as well as parents need to be trained to don the counselling cap to empower their kids to resist peer pressure. It is bound to be challenging, as the very concept of encouraging kids to be assertive often goes against the conventional ethos of “obedience” that is held in our minds as a hallmark of good Indian upbringing.
A simple method that some schools have employed is getting students to “role play” characters of victim and peer through skits and plays. In an inter-school skit competition organised by HOPE Initiative, several schools used this method to make the point effectively among different sections of students.
One may argue that submissiveness may not be the only underlying factor, as addiction victims in occident or affluent societies do not seem to be overtly submissive. In them the reason is often lack of close interpersonal relationship with parents, compounded by loneliness often contributing to their vulnerability.
Once hooked to tobacco, alcohol or drugs, getting off the hook can be a formidable challenge. Despite their annual ritual new-year resolutions, most tobacco addicts for example never seem to be able to stop until a health event such as a heart attack scares them enough to quit.
Unlike tobacco sudden cessation of severe forms of alcohol and drug addiction is often associated with painful withdrawal symptoms such as body pain, hallucinations, sleeplessness and even fits, requiring medications under the guidance of a psychiatrist.
In milder forms however counsellors employ a technique called CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) that helps the victim understand how his thinking (cognition), influences his behaviour (such as drinking), thus helping him to mend his ways.
It is time that schools and parents resorted more to counselling to fortify the health of our youngsters and our society.
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