Children from alcoholic families are at risk of learning disability, school failure, emotional problems, and later, criminality and alcoholism. 40% of children of parents who suffer from depressive illness are at risk of suffering from major depression. 72.8% of children with war related experiences suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and other psychological disturbances. (archive.cmb.ac.lk)

Counselling children merely isn’t about giving advice and attempting to solve their problems. It’s a process when the child and the counsellor sets aside time to discuss his/her problems that may include stressful or emotional feelings of the child.

When our parents were in school, counselling was not seen as necessary, but nowadays with the teen issues getting worse by the day, kids feel like they could trust an outsider with their problems without getting judged by their parents, or elders. Going to my own school counsellor, I learnt a lot through her beliefs and advice, and I believe many school children will benefit if they could talk to a counsellor.

Since children tend to consider school as their second home, they look towards a teacher for help, but since the issue of privacy arises, they are reluctant to approach them. This is where the role of a counsellor comes in. A few example of situations in which talking to a school counsellor may help are given below:

When feeling sad, depressed, worried, shy, or just stressed out.

Dieting or overeating for too long or it becomes a problem (eating disorders).

Develop cuts, burns, or self-injuries.

Developing a disease or disability.

Dealing with family changes such as separation and divorce, moving to a different place, or family problems such as alcoholism or addiction.

Trying to cope with a traumatic event, death of a loved one, or worry over world events.

Any kind of substance abuse or addiction.

Wanting to sort out problems like managing anger or coping with peer pressure.

Wanting to build self-confidence or figure out ways to make more friends.

Teen pregnancy.

While some children cope with these events better than the others, it may be possible that counselling would help. Elders should look for unusual negative behaviour in a child and approach them before the situation gets worse:

Suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

Symptoms of depression, like being withdrawn, lack of appetite, sleeping very little or more than 9 hours per night, loss of interest in things they once enjoyed, neglecting personal hygiene, or crying for no reason or seeming sad for longer than two weeks.

Violent behaviour.

Suddenly gaining or losing a lot of weight.

Extreme, rapid changes in moods or personality.

Behaviour problems at school.

Using tobacco, drugs, or alcohol.

A sudden change in friends.

Noticeable changes in school performance.

Source: (www.familyfirstaid.org)

If you are counselling a child, listen actively; take the child’s concerns and emotions seriously, be open, authentic, and relaxed and talk about how common the issues they are experiencing because a child could easily be discouraged and led to a wrong path and possibly taking his/her life in the future.

After the child goes into therapy, he/she develops better relationship skills or coping skills, including ways to build confidence, express feelings, or manage anger. They also understand why their behaviours are negative, and how to cope better, recognize and change negative thoughts that may cause or trigger their behaviours, find better ways to solve problems, learn better social skills and creating a stable and mentally fit future generation.

Opinions from students 

Amna

By counselling kids, the kids may get help from the counsellor as how to solve their problems in life. It also minimizes the rate of kids who enter depression and other disorders.

Hafeeza

You definitely should have counselling for school kids because I think it will help the child’s mental state, and make their life easier and stress-free. Schools should also organize programs for kids on how to deal with the issues teens face these days, so that they would know how to face them in the future.

Rochelle

It is important for a counsellor to be in schools because I believe that teenagers go through a hard time ‘being teens’ and they may need a helping hand as well as guidance in certain aspects of life and a counsellor may help them through it.

By Mariam Sadique