Pull your kids back from the brink
ON my daughter Ana’s recommendation, I watched the mini-series Adolescence on Netflix. It is about a boy of 13 who stabbed to death a girl — his classmate in school. Since the two teenagers were neither enemies nor friends, it was difficult for the detectives to ascertain the motive for the crime. The police had to requisition the services of a trained psychologist to arrive at a conclusion.
The film is set in a typical English town. The boy belonged to a working-class family. The father was a plumber. The mother also worked, but not for as many hours as her husband. The couple was happily married. They had a 17-year-old daughter who, unlike her brother, showed no sign of emotional instability.
I interact with young people occasionally. When my mobility was not impaired, as it has been for the past three or four years, the interaction was almost on a daily basis, except on weekends, which are devoted to the immediate family. Now, it is limited to those who visit me at my home with their woes.
Lower middle-class parents expect me to involve the police to drive sense into their teenage wards. I have to explain to them that the police are not trained to deal with emotionally disturbed children or even adults. Any police interference can only complicate matters. During my years in service, I once approached Prof Mrinalini Apte of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences for help. The kind lady placed a girl and a boy in my office from 3 to 6 pm on working days to talk to the parties concerned. The duo succeeded where we, the police, would surely have failed.
My wife, who was a trained teacher, worked in Pune at the Shivaji Preparatory Military School when I was stationed there as Superintendent of the city police from 1964 to 1968, at the Cathedral School in Mumbai from 1968 to 1974, at the Central School in Hyderabad from 1974 to 1976 when I was deputed to the CRPF, and at St Columba’s School in Delhi, which was my last posting on deputation from 1976 to 1979. She found the children in Mumbai’s Cathedral School hardest to handle and those in Hyderabad’s Central School the easiest.
The reason was not hard to understand. Emotional health of children of less affluent people in India has not suffered as much as that of the economically advanced ones. In countries like the UK, children were exposed to social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp before their arrival in India. Kids exposed to technology are more likely to be influenced by current trends in sexual mores than those who have less access to technological advancements. The 13-year-old protagonist in Adolescence had begun to struggle with his sexual urges, as is natural at that age.
The boys in his class had concluded that 80 per cent of the girls were attracted to 20 per cent of the boys. The protagonist felt that he was ‘ugly’ and hence not good enough to be noticed by the girls. His father had attempted unsuccessfully to get him interested in sports, especially football. The boy’s IQ level was above average. He did well in studies, but was obviously troubled by signs of puberty that his parents had failed to even notice, let alone address.
The parents of the more affluent in Indian cities like Mumbai are absorbed in their own lives. Many do spare time to mentor their kids. The teenagers need answers to their doubts and knowledge about the new urges they experience as they enter puberty. Their fathers have no time to answer, the mothers hesitate to get involved in such subjects, except to warn their daughters about predatory males.
The protagonist used to lock himself in his room and sit on the computer surfing for information he needed to satisfy his curiosity. The post-murder conversation between his parents to determine where they had failed is featured in the fourth and last episode. It totes up the burden that parents have to carry while bringing up kids in this day and age. It is not an easy task, but it can become quite absorbing if both parents devote time to their children every day without making excuses. And if, like the protagonist, there is a child who remains aloof and does not communicate, it’s all the more reason for concerned parents to spend time with him or her.
A concomitant issue, not directly related to troubled children, is the molestation of tiny tots in schools. The culprits are sometimes older children but more likely attendants employed by schools for menial jobs, or at times even teachers. Parents and teachers should be constantly reminded of this danger and the school administrators should be alert to this menace. They owe it to the little ones.
The Mumbai city police had started the Police Didi programme, under which one policewoman in every police station visited schools under its jurisdiction once a month and sometimes attended parent-teacher meets, if permitted. Police presence reminded all stakeholders of their responsibilities and served as a warning to potential transgressors that the eyes of the authorities were always open.
The Public Concern for Governance Trust (PCGT), an NGO of which I am a founder-trustee, had teamed up with the Police Didi Programme and another NGO in the city to work closely on this issue of vital importance. Unfortunately, it died a sudden ‘death’ when Covid-19 struck. The PCGT is searching for a local sponsor so that one or two trained social workers can be employed to ensure that the project is revived and remains alive in the city. The objective is to generate fear in the minds of potential offenders.
