With rising mental health issues among GenZs, I wish parents would try to understand our life more than debate about our lifestyles.

The National Crime Records Bureau report said that India recorded the highest number of student suicides in 2022. There was a 4.5% increase in teen deaths by suicide. The data also pointed out that 864 students out of 10,732 died by suicide due to failure in examination.

Why am I talking about these numbers and this topic? It is because as a GenZ, I feel it is high time that Indian parents wake up and consider various aspects of their teens life.

I think mental health is one of the biggest concerns that we as a country are dealing with today, especially the Gen-Zs. The easily debatable lifestyle, pressure to overachieve, being a teen under societal pressures and constant scrutiny on social media is a lot that we deal with every single day.

Therefore, we spoke to Kavita Yadav, Counselling Psychologist and Parenting Coach. She is the Founder and Director of JiNa.LivingPositively (www.jina.co.in)

Here are some of the prominent reasons behind rising mental health issues among kids, and why I think parents need to understand them.

In October, we saw the Delhi University colleges declaring a 100% cut-off in 11 subjects. By definition, cut-off means to break the flow at a certain point. How can you create a cut-off at 100%? It is literally the full stop at the end of the line.

While the expectation coming from parents is well-intended, It does more harm than good. Can you imagine yourself constantly focusing on scoring 100% to get into a decent college? It is a lot of pressure to put on a student who is also dealing with changes during adolescence.

Kota topped the list of cities with 14 deaths by suicide. In December, three students in Kota died by suicide within 12 hours. One of them was preparing for JEE Main, and the other two were NEET aspirants.

Yadav says that counselling should start before you are thinking of sending your kid away in such a competitive environment. It should not come after students have gone into a shell after dealing with several issues simultaneously.

She added, Such societal and parental pressure simply takes away the joy of being a parent and your relationship with your child, and slowly anxiety starts creeping in making the teen years harder for your children.

With the advent of social media, only Gen-Zs understand the pressure of getting scrutinised 24*7. Everything is documented, and there is also peer pressure to post something good and funny now and then.

And do not get me started on trolls. Faceless people attack anyone and everyone. There is no dearth to the lowest level they can stoop to. Some teens can also be vicious bullies at this stage and do not leave a chance to bring down a person.

We understand that there can be a stark difference between reels and real life, yet we sometimes look for validation on social media. Even if you do not understand why our lives revolve around Instagram, Snapchat or any such platform, you should at least acknowledge the fact that it is important to us and affects us.

Whether it is ordering food, partying or prioritising comfort over anything, parents these days are quick to judge how GenZs lead their life. It is not our fault that we were born at a time when mobile phones and the internet were already there in the world.

It is not our fault that we had access to smartphones, social media and YouTube at such an early stage then your generation. If all this helps us lead a more easy life, then so be it. Who says that life has to be filled with hardships only? Why does an easygoing attitude have to be a bad thing?

Our expert says that teens are exposed to too much too soon in this fast-paced, ever-evolving technology-driven world. We as parents have to shoulder this responsibility of keeping them safe not only physically but also emotionally. The best gift from you to your children will be anxiety-free parenting, if not fully but keeping it to the bare minimum level.

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Yadav says that teenage is the stage of Identity vs. Role-Confusion, as per psychologist Erik Erikson. When all that is most discussed is their easy lifestyle, their carefree attitude, screen time and social media usage.

It starts impacting the development of their brain as it is a work in progress. Is it really easy for these teens? Does it really seem like something that a walk in the park can resolve? This is a pertinent point to ponder.

In June, a report by the World Health Organisation pointed out that one in every three Indians suffered from depression. In 2021, the organisation pointed out that one in six teenagers between 10 and 19 suffered from depression. It also recorded one suicide attempt every three seconds and a youth dying by suicide every 40 seconds.

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Psychologist Yadav says that Woke is a simple word which means being socially aware and socially conscious of important facts and issues. It is a new fancy term to use in parenting, she adds.

However, she added that as parents let us strive to be more sensitive, conscious and mindful of not shoving information into the world of children, which is not required at a particular age.

Calling yourself a woke parent does not mean you tumble a huge bin of information on your kids heads without considering their capacity to take it all in. Kids need to learn a few things by making mistakes and let us do them. We know that you always want everything to be good for us, but even so we would not make a wrong decision, not consciously at least.

The best way would be to have a discussion rather than saying that was how you used to do it. This is our time and not yours. Over the past decades, things have changed a lot.

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Why As A Gen-Z I Want You To Talk About Mental Health With Your Kids - HerZindagi