BANGALORE: Teenagers often need help to balance their life, because somewhere between being a child and trying to cope up with the demands of turning into an adult, they often lose focus and direction.The Family Planning Association (FPA) of India, Bangalore branch on Tuesday organised a session for the teachers of BBMP and government schools from Malleswaram, Srirampuram, Kodigehalli, Hebbal and Gangenahalli to educate them on teenage problems, so that they can handle situations and understand students better.Under the banner of Tarunya, a wing of FPA India for adolescent health care, president, K S Anantha Subba Rao, secretary Madhura Ashok Kumar, treasurer Manjula Jagadeesh and Assistant Education Officer of the BBMP Ekanth Appa, discussed topics of physical and emotional development of boys and girls, their hygiene, adjustment problems, emotional development, talent building, peer pressure, sex education and the likes. “The participants are all from corporation and government schools.The students who study in these schools come from lower middle class and other marginalised income societies.The parents are themselves unaware of the many problems that their teenage children face. Further they are not competent to explain why some biological changes take place. There are children who feel shy or do not openly talk about the changes in their body and often feel dejected as they feel something is wrong with them. For instance girls feel that growing of breasts is not normal. Similarly, boys are uncomfortable about the penis size and issues of night fall. We discuss and educate them on these topics since their parents do not, which leads to further emotional and mental trauma,” said, Anantha Rao.For the discussion altogether eight schools and one college had participated.The teachers were given 22 charts each, as a teaching aid, that had diagrams of different topics related to teenage development.“The teachers have a lot of responsibility towards the children. We have suggested them to tackle one topic at a time, explaining one chart at a time in an informal and friendly manner. Further we have proposed to the BBMP that adolescent education be made compulsory in all schools. For instance, a tenth and a twelfth standard student needs to be taken care of because it is the age when they are getting exposed to the wider aspects of life. We need to give them an ambition and help them set a goal to come out of these social stigmas and grow beyond their status,” added Anantha Rao.The FPA India, offers counselling and clinical services to adolescents and youths from all sections of the society.They have particularly taken the initiative of the overall development of the children from the participating BBMP and corporation schools.Emotional problems, adolescent development and intervention, menstrual problems, sex and reproductive health, drug and sexual abuse, STI diagnosis and treatment, contraception, safe abortion and nutrition are some of the services that they offer.
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