Why Gurgaon student threatening teacher and classmate with rape reveals a worrying trend
It is no longer enough to say we don’t know what is pushing our children.
In a Gurgaon school last week, a Class 7 student threatened on social media to “rape” his teacher and her daughter, who was his classmate. While the traumatised girl has not been able to rejoin school since, the boy has been suspended. A Class 8 student of the same school sent a mail to another teacher, asking her out for “candlelight date and sex”.
The reactions to the incidents have been predictable – of incredulity and horror. Yet, such cases are no longer aberrations. In the past few months alone, we have read enough reports of students committing chilling crimes. If so many children are being driven to violence and sexual crimes, our stunned disbelief is, perhaps, part of the problem.
It is no longer enough to say we don’t know what is pushing our children, and hence are helpless in the face of such situations. It is the job of schools and the parents to know, and it is high time efforts are made in this direction. The first and the most important step for this is to talk to children.
'Social malaise’
Just last month, a Class 12 student of Haryana’s Yamunanagar allegedly shot his principal dead because he had been expelled from school. A Class 6 student in Lucknow stabbed a Class 1 student because she wanted the school closed early.
In November last year, a four-year-old girl was raped by her classmate in a Delhi school. Two months before that, seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur was murdered in Ryan International School, Gurgaon, allegedly by a schoolmate who wanted an exam postponed.
After the recent Gurgaon school incident, The Times of India spoke to several school principals. The report says: “Most principals felt these were not just isolated cases in one school but part of a bigger social malaise and parents need to play a proactive role at home.”
So what is this social malaise?
Students are dealing with influences and pressures the previous generation could not imagine when they were of the same age, and uncomfortable parents, even when they realise their children are engaging with sex-related subjects, don’t talk about it, instead choosing to hope things will work out on their own.
Thanks to the internet, video games, music lyrics, TV series and what they overhear from adults, children are exposed to a cocktail of information, but we give them no tools to process and understand that information. Also, there is a vast gulf between the “good” children parents want them to be, and the “cool” people the internet and TV say they should be.
The youth are left troubled, alienated, pulled in different directions, which we often fail to even notice in time.
Parents and teachers need to accept that the world has changed, and the best thing they can give their children is the confidence to talk.
Parents need to differentiate between what they feel is against culture and sanskar, and what is actually dangerous to their kids. Teenage romances or parties with friends are not as bad as a child turning secretive, or seeking help from shady online sources. Totally blocking children’s access to gadgets or movies will not “shield” them, it will turn them resentful and rebellious.
Even if it makes them uncomfortable, parents need to confront their children about whatever is going on in their minds. Often, children hide things from their parents not for fear of punishment, but for fear of disappointment or disapproval. It is the parents’ responsibility to give their children a safe space where they can talk about everything.
Schools need to understand that “education” is as much about teaching children healthy gender interactions and learning to recognise and share their problems, as scoring good grades.
Psychologists say that most children, before they turn to crime, give out direct or indirect cries for help. The Lucknow girl who allegedly stabbed her junior had tried to slash her wrists earlier. The teen who killed Pradyuman Thakur was aggressive and a bully.
Why did no teacher or parent read the warning signs?
Often, parents, even with the best of intentions, are unequipped to deal with their children’s issues. This is where the role of qualified counsellors becomes critical. For a child, an understanding adult they can approach without fear of judgement is invaluable support. Every school needs to invest in counsellors who have been trained to be this support, and can look after the mental health of its students.
The incidents in Gurgaon, Lucknow and other places cannot be dismissed as exceptions, consigned to the box of bizarre, scary occurrences we remember occasionally with a shudder. The incidents are alarm bells that we need to heed, and accept the fact that children are in danger, from themselves and each other.
To save them, things cannot go on as they always have. Challenges facing today’s children have changed, and solutions need to change accordingly. The first step would be parents and schools shaking off their prudish hang-ups, and joining hands to provide an environment where children are encouraged to speak out, and seek help.