CHENNAI: Constantly shifting a child from one school to the other can cause severe behavioural problems, according to research by experts in child psychology. Elucidating on why a shift in environment affects this generation of children, B Prative Chend, CEO of Centre for Applied Research and Education (CARE), said that it might take 1-2 years for a child to develop a bond or rapport with its teacher. This in turn makes the child more receptive to learning.Research has indicated that changing schools can be counter-productive for children in the 5-10 years age group, and may well affect the child’s learning ability. Coping with the new environment can cause severe behavioural issues that can only be solved by special care, he added. Besides changing the schools, the advances in technology, the Indian ranking system and a deviation from the traditional joint family system are also chief causatives. These revelations were brought out at an international conference on behavioural sciences on the theme ‘Managing Behavioural Problems in Children and Adolescents’ hosted by CARE and Help child charitable trust at Karnataka Sangha on Friday. The conference was to spread this awareness among psychologists, paediatricians, family physicians, physiotherapists, social workers and health professionals who are dealing with children and adolescents.“Absence of proper care from parents pulls children and adolescents to alcohol, drugs and even computer games addictions. Because of this, youngsters overdose on portable games, mobile phones and social networking sites,” said Dr Virudhagirinathan, organiser of the conference. Underlining the increase in communication options among children with the advent of facebook, twitter and other social networking sites, AK Bansal, executive director of IOB, stressed that timely guidance from parents would give kids the necessary confidence to take up challenges and beat behavioural problems.Presiding over the inauguration of the conference, Pichai, Joint Director of Matriculation Schools, said that only a few teachers still use corporal punishment with disobedient children. He said that this kind of approach should be avoided in all schools. He further added, “Learning difficulty in many students is a serious concern, which has to be dealt with special care. To create awareness on this issue among teachers and parents, the matriculation schools directorate has convened awareness programmes throughout all districts in TN.”Various behavioural science experts delivered lectures following which, principals of many schools were felicitated for their work with differently-abled children with learning disorders like dyslexia, and also attention deficit disorder.
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