Whats the Hurry?: Let Children be Children

In India, the socio-economic system generally ignores mental health of children. Neither parents, nor the teachers, nor the government acknowledge that every child, irrespective of caste, colour, class or creed is entitled to equity, justice, opportunity and affection. When the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore began its first Community Mental Health Movement, author Malavika Kapur was a part of it, approaching the schools with the aim of sensitising teachers to mental health of children. In Ayurveda, the total support for the woman and child before and after birth is an extraordinarily well-thought out social practice. The samskaras provide for stage-wise development of the child. Indias tradition say, 7-11 is the phase to begin scholastic activities. In multilingual India, only English is the upwardly mobile language. Strangely, India is adopting a system that is neither Indian nor Western where her 135 million children are at risk. Malavika and her colleagues found that teachers were neither interested, nor motivated to help children by promoting their psychosocial development. Their sole interest was in promoting academic performance. After assessment and assistance programmes with 10,000 urban school children, 1500 rural children and about 2000 tribal children, the NIMHANS teams came up with a set of conclusions. Children in India, even from well-to-do families, are surrounded by adverse conditions in homes as well as schools. Home, school, society, knowingly or unknowingly, compromise a childs mental health and growth. India has forgotten the lessons from her scriptures and legends. That children come with three kinds of temperaments. That reading and writing before the prescribed age (about 6 years) for Vidya arambh is WRONG. There is a right time for everything. That a childs language skills develop best from three years on and Indians have a natural gift which is ignored. There is almost no PLAY, only learning by rote and too much of emphasis on technology, television and mobile phones. Keeping all these issues in mind, this book asks WHATS THE HURRY. It tells parents and teachers: Give The Child Time to Grow the Play-Way. LET CHILDREN BE CHILDREN.