Everyone needs help

Counselling for students mostly centres around family and behavioural problems and schools
do not lay stress to guiding ‘normal’ children.
A child need not be a problem child in order to deserve a counselling session. Just taking the
right decision at the right time can often be a Herculean task for a child. This is where the
aptitude counsellor steps in. Without being judgmental, the counsellor needs to guide and
examine the student and gauge his skills, weaknesses and strengths.
If such guidance is readily available it can prevent a lot of trouble and frustration later on. In the
zeal to keep up with peer groups, a bright child with an artistic bent of mind could end up
learning theorems and chemical equations while all he ever wanted to do was read poetry or
learn classical music.
Timely and expert action in the form of aptitude testing by trained and professionally qualified
counsellors can avert many a suicide or a failed career.Schools need lessons in counselling
Manisha Jain
APTITUDE TESTING Timely and expert action, in the form of aptitude testing by trained and
professionally qualified counsellors, can avert many a suicide or a failed career, writes Manisha Jain
Do you want to be an engineer or a basketball player? A doctor or a radio jockey? Do you like to
sing and go on mountain treks? No, these are not questions being asked of a beauty pageant
contestant but are part of a series of test questions asked after an aptitude counselling course.
These are sample questions from an aptitude test conducted by an aptitude counsellor based in
Delhi.
One might assume that with the board examinations over, such aptitude counselling centres, in
every nook and corner of the country, would be the order of the day. Sadly this is far from true.
In fact, there is a crying need for counsellors who can guide students and help them decide
which would be the best academic stream for them.

Chance or choice?
Most of the counsellors, teachers and students interviewed by this reporter felt that the
government has still not sat up and paid heed to the serious issue of aptitude testing and
counselling for school students.
It is just taken for granted that a student will veer towards the academic stream of his choice
naturally and will have no difficulty in choosing his subjects. Some very bright students pointed
out that they were absolutely stumped when it came to deciding which course to take.
They were not aware of the professional avenues open to them after certain courses. They need
guidance to help them decide the right set of subjects, according to their talent and aptitude.
Student can not handle the pressure of studies, failure they end their life. Who is responsible
for that? Last year started with suicides of farmers and this time students have joined them. It
was a shocking news of 3 students suicide in 48 hrs & non of them above 18 yrs. In last couple
of years suicide rate has increased drastically.
Its very sad that at this young age children  are going through depression. Why don't they
understand that its not the age where they should take so much pressure.
But somewhere i feel its their parents fault who keep pushing them without knowing about
their mental and physical fitness. 4-5 hrs a day are wasted in private classes after which they
hardly get time to relax or even play. Many children manage this routine but some fail.
Even the educational institutes are to be blamed as now a days the teachers are very strict with
students, even give them harsh punishments. The timing of school, colleges are too much. No
time to play, no time to explore their hobbies.
Agreed the competitions has increased, everyone wants to be no.1 but it doesn't mean that
parents should not ask their kid about their feeling, their wish, what they are willing to do?
Only studies and trying to get good marks is not everything, they should be allowed to play, to
participate in extra circularity activities. These things will make them relax and even will over
come their fear. As parents dont get free with children the gap between them goes on increasing
and eventually they wont share their problems with them. Parents should encourage them if
sometimes they fail to achieve the desire goal. Parents should not keep poking instead they
should sit with the kid try to understand his problem and should help him to overcome
problem.
Help the children to overcome the fear of being punished, give them a chance to correct the
mistake. Break the silence of the kid  and dont let the future hang themselves

.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxT
he motive when students kill themselves is invariably academic pressure - this accounts for 99
per cent suicides in the age group 12-18 - but psychiatrists sought to assess why the trend has
risen of late and put it down to three reasons: deprivation of sunshine, exam results, and the
copycat syndrome. “The copycat syndrome is where a person with suicidal tendencies gets
influenced by other suicides. There are high chances that children will get influenced by and
copy other children who have committed suicide,” says Dr Shubhangi Parkar, head of
psychiatry at KEM Hospital, Parel. “In the Indian system of education there is no place for a
child with 40 per cent marks. Parents and teachers have to realise all students can’t be rankers,”
says Dr Kersi Chavda, president of Bombay Psychiatrists Society. He also blamed pressure on
students to become doctors and engineers. “Why can’t we let students opt for vocational
subjects that they may be good at?”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pressure of studies is making the child of today more aggressive and impatient

Stress is a necessary thing in every student’s lives because stress adds flavor, challenge and
opportunity to our world. It is also a part of every student's daily life. In the right dose, stress
can be healthy, or even enjoyable. Though it provides many benefits but it can be very
damaging for students when stress becomes excessive. It can harm students' health, happiness,
work performance, relationships and personal development. It is making them more aggressive
and impatient.

The causes of stress are the competitive circumstances and exams, and parental pressure.The

pressure to get good grades is sometimes caused by parents who want their students to go to a
good college or get a scholarship. Sometimes parents needlessly turn their children into "super
kids" who believe that they must do everything right. Some students become so mentally and
physically exhausted that there comes a point that they take some drastic actions, for example
cheating. In order to meet their parents' expectations, students are liable to cheat to achieve
better scores in exams, finals or even plagiarize papers to be able to receive a better grade in
class or take drugs to help them cope with the stress. Sometimes students become depressed or
rebel from the pressure to get good grade and many a times
Media Censorship: Why is Censorship GoodThere are several pros and cons of media censorship. In an
age where freedom of expression cannot be stressed enough, a pro media censorship agreement can be
considered as sacrilege! What people need to realize that censorship does not imply curbing the freedom
of expression – it is merely drawing the line between freedom and unrestrained deviltry! Censorship is
merely a reminder for people who have crossed the lines of morality and humanity under the name of
freedom of expression. There are several types of mass media, which are a means of expression of people
around the world. When it comes to media, censorship is a must considering increasing instances of
unrestrained inclusion of topics which might be inappropriate for certain age groups or topics which are
morally wrong like racism. Most of the audiences across the world are ready for portrayal of subjects like
sex and violence, however it is not these subjects but the method of portrayal that becomes an issue of
concern. Censorship or discretion in viewers is necessary.
Children of impressionable ages are constantly being exposed to excessive violence as well as sexually
explicit content. Media exposure is an instrumental factor in shaping the opinions and values in these
children. A common example is the extremely violent video games that children are addicted to – tend to
increase the aggressive tendencies in children. Several researchers across the world are studying effects of
media on development of children. Use of abusive language as well as abusive actions can make lasting
impacts on children and can result in increased aggressive tendencies. Media censorship is necessary for
checking the three main problem areas. These three areas are vulgarity (sexually explicit content),
violence and racism. Media censorship is necessary to see to it that media is not being used as a tool to
attack someone’s character or to discriminate and humiliate people. Speaking of censorship, one section
of the Indian media industry that is in dire need of censorship regulations is the news channels in India.
Visuals of mutilated bodies during riots, bloodbath, massacre, television channels seem to have forgotten
about media ethics in their rat race for TRPs. Being a witness to some of the most inhuman reporting
scenarios in some of the most shattering catastrophes, it is my personal opinion as a viewer and as a
global citizen that censorship should be about keeping the media real enough to reflect the society but
subtle enough to keep it humane.

The Leeward Side of It

Today so many people, especially the old aged people say that the new generation has become so lazy
because of social networking feature. Many even say that these so called social networking media are
simply making the people of the present generation unsocial by doing all these. It is notable that due to
this feature of the internet, we are making friends with so many people whom we never see in our lives
but we spend hours chatting with them without knowing who they actually are. Children of teenage who
need to go to the fields and play with their real friends are busy with unidentified people on the net
chatting with them, emailing with them, talking about their welfare and having a behavior in such a way
that they are even more to them than their real friends. Yeah of course, some may come to a realistic
end, but most of them really never meet. Children are becoming lazy talking to these people,
maintaining their so called social status and just filling their life with dramatized follow ups. What are
they doing? Students go to cyber cafes, spend hundreds of rupees and what they do? They simply keep
on writing scraps to their so called distant friends. It really deviates the newbie minds from their actual
courses, hitting at their health, hitting at their actual socialism.There are many leeward aspects, but
what I want to question is that is this social networking grasping feature of the internet so social at all.
Does it have more merits or more demerits. Anyways, my suggestion to the teenagers especially would
be have a consideration on the so called social networked nature of their
The Windward Side of It

Social Networking, today, has made the life of the richie riches easier. Those who have nice
smartphones in their hands, can easily surf themselves right away.
However, the medium classes can also enjoy this. People can today keep themselves connected to their
near and dear ones all the times. They can easily correspond with them anytime they want to do. With
offline messages like scraps and offline chat messages they can easily leave a message to their near and
dear ones, asking about their welfare or having an informal chat of any type, anytime.
Social networking has enabled us today to climb the mountains of connectivity so easily and you know,
the best part of it? Most of the online services like chatting, emailing etc are totally free, so even the
middle and the low classes can enjoy the services. It is therefore a big merit of this feature that cutting
on the expenditure of ISD call rates, we can easily connect to the people of our beats easily, in case they
are living in some other country. With the internet social networking, one can easily present him/her
before everyone. What does one need to do? Simply take a stand, spend some 3000-4000 bucks, create
your own website, design it, put contents and finally you are done.
In short, it therefore means that one can stay connected even while sleeping, and today to my surprise,
marriages are being conducted with the help of the so called matrimony websites which help us find the
guys of our taste and finally we can select the bridegroom or the bride, chat to him/her, have a meet
with him/her and finally, the "Just Married" signboard will be on the back of the car. Thus, today, to my
surprise, internet social networking is helping people get married even. What not we can do? We can
show our videos and songs.
These were all the merits of social networking, these were simply the pros, not let's have a look towards
the cones.s'.