Decisions must be yours - Ask our Counsellor Q&A column

[The following column answered by me was published in the Deccan Herald Education supplement on December 31, 2015]

Dear Madam,
I come from a remote area and humble background, where I struggled to get a single meal after I lost my father and brother during my primary school. Later, life become very hard and I struggled a lot. With great difficulty, I have completed my graduation and post-graduation in regional languages (working and studying) and was struggling to speak in English.

I somehow came to Bangalore and joined a BPO and slowly learnt the language. However, I still face a problem while constructing sentences and speaking in English. I am not able to put in words easily while speaking and writing. I have been humiliated and frustrated. I lost promotions also due to my lack of good English. I have joined coaching centres, but they don’t seem to be working.

I thought of taking competitive exams, but due to hesitation in English (presenting, writing analytically and speaking without stopping). I am feeling frustrated and can’t achieve what I want to and push myself down day by day. 

My query is — is there any course where I can improve my English. I am ready to quit my job and pursue my dream. I request you to kindly provide complete details of any institution in India (address and contact number) where I can realize my long-cherished dream. 

Or can I join any English major degree which can help me to overcome my fear, struggle and fulfill my dreams? If yes, please let me know about the good colleges in India. I am anticipating your valuable guidance.
Ganapathy

Dear Ganapathy
I understand that you have hesitation in communicating in English and I applaud you for the courage it must have taken for you to send in this letter. Learning a new language and successfully communicating in it, has more to do with your confidence in yourself and your willingness to make mistakes and learn from them, than it has to do with joining the best course available.

I am not in a position to answer your question on best courses available, because that is not my area. However, I would like you to take inspiration from our current prime minister who could not speak English when he came to the position, and now  is giving speeches in English in different parts of the world. 

So don’t lose hope. Just practise, practise, practise. More than a class, find yourself some friends with whom you can speak and not be afraid of making a mistake. Ask them to correct you if you say something wrong. Let them know that English is not your strength area and that you want to practise the language. 

Ask them if they can help you. You won’t learn anything new unless you are ready to make mistakes in front of others. One learns from one’s mistakes. So be upfront about your hesitation, and your desire to improve, and seek help from everyone you can.

There is nothing more to it. But this route requires you to not only take some risks, but risks in front of others. So reach out and you will be surprised at how many people will be able to assist you in this journey.
All the best.

Dear Madam,
We feel our son, who is 10, has a very high IQ. We are not sure if it has to be checked at this age and for any purpose. He is quite good in studies, but we are just eager to guide him right. He gets easily distracted; he thinks too many things at the same time. His teachers find him difficult to handle because he gets diverted very easily, although they are very happy with regard to studies and his performance. Perhaps, we are not feeding him enough knowledge, information that can make him a thinker and better focussed.

He is also a voracious reader. Any book, riddles such as crossword, sudoku make him sit with concentration and rapt attention. He is also very good at drawing. We sent him to train under professional artists, but they couldn’t make him draw the usual way. 

He has his own choices and cannot sit patiently with the pencil and colouring, the common way. But when he puts his heart into anything particular, or his daily scribblings, they are excellent.
Our questions are:1. Is it too early for us to worry about his focus? 2. Do we have any special courses/scholarship for high IQ kids in India? 3. Is there any postal courses (not as a hobby) in drawing for kids like him in India?
SA

Dear SA
I cannot answer the specific questions you have raised at the end of your letter. However, it would be good to get your child evaluated by a psychologist for IQ, attention, focus etc. What that will do is it will tell you whether your son is within the norms of normalcy, or outside of it and needs special attention. Without this evaluation, you will not be able to give him the inputs that may be appropriate. So take the first step. Also be observant about his interactions with peers and his other behaviours and discuss these in your meeting with the psychologist.

Dear Madam,
I am 27 years old. I have completed computer science engineering in 2013. I was supposed to have graduated in 2010. Right now, I am in a dilemma. I don’t know which path to choose. I didn’t give many IT interviews because of my backlogs and low grades. I have chosen UPSC as my aim now, but my dad tells me to go abroad for MBA. He tells me I can’t clear UPSC. But I want to stay in India, as my mom is not well and she wants me to be in the civil services field and sometimes she is also worried about me. I am afraid about making the wrong career choice. I am an average guy, but I have some confidence that I can clear UPSC, but many demotivate me so that I don’t do work hard enough. I am scared. Please guide me.
A student
Dear Student
Please believe in yourself and do what your heart desires. Ultimately, there will always be many people giving you a lot of advice, based on their own assessment, their own value systems, and their own aspirations for themselves and for you. You could take all those inputs, but ultimately, the decision must be yours. It is helpful to remember that there is not only one right choice. 

You can make any choice you take work for you or not work for you. You can go abroad and do your MBA and make a great success of it, or you can waste that opportunity and make nothing of it. Or you can take the UPSC exam and make a success of it and a success of the opportunities that come up because of it, or you can waste it by not living a meaningful life. There is more than one path to success and happiness, because ultimately, success and happiness depend on how you define it for yourself, not on how others define it for yourself.

Don’t let other’s assessment of your capabilities colour your decision. If your heart lies in taking the UPSC exam, please take it and give it your best shot. If it doesn’t work out, there will be other paths that you can go down. You could do MBA then. Or you could do the MBA and then do the UPSC also. Like I said, there are many paths you can go down, and each path can be right for you. The important thing is to believe in yourself and make the choice that you feel fits best for you at this point of time.

Also, try and understand your fears. Answer the question – what is the worst thing that you are scared of happening? Often, when you name it, you will realise that ‘worst fear’ is not something you won’t be able to deal with. All the best.

More than one path - Ask your counsellor Q&A column

[The following column written by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education pages on December 10, 2015]

Dear Madam,

I am 19-year-old and I am in my first year degree. I have difficulty in controlling my aggression. I belong to a background which is very different from the circle I hang around with and I think this has left me with an inferiority complex. A friend will make some comment that annoys me or upsets me and my default reaction is to laugh it off.

However, I am unable to focus on anything else for hours or even days after the event. Much later, I send an aggressive and condescending text to the friend in question, berating them for a remark they have usually forgotten about. This approach is taking a toll on my friendships.

How can I address these situations as they arise? I am not sure what steps I need to take to change my “default reaction.” I am so ingrained and automatic that I don’t realise I have done it till much later.

NP
Dear NP

Aggression is always a sign of an underlying need that is not met or an emotion that is not being satisfied or expressed. When you get angry try and understand what is causing you to feel the anger.

It may be helpful for you to read my article “Get a grip on anger” (http://personalorbitchange.blogspot.in/2011/03/get-grip-on-anger.html ) to understand what you are experiencing a little better.

It is always helpful to remember that only you know your truth and reality, and if someone says something about you that is not true, then it does not become true just because they say it. You must believe in yourself. When someone has a weak concept of self, and low self-esteem, and thinks they are not good enough, then anything anyone says becomes like a reality that has got exposed.

The great thing is that you have self-realization on how this pattern of behaviour is hurting you and your relationships. That is the first and biggest hurdle to cross. Once you cross that it is easy to make changes. It is always helpful to ask yourself if the ‘issue’ you are raising is more important than the ‘relationship’ you are destroying. Most of the time the answer to that is ‘No’.

A helpful technique, if you must raise the issue, is to state how the comment made you feel, not challenge the person for making the comment. So say “when you say this, I feel…” rather than saying, “how dare you say …” or “why did you say …”.

The second approach makes the other person defensive of their action and so will not acknowledge or understand the impact it is having on you. The first approach does not challenge them, but merely states the impact it is having on you. So it helps you communicate your point of view without throwing the other person into defensive mode.

Hope this helps. It is best to work through this issue in depth with a counsellor so that it does not block your relationships going forward. If you do not have access to a counsellor you could contact a counsellor at the free Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080 65333323.

Dear Madam,

I am an engineering student studying in third year. I am not able to get as much marks as I deserve in my exams. I think one of the prominent reasons is my handwriting in the answer scripts.

Even though my handwriting is good enough, due to time limitations and pressure in exams my handwriting gets very bad. Please suggest me a few steps on how can I improve my presentation skills.

Dhanush
Dear Dhanush

I am not sure this is the right forum for me to help you on your presentation skills. The only thing I can suggest is to practice speed writing when you are not in an exam environment.

So when you have some time off, maybe you should focus on your hand-writing and do some exercise which force you to right at the speed that you need in exams. There is really no other way to improve hand-writing other than practice.

However, you may also want to verify from your teachers if your hypothesis that you are losing marks because of your writing is indeed correct.

How do you do in your assignments when you are not writing fast due to time pressure. Have your teachers every told you that you lose marks because of your writing?

If you are losing marks, instead, because of your exam anxiety and therefore not performing at the level of your potential, then that is a different problem which needs to be addressed with the help of a counsellor.

Take comfort in the fact that you will probably not need to actually be using your handwriting skills to any great extent after you are done with your exams as going forward everything is done on the computer.

All the best.

As a parent, did you remember to dig for gold?

[This article was first published on the White Swan Foundation website at http://www.whiteswanfoundation.org/understanding-mental-health/experts-speak-details/as-a-parent-do-you-remember-to-dig-for-gold/] 

Not so long ago I heard someone say “always remember to dig for gold, not for dirt”. What a simple idea! Yet, it so hard to live by. This thought resonated with me and brought back a rush of memories of instances when this value had not been upheld, leading to disastrous consequences.

It would not be inaccurate to state that over three-fourths of children and adolescents who come for counseling, struggle with issues of low self-esteem, and problems arising out of that, even if their presenting problem is different. Their self-talk is all about: “I am not good enough,” “I am not smart enough,” “I am not good looking enough,” “I didn’t do well in my test, so why should anyone be my friend?” “No one is talking to me,” “I can’t ask a question because the teacher may scold me and then the others will laugh at me”, “I am too scared to go up on stage – everyone will laugh at me” and so on and so forth.

Self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a judgment of oneself, as well as an attitude toward the self. Statements like these are manifestations of low self-esteem and it is important to understand that these children were not born this way. We, the parents and adults in their lives, have made them this way, by our casual, hurtful comments and needless judgments. In our well-meaning effort to spur them on, we sometimes end up bringing them to a grinding halt. 

We need to remember to be extremely careful about what we say, and how we say it. We may very casually, without giving it a second thought, call our child stupid, dumb, slow or incapable. Sometimes even a loser. But do we really want him or her to grow up believing that he or she is stupid, dumb, slow, and incapable or a loser?

The parents of a primary school child came to me some time back seeking help for their young son. They were very concerned after a teacher had pointed out many ‘problems’ with the child during a recent parent-teacher meeting and had suggested that they meet the school counselor. In my interaction with them, they said they were helpless and did not know how to deal with their son. Their choice of words sent a shiver down my spine because in my vocabulary you only “deal” with a “problem”! And a child is not a “problem”. If you perceive your child to be a problem, then that attitude will reflect in everything that you do and say. And your child will soon start believing that he or she is indeed a “problem”.

Not surprisingly, when I asked these parents what they had observed as their child’s strengths, neither parent could come up with anything, even though I tried asking the question in many different ways, at different points in our session. 

Now, to me that is the “problem” that we needed to “deal” with. Not the child.

It should come as no surprise then that many children grow up believing there is nothing unique and special about them, because these parents were not unique in their attitude and behavior. They were by no yardstick uncommon!

Making a child ‘visible’ in the eyes of parents, teachers, and other adults is very important. But to make them visible when they are being good and doing good, rather than when they are being bad and doing bad, can have a significant impact on the child’s mental make-up. This is a powerful tool available to every parent and adult in a child’s life, for free. Adults can instill confidence in children just by keeping their eyes and ears open - listening to the kind word, noticing the neat work, watching out for the good behavior, and acknowledging the effort. 

So if this is not what you are used to doing, how do you start? An attempt in the right direction should involve making sure there is at least something good you have noticed, and acknowledged, in your child every day. And, if every day seems too daunting a task to begin with, start with every week.

You’ll be surprised when you realize how rarely you have been applauding your children for their effort. In fact some kids have probably never received appreciation from their parents, ever. Yet, this negligence goes unnoticed all the time. We are over-alert to the things that are wrong, but tend to take the things that are right for granted.

Remember to dig for gold. And, do it every day till it becomes a habit. And then learn to scrub the gold to make it shine even more, rather than just trying to brush off the dirt and “deal” with the mess thus created.

Just be Yourself - Ask your counsellor Q&A column

[The following column answered by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education supplement on November 19, 2015] 

Dear Madam,

My science teacher hates me and it is apparently for no reason. Maybe I am not so good in the subject, but that is no reason for her to dislike me. It is unfair and I am not going to let her treat me like that for another year. She needs to treat me like every other pupil. How does one have a good teacher-pupil relationship?

A Student
Dear Student

It must be extremely hurtful and frustrating to feel that your teacher hates you, and to not know the reasons for it. I can also sense the anger that must be arousing in you. Could it be possible that you are mis-reading her emotions towards you? Could your interpretation of her feelings towards you be based on your thoughts that may not be really be grounded in reality? Think about it.

It may be helpful for you to have a conversation with the teacher and respectfully tell her what you feel — without challenging what she is doing. Naturally if you challenge her she will get defensive. But if you tell her that you are feeling disliked by her and that you would like to change that and so could she help you understand what is wrong, she may be amenable to having a conversation with you about your feelings. But a word of caution — enter this conversation with the objective and mind-set of trying to understand what you can do differently, rather than with an attitude of challenging her because “how dare she hate you”.

You may want to talk to a counsellor about the specifics of what this teacher is making you feel, and how you could best handle this situation. Try calling the free Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080-65333323 to reach out to a counsellor who could help you. All the best!

Dear Madam,

My parents seem really unhappy. One day they may be fine and the next they’re not. They often argue over me — be it studies or my behaviour. They don’t seem to agree. I don’t know what to do.

A student
Dear student,

Unfortunately when parents fight, children end up feeling that they are responsible and need to do something to improve things. You need to know that none of their fighting is your fault. It is not about anything you did, did not do, or could have done. It is about their own issues, disagreements and misunderstandings, amongst themselves.

They may be about you, because you are the link between them and are probably equally important to both of them. But they are not because of you, and you don’t need to do anything different, or be anyone different to stop them. You may be the subject of their disagreements, but you are not the cause of them, and I want you to believe that.

Just be the person you want to be, and let the adults sort out their own mess, no matter how hard that may sound.  All the best.

Dear Madam

I am in the first year of college. I act on feedback to improve, but keep getting mediocre performance reviews on my assignments, although I try hard to do my best. Should I just put up with being average at studies? How can I improve myself?

An undergraduate
Dear undergraduate student,

The most important thing, and really the only thing you can control, is the amount of effort you put in. And to perform at the level of your best potential you must put in your best effort. Beyond that you cannot control the marks. You can take feedback that you get, and you say you do, and that will help. However, don’t anchor yourself and your sense of self-worth, to your marks.

Strive to put in your best effort and that will ensure that at least you gain the knowledge that you need. Marks merely open doors for you, and sometimes not even that. Your real success in the workplace will not come from marks, but from your softer skills like the ability to learn on the job, your ability to work in a team, your ability to lead a team, your creative problem-solving skills, your ability to think out of the box, your communication and persuasive skills, among other things.

So don’t brand yourself as average just because your marks are average. There is more to you than your marks.

All the best
Dear Madam,

I am studying in a degree college. My problem is that I am depressed and keep thinking, hoping that things will be different. I am unable to concentrate on my studies. Often I have a mental block and I am unable to study. How do I come out of this situation?

Confused student
Dear confused student

I think it is important for you to get the help of a counsellor to understand and deal with your depression. If your depression has been there for a long time you may need to see a psychiatrist as well. If it is a mild onset that just set in only counselling may work.

I don’t know if you are in a place where you have access to a counsellor. However, if you don’t it may be helpful for you to reach out to a counsellor over the phone. You could call the Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080 65333323 which is a free helpline answered by counsellors to help young adults like you.

Most of the time, depression is the time the result of how we think about events and situations and a counsellor may be able to help you gain a different perspective on things. All the best.

Your definition of success and failure impacts your child's. Do you know your definition?

[ The following article originally appeared at http://www.whiteswanfoundation.org/understanding-mental-health/experts-speak-details/your-definition-of-success-and-failure-impacts-your-child-do-you-know-your-definition/ ]

Everyone wants to be a success. No one wants to be afailure. And understandably so. Success and failure, however, are terms meant to define events, not people. You are either successful at doing something, or achieving some milestone, or you failed at doing something or did not achieve some milestone. That does not imply that you are a complete success or a complete failure. There are other aspects of you that you may not be so successful at, or that you may not be such a failure at. The most successfulperson (if there can be such a term) may have a large bank balance, but may be a complete failure as a parent or a spouse. And a person who has been an absolute failure at business, may be an unbelievably good parent or an amazing friend.

So success and failure are terms used to describe how we did at a particular event in our life – not how we are in totality. But every so often we are unable to see the difference.

We often believe that we are a success, and our child must be a success. And the hint of failure in any small aspect of our life, or theirs, sends us into a tizzy. Or we believe that we have been a failure and therefore want to make sure that our children don’t end up as failures! If a child fails in an exam we call them failures; we project that they will remain failures for the rest of their lives. Whereas they may have just failed at an exam, and there may be several other aspects of life that they may have been successful at or successful in. We don’t allow ourselves to see or acknowledge that they may be great in sports, they may be wonderfully empathic human beings, they may be great artists and wonderful singers, they may be good orators or creative problem solvers, they may be honest and helpful, or that they may have wonderful people skills. We overlook all of this and brand them as a failure because they failed at an exam!

Similarly, if we lose our job, we brand ourselves as a failure, sometimes to the point of never being able to recover again. We interpret that failure at that particular job as a verdict on us, and our entire life, never allowing us to bounce back and think of ourselves in any other terms.

To accept our children in totality (and accept we must) with all their strengths and weaknesses, we need to understand success and failure as terms used to define events and not people. Which means that we need to look at ourselves also as people who have been successful in some aspects of our lives, and failures at others. We need to acknowledge and accept things that we failed at and we need to be comfortable talking about our failures. Can we accept our past failures, and take stock of what we learned from the experience? Are we comfortable with having failed in certain aspects and able to talk to our children about our failures? Can we make our failures, and how we dealt with them, an integral part of dinner-time conversations? Only then can we help our children accept failure as just another event in their lives – a learning opportunity that came their way – rather than something that fatally defines them in totality.

Some failure is inevitable – in our life, and in the life of our children. Equipping our children with life skills that will help use the failure to gain a deeper understanding of themselves, and gain new learnings from the situation, will be an invaluable gift that we can give them – far more valuable than the biggest bank balance that we may be slaving for. It will teach them the importance of resilience – of bouncing back in the face of adversity, and not letting adversity define them. And the sooner they learn this life lesson, the better off they will be.

But, children learn from what they see and experience, not from what we say or scream about. So that means they will learn life lessons around success and failure from how we, as parents, experience and deal with success and failure ourselves. They need to see us model behavior that takes failure in its stride. They need to see us learn from our failures. They need to see us fall down and then bounce back again – sometimes to newer heights, and sometimes to fall down again. They also need to see us succeed at some things, and take success in its stride. They need to see us experience joy in our successes.

In short, they need to see us experience failure and success, but most of all they need to see success and failure as temporary events in our life, not permanent life-defining states of being. In the words of John Wooden, “Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts.”

Courage in the face of adversity, and humility in the face of prosperity, is what we need to model as parents. Only then will our children experience it from us, and only then will they learn to live it. And then, and only then, will we have helped them grow into resilient adults, ready to face all the challenges and joys, successes and failures, that life will throw in their path.

Never underestimate the power of our influence – negative and positive – on the lives of our children. Let’s strive to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.

Gain Control of Situations - Ask your cousellor Q&A Column

[The following column answered by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education supplement of October 29, 2015]

Dear Madam,

I don’t know who to turn to help. My parents moved to a new town during this academic year and have started new jobs. I think they have enough problems without me adding to them. I started at my new school this academic year. I have made no friends. Two boys keep calling me names and the others laugh every time they do it. They always shout at me when the teacher isn’t around. It happens in the classroom, playground and when I am walking to and from school. Please help me. I can’t take it anymore.

A distressed boy

Dear distressed boy

Please don’t think that you need to protect your parents from your worries because they have too much to handle. I am sure wanting you to settle down well will be their primary objective and if you don’t tell them about what is bothering you they will never know. They are adults and know how to take care of their needs. You do not have to think that what you tell them is an added burden on them.

Having said that, you need to believe in yourself and your worth. The other children in school will pick on someone they think will not stand up to them. You need to prove them wrong. You are worthy and capable no matter what anyone may say, and they need to know that. Just because they call you names and laugh at you does not mean that they have a right to do that, or that you deserve that. You should speak up and let the teacher know. And also let them know that you can stand up for yourself. If someone thinks you are not good enough, it does not mean that you become that. You have to believe that you are good enough and capable and worthy and that no one has the right to undermine your confidence. You may reach out to the free Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080-65333323 if you want to talk to someone about it. Please also read my article on this topic at http://personalorbitchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/see-lion-in-mirror.html .

Good luck

Dear Madam, 

I am 15 years old and in the ninth standard. My classmates make me sick. They treat me badly and that scares me. Every morning when I go to my classroom they wait for me by the only entrance. I can’t go to my teachers or my parents because they don’t believe me. How do I come out of this situation?

JM

Dear JM

What scares you? What is your worst fear? What are worried about that your classmates can do to you? You must try to articulate and define what you are scared about and when you do that most of the time you will realize that the fear may be an irrational fear. Once you realize that, it may not be that scary anymore. The reason your classmates have this power over you is because you of the fear which makes you feel vulnerable and out of control. Please remember that you are in control over what happens to you. If you think differently about things and situations, you can regain control and not feel so helpless. Please see a counsellor to help you with this, if you have one in your school. You could also call the helpline that I have talked about above. I would also ask you to read this article on my blog which will help you understand the situation you are in a little differently and believe in the power within you. http://personalorbitchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-balanced-are-your-see-saws.html

Good luck

Dear Madam,

A classmate I have known for many years blackmails me into spending more time on her than I want to. She gets upset if I don’t reply to her long e-mails. I don’t know how to extricate myself from this ‘friendship’ because I am fed up with her negative self-pity,

LR

Dear LR

You are feeling helpless because you have given up your control. You must regain your control in this situation which will not make you feel helpless in this situation. A person may expect whatever they do, but it is in your control how much you fulfil those expectations. You do not have to fulfil everyone’s expectations all of the time. This may get some people upset with you sometimes and that is okay. Everyone does not have to like you and be happy with you all the time. The same way you do not like some people all the time, and all people some of the time, it is okay for others not to like you as well. So if your friend is not okay with you spending the amount of time you feel appropriate she may be upset but if she values you she will understand. If she does not understand then that relationship may not be all that you think it is. In a friendship or any other relationship it is important for both people to be able to define and establish their boundaries as they find comfortable. So go ahead and take back the control and define your boundaries.

Good luck!