Psychological Advice – April 2021

Here’s Psychological Advice – April 2021, from Psychologist Ayushi Shah for situations of couple of our readers, which they have been facing:

Q. I live in a lower middle class locality. The boys override their parents because they are treated as special. Once I heard a woman fighting with her son and saying, “Tu mujhe ch***ya bana raha hai?” Another time, I heard a boy yell at his friend, “Ek chanta maroon?” Obviously, he has picked it up from what is happening at home. Is this the right attitude of the parents toward their children? If no, where are they going wrong? How can this be rectified? I am worried because when my children grow older, they might pick up these things. – Veena.

A. Hey Veena, I hope you are doing well. I went through your problem and I clearly understand your concern. Because in children we have generally seen that whatever they see, hear, they generally try to emulate and try to use it in their daily life. Ma’am, but as far as your problem is concerned, you are troubled about something, which is beyond your control, viz. your surroundings.

See, you cannot control what other people are doing or how other people are behaving with their parents or children. Neither can you hide such things from your children because tomorrow they are going to see the outer world where they are bound to face all sorts of problems and issues like these.

Only one thing within your reach, that is what you will tell your children about this situation. According to me, if your children are really small or in their teens; you should make them understand at the very beginning, what type of behavior is right, appropriate and rational and what kind of behavior you both as parents will be tolerating and what would be punishable. If at the very start, if you draw your boundaries then they will definitely not try to cross it because they will be aware of the consequences they will be facing if they do.

Q. My relationship with my brother has deteriorated from the time he married, due to misunderstandings. After my marriage, I lost touch with him. Now, I want to reestablish our connection. How do I approach him? – Saraswati.

Hey Saraswati, I hope you are doing well. I understand what kind of relationship stress you are going through. See, trying to understand marriage is a very big change for any individual may it be you or your brother. Because a totally new person enters your life and tries to balance that relationship, your other old relationships are about to be affected. So, I always tell my clients in order to start any relationship, mend it or break it the only way is communication.

If you think that there were misunderstandings between both of you, I suppose you should reach out to him and if your efforts will be really genuine then as your brother he will also try to understand and give you both a second chance. And maybe it won’t be easy the first time he may not even respond as expected, you need to have patience and need to know what is going on in his mind and what he expects from you. But for all this to happen, you need to start to talk. I hope this answers your question.