Mera parental pressure does not lead to suicide

JAIPUR: Providing financial assistance to students and launching effective student services at the universities can reduce suicide among teenagers.
The British government adopted this strategy and the number of suicides among young men has gone down significantly during the past five years.
Senior lecturer and consultant psychiatrist at Wrexham North Wales, UK, Peter Lepping, who was in Jaipur to attend the 62nd Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society (ANCIPS 2010) said mostly the young students under extreme stress make efforts to find solution to their problem with the help of family and friends.
But when they fail to find a solution, they take the extreme step, he said and therefore, doctors and family members should try to listen to them and offer best possible solution. He added that people concerned should clearly ask the person, under stress, about whether they are planning to harm themselves or commit suicide. “Often people don’t ask this question thinking it might give him any destructive idea but it is not so,” he said.
As far as the Indian society and education system is concerned, he said, there is a lot of pressure on the young students to perform in academics and the families spends plenty of money on them — thus multiplying the pressure. “If financial assistance is offered to them by the government, then at least one issue is resolved and the performance-related stress could be handled by the student counselling service,” he added.
Sudhir K Khandelwal, professor, department of psychiatry, AIIMS, said the pressure from parents should not be blamed for the increasing number of suicides, it is the social set-up as a whole.
“Even the parents are under pressure due to social stigma if their children fail to get good marks in school or don’t get well-paying jobs after studies,” he said. Suggesting solutions to prevent the youngsters from being depressed and taking the extreme step, he said the parents should observe their children and if they detect sudden changes in routine or behaviour like irritability, withdrawn behaviour or sleeplessness they should contact a psychiatrist for counselling.
Associate professor at SMS Medical College, Lalit Batra, said there are several factors - biological, social or personality-related — which lead to depression or stress among young students. “Suppose some individual, with depressive tendency, is under social pressure to perform well then this biological and social combination could prove fatal if he fails to succeed, ” he added.
Emphasising on parents’ role, Batra said they should not impose their unrealistic dreams on their children but allow them freedom. In case of stress, parents should identify the change in the attitude of their children so that timely counselling could be provided by psychiatrist and the cause of stress could be diagnosed, he said.