Don't test your child!

Seven years ago, Mahesh Podar’s 16-year-olddaughter scored 82 per cent in the SSC Board exam, with 92 per cent in scienceand 65 per cent in languages. Despite this, she couldn’t get admission tothe college of her choice, which led her to end her life. Podarbelieves, “The exam system should be overhauled. Also, parents should notput pressure on children over studies. Sometimes, it’s very difficult togauge the level of depression that children go through. Hence, they should betaught about mental health.” Today, Podar visits various schools in Mumbaito bring about awareness among children.Four years ago, AnthonyFurtado lost his 17-year-old son to depression during the class 12 exam. Headvises parents, “As exams approach, children should be told not to worryor panic, get stressed or depressed.” Furtado shares his experience withfriends and strangers. He tells children, “Failure is always a steppingstone for success. Life is short and precious, live it. Life is beautiful, enjoyit.”Rima Nayak was in class 9 and tense about her exams. Herparents recall, “She found Maths difficult and the school threatened tofail her. One day, she took an overdose of drugs. In her suicide note, she saidshe hated school.” They are still in a state of shock, despite theincident happening three years ago.The common thread that runsthrough these cases is a poor understanding of a person’s strong points.Biologically, a child’s brain is divided into the left and right brain.Explains Dr Jitender Nagpal, psychiatrist,, New Delhi, “Theleft brain develops analytical functions and contributes tonumerico-mathematical functions with speech, language as also the primaryfunctions. However, a collaborative partnership of the left and right brain isneeded for holistic development.”Sharmistha Mukherjee,Kolkata-based clinical psychologist, maintains, “Right brain isresponsible for visual and processes information in an intuitive andsimultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture, then thedetails.”Dr R Manoj, Chennai-based clinical psychologist,says, “Experiments have shown that most children rank high in terms ofcreativity (right brain) before entering school. The limitations on thefunctions of right hemisphere comes from our academic approach which giveexcessive importance to mathematics, logic and language based on memorisedinformation. Because of this, only 10 per cent of these children will rank‘highly creative’ by age seven and it reduces to only two per centof the population by the time they are adults.” Psychiatristssay left brain-dominant people take up professions like medicine, accountancy,engineering and law, while right brain-dominant one often pursue a career in thearts — painting, dance, music and sports. Parents should understand this‘brain game’ and let their children explore their inherenttalent.- Study as much as you can.- Scan what you know welland read what you are not sure about.- Sleep for eight hours and eat wellon time.- Play for half an hour, it helps memory and confidence.-View exams like a party, and answer the best question first.- After apaper, do not do a post-mortem.- Share your tears and fears with your bestteacher, family members or a counsellor.- Play happy sentences in yourinternal iPod (brain) all the time.- When down, sad or scared, recall thetime when you were at your best and play the memory completely.- Talk less and smile more.- Hug your kid a littlelonger and a little stronger in distress.- Share your feelings with kids, encouraging them to do the same.- Encourage laughter in the family.-Discuss studies with them and discuss movies and fun too.- Help themrecall positive memories.- When they are excessively quiet, irritable,have low or increased appetite, talk about death or dying, rush them to acounsellor and not to an astrologer.- Parents should sleep enough and eaton time.