The Hindu Business Line : In the teens

A 15-year-old girl is alone at home and a stranger comes and says he is a distant relative. Should she open the door? Another girl's relative makes her uncomfortable with his behaviour. Should she discuss this with her parents?

During her home tuition sessions, a 14-year-old girl is left alone in a room with a young male teacher. In the recent past she has been uncomfortable with his behaviour. What should her approach be? A boy is showing undue interest towards Neha, 15. She likes him as a friend, but doesn't want their friendship to go any further. How should she handle the situation?

A 16-year-old boy is travelling by bus; a man sitting next to him touches him inappropriately. How should he react?

As these and many other casebook scenarios confronting adolescents in everyday life came under scrutiny at a workshop in Delhi, the audience is collectively eager for answers. What made this workshop unique was that the participants were not youth in the 11-19 age group, but paediatricians looking for a few pointers on how to counsel adolescents.

As a practising paediatrician at the Northern Railway Hospital in central Delhi, Dr D.P. Pandey deals with adolescents. "But there are certain psycho-social issues of adolescence which we do not come across all the time, especially issues related to sexuality. So we were not aware of this problem," he says.

The Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP), which organised this workshop, also released a training manual, Module for Adolescent Care, to assist doctors in counselling teenagers. The manual discusses the characteristics of adolescence, the physical changes that boys and girls experience, and teen issues such as emotional changes, scholastic backwardness and body image concepts. Sexuality issues are handled more as "family-life education" than sex education.

Content-wise, the module subscribes to the traditional moral values applicable to a majority of teenagers and their parents in India. However, it allows child specialists to interact with adolescents on issues like HIV/AIDS and high-risk behaviour within the concept of family-life education, says Dr Harish Pemde, Secretary of IAP's Delhi Branch and the IAP Adolescent Chapter in Delhi.

Over the past four years, more than 1,000 doctors across the country have been trained by the IAP to incorporate the module in their practice. The IAP proposes to conduct health check-ups in schools, drawing heavily from the real-life examples and queries of adolescents documented in the module.

"We have already started such partnerships with both government and private schools in Delhi. We are also enlisting the help of local NGOs to reach a larger number of adolescents living in slum and rural areas," says Dr Pemde.

The academy's programme to sensitise paediatricians towards the special needs of adolescents is a comparatively new one. "We started our training programmes for doctors four years ago. We have 15,000 members all over the country, and 800 are members of the Adolescent Chapter and not many are trained in adolescent health," says Dr Pemde.

The manual draws from feedback received from participants at IAP training programmes requesting more information to help them address adolescent issues and offer counselling both in schools and hospitals.

Says Dr Pandey, "Both parents and school authorities have shied away from talking about sexuality issues. But this book gives a new dimension to the issue by incorporating sexuality as an integral part of physical and emotional development." He hails the manual as an invaluable guide to child specialists in their dealings with teenagers.

Prof Sangita Yadav, Department of Paediatrics in Delhi's Maulana Azad Medical College, agrees. Life skill management for adolescents is a very urgent need today, and paediatricians have a great role to play by learning and teaching this course, she says.

She adds that the training helps paediatricians respond to various situations and needs related to adolescents such as relationships, HIV/AIDS and STD prevention, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and counselling and suicide prevention.

Life skills management also includes environment education, consumer education and peace education. All these are aimed at empowering people to take positive action to protect themselves and to promote healthy social relationships.

Another important issue is the role of parents in dealing with adolescents. Traditionally, Indian society has believed that the wisdom of parents is enough for the raising and development of teenagers. "But now people are realising that adolescents need special help in these changing times," says Dr T.S. Jain of Employees' State Insurance hospital in Okhla, west Delhi.

Dr Jain recalls a case in which a woman sought his help regarding her adolescent son; she suspected he had taken to drugs. "She asked me to talk to him about it as she felt she couldn't handle the situation herself," he explains.

In this context, the manual becomes all the more relevant because it also provides guidelines to parents on the different challenges facing teenagers and how these can be approached and managed. Adolescents, too, could benefit from reading the manual.

Says IAP National President, Dr M.K.C. Nair, author of the manual, "This training manual is meant for the average Indian child and parent with an Indian mind. I've tried to adhere to the traditional moral values of the large majority of teenagers and their parents.."

Women's Feature Service

Picture by A. Roy Chowdhury

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