Suicide: Principal doubt at parents’ door

For his survey Kadam spoke to students with diverse backgrounds, ranging from science toppers, national level sportspersons to postgraduate engineering and management students. Amongst his list of question was one about the negative as well as the positive personality traits that candidates felt their parents possessed.

“After analysing the students’ responses I feel that good parenting is the key factor that separates high achievers who succumb to the pressure and those who go on to flourish,” said Kadam adding that the age of 19 or 20 was the most crucial and at that time sometimes the flimsiest experience of failure can tip the scale of a sensitive person,” said Principal Kadam.

The glaring instances wherein two engineering students recently committed suicide in separate cases was what really stirred Kadam to make a beginning in curbing this social and urban menace. “First a VJTI boy committed suicide in Pune as he had failed in one exam; then another student from a Bandra engineering college ended his life because he was caught copying; and now an MBBS student consumed poison in the ladies hostel at D Y Patil Medical college in Navi Mumbai. I’m sure parents can contribute a lot to stop this,” commented Kadam.

In the last fortnight itself five cases of student suicides were reported in the city and in Navi Mumbai 54 general cases of suicides have been registered this year.

Kadam gathered that no matter how intelligent a student may be, if he/she has the misfortune of being brought up by overindulgent parents or by those who couldn’t care less, then the candidate may become highly sensitive to his environment and may contemplate suicide.

Some of the telling responses about the negative qualities in their parents were as follows: oversensitivity, orthodox nature, excessive strictness, neglect, selfishness and dishonesty at work (“and they want their kids to be good citizens,” wrote one student), socially bad habits like chewing paan, talking loudly without listening to others, backbiting and argumentative nature.“All these tendencies sound simplistic but they point to complicated qualifications that a good parent must have. Parents should be mature, firm, committed, honest, modern, and forward within limitations,” commented Kadam, adding that parents should not start neglecting their wards once they take admission in engineering or medicine as that is the age when the students are the most vulnerable owing to the newly acquired freedom.

“From my study I found that the first major shock in the lives of students is getting an ATKT at first year engineering or medical course. These students said that they had never ever failed in school or college before, so such a setback in professional courses is too much to digest,” noticed Kadam and added that is one of the main reasons why some boys and girls end their lives as they do not find that vital support from their parents at this critical juncture.Kadam concluded that he plans to further this study in this direction as suicides amongst the young and the restless are gaining serious proportions.

In fact other institution heads also seem to be appreciating such an idea. Principal M G Shirhatti of Lala Lajpatrai College at Haji Ali stated: “We should conduct such psychological surveys in every college in order to get to know our students better and prevent unfortunate incidents.”