Tamil Nadu

Students to be trained in tackling problems of adolescent stage

TIRUCHI: Adolescent Education Programme, which is slated to get into the State Board syllabi of class IX and XI shortly, would teach adolescents to cope up with health changes, body image problems, peer-group influences and academic pressures, Consultant Paediatrician and Adolescent Physician of Child and Adolescent Clinic S. Yamuna said.

The lessons would be handled by teachers who would be trained by master trainers, she said addressing presspersons on Sunday. The adolescent education programme would be imparted as part of the life-skills training.

Problems of adolescence begin at an early age and parents have a greater responsibility in identifying them and in helping their children handle it with discretion. Academic and parental pressures have pushed students to extreme depression, if the increasing number of suicides were any pointer. ‘Copy-cat suicides,’ were also on the rise.

Right kind of advocacy must be given at all levels and especially at rural areas where the awareness level was low. Academics, she said, must be made pleasurable by steering clear of mark-based pressure. Urging parents to treat their adolescent children as infants, Dr. Yamuna said they must learn to respect their children’s desire for privacy and independence. Appreciation and encouragement from parents would go a long way in boosting their self-confidence level and keeping them away from addictive drugs.

On health front, girls and boys survive on fast foods that push them into threshold of obesity. Body-image problems crop up with obesity, leading to emotional stress. Early marriage in girls, which was almost 50 per cent of the total population, has led to complications in pregnancy and maternal mortality.

Over 500 paediatricians have been trained as adolescent physicians and the need was growing. “Doctors must address adolescents’ psychological problems, along with health issues, when they come for consultation,” she said.

As a part of Child Health and Adolescent Week, Dr. Yamuna delivered a series of lectures on ‘Why adolescent need special health care?’ and ‘nutritional needs of an examination going adolescents’ for the members of Indian Academy of Paediatrics, and ‘how to face examination with smile’ for students of Seva Sangam Girls Higher Secondary School.

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