Two incidents in the past week have worried the parents of teenagers. An 11-year-old girl tried to escape after being scolded by her parents and another child killed himself after his father did not buy him an i-phone. While the incidents are from different families they highlight a reality of pandemic-hit children who tend to take extreme steps due to mental and emotional fatigue which has increased due to the pandemic, believe experts.
In one of the recent incidents, an 11-year-old girl stopped an auto-rickshaw driver who was returning home after duty around 9.30 in the night. The girl, wearing a backpack got into the rickshaw and asked the driver to drop her at any hotel or lodge where she can spend the night.
Suspicious, Kumar called his wife and told her to speak to the girl on phone. She initially said that she was an orphan and was living with her uncle and aunt. After further questioning, she revealed that she has parents and left the house because her parents scolded her for getting up late. Her father, a bank employee had already filed a complaint with the Kodigehalli police suspecting kidnapping the same evening.
In the second incident, a 16-year-old boy jumped into a pond in Chikkanahalli near Yelawala in Mysore taluk and drowned. The boy took such an extreme step because his father, a daily wage laborer didn’t buy him an iPhone. His body was found four days after his family filed a missing complaint. Apparently, the boy was pestering his father to give him money to buy iPhone, which the latter couldn’t afford given the financial conditions.
Both cases come as a shocker to what children these days think before taking such extreme steps. There are multiple factors that prompt children this age to take such extreme steps, said Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma, SHUT Clinic (Service for Healthy Use of Technology), Nimhans, Bengaluru who has been doing multiple studies on similar cases.
“Peer pressure, Child temperament, and relationship with family are the first three factors to consider in these cases. Some children will be emotional, they need to be handled accordingly. In some families, parents will be judgmental. They either say right or wrong, there’s no reasoning in between. This creates enormous pressure on children. But there is no particular pattern here, reasons are different in different cases. Peer pressure and comparisons add up to the already built-up uneasiness.”
The pandemic situation has only added to these woes, Dr Sharma notes. “Since all family members are forced to stay under one roof 24/7 everyone is very vigilant. Parents want to always watch their kids, children in turn always keep an eye on what the parents are doing to sneak in a phone or things like that. Mostly, smartphones became the only thing to relax in this situation”
Madhu Shenoy, a counselor working with several NGOs for kids notes another point in children post-pandemic. “In the past two years, children have become lazy, not just physically but psychologically as well. If a student had an online class at 9 am, they would wake up at 8.30 most. But now with schools open, they need to wake up early and get ready before the school bus arrives, etc. Children have got accustomed to the relaxed routine of the pandemic and are finding it difficult to get back on track. Families need to be understanding and help them cope” she said.
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