Character building and resilience is not possible without failures, difficulties and hardships.
GABRIEL MATHIAS OFM
“Class IX student in Madhya Pradesh commits suicide after missing the school bus.” “Unable to join online classes, Kerala school girl commits suicide.” “Student allegedly kills himself over losing classroom leader election.” “Upset over poor performance in exam class XII teen commits suicide.”
Headlines like the above in the newspapers are all too frequent to be passed off as normal. Parents are often at a loss to understand as to how to deal with their school going children and are alarmed at some of these news items. They also remark that it was not like this in their youth, implying, this is a serious phenomenon of the present age.
What could be the reasons for this “pandemic” of suicides and what can the parents do to prevent this from affecting their children? There cannot be simplistic answers to these questions. However, one of the reasons for this “pandemic” seems to be lack of frustration tolerance due to over-indulgence by the parents of the present generation.
I am reminded of an article I read long ago trying to explain the phenomenon of “hippies” in the 1960s. The beaches in Goa were filled with youth from the west with long unkempt hair; hardly any clothing on their bodies, and what they wore was rather dirty. Hordes of youth from the West came to India in search of spirituality and adventure, doing risky things.
One of the relevant explanations I read about this phenomenon was that these were the children of parents who had suffered deprivation during and soon after the Second World War, often having nothing to eat for days on end. In their turn they did not want their children to be deprived of anything and pampered them with not just their needs but all their wishes and wants. As one of the results, these children had no challenges to face in their life. Everything was provided. They did not have to work for anything. They came to the East in search of challenges and did risky things such as trying all kinds of drugs and undertaking adventurous and at times dangerous journeys. Quite a lot ended up with serious, mental and even criminal problems rather than enjoying the happiness they were searching for.
Many of today’s city- children in India, too, face a similar situation. While their parents come from large, often joint families with many siblings, who often had to do with handed down clothes and books from the older siblings, the present generation of children in the cities hails from nuclear families with one or two children. They grow up with the “instant- coffee” and “use and throw” mentality of today. The parents want their children to be happy and are willing to make any sacrifices and provide them with not just their needs but often all their wishes and wants. As a result the children live in a make believe world of unreality and are not used to failures and hardships. They have very low frustration tolerance. No wonder they give up when they face hardships and even ordinary failures.
Over-indulgence often produces children who are manipulating, whining, and adults who are depressed, emotionally stunted, and selfish.
What is the solution? Professor John Rosemond of the Prager University, an author and a family psychologist proposes prescription of Vitamin N(O) as the solution. He says that more and more children today suffer from Vitamin N(O) deficiency. They are not used to hearing the word “NO” from elders. Parents should learn to say NO especially when they are faced with whimsical desires of their children.
Character building and resilience is not possible without failures, difficulties and hardships. Strangely, it is when we fail and meet hardships that we learn about life and discover our strengths and weaknesses. Self-knowledge is acquired only through experiences of the reality of life which is a combination of successes and failures.
In psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy one of the pre-suppositions is that the root cause of many personality problems is too much frustration of needs or over-indulgence. The solution proposed is “optimal frustration”, or the principle of “benign deprivation”. The method is to find out the ego-strength of the person and then provide the right level of frustration. Permissiveness will not provide the person with challenges and will keep the person weak as before. Too much frustration will lead to the person resorting to primitive defenses.
The challenge is to provide tasks that are just a little above the person’s present capacity so that s/he is challenged and builds up confidence by successes. Children should not be protected from the usual demands, challenges and failures of life. Failures at this age are not a catastrophe because they do not involve life-long choices. They are the stepping-stones for character building and greater success. Optimal level of frustration will lead to character building and resilience.
According to professor John Rosemond, the most character building two-letter word in the English language is NO. He says, “Vitamin N(O) deficiency is the cause of many of the ills of the present youth. Dispense it frequently and you’ll be happy in the long run and so will your child.”
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