An educative lecture on adolescent reproductive and sexual health was organised at Ramgarhia Senior Secondary School for students of Classes 11 and 12 on Thursday.
Addressing the students, Dr Rajinder Gulati, paediatrician from civil hospital, Raikot, apprised the students of life skills necessary for adolescents to handle certain issues effectively and efficiently.
He said life skills provided the foresight to envisage and deal with potentially harmful situations and take precautionary measures well in advance.
The doctor said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had identified 10 skills as vital for everyday life, namely self awareness, empathy, coping with emotions, coping with stress, interpersonal relationship, decision making, problem solving, communication, creative thinking and critical thinking.
Dr Gulati added that adolescence was the period of emotional turbulence, which was actually brought about by hormonal changes taking place in the body. “Anger is an emotion that affects not only persons associated with the cause, but also the person who is angry,” he said.
In adolescents, this emotion is often very strongly expressed, he said, adding that the issue may end in damaged or broken relationships.
“Therefore, anger management and control techniques are of immense help to them in their interpersonal relations. Anger can be controlled and managed with practice. The first thing one can do is to identify a person as a role model who is known to have the ability to control anger. One should then learn to adapt the behaviour trends and mannerisms exhibited by this role model while in anger,” the doctor said.
{{/usCountry}}“Therefore, anger management and control techniques are of immense help to them in their interpersonal relations. Anger can be controlled and managed with practice. The first thing one can do is to identify a person as a role model who is known to have the ability to control anger. One should then learn to adapt the behaviour trends and mannerisms exhibited by this role model while in anger,” the doctor said.
{{/usCountry}}Apart from the general skills required to meet familiar crisis, Dr Gulati also imparted specific skills to adolescents who are especially vulnerable in certain situations, which may affect their physical and mental well-being and disrupt their normal routine, like skill to keep away from substance abuse, misunderstanding sex, gender issues, negative pressure, assertiveness and maintaining value.
He added that the concept of 'value' was getting diluted, a fact which had a negative impact on adolescents who were prone to all kinds of digressions, experiments and experiences.
Thanking the speaker, school vice-principal Barinder Singh said the knowledge provided to adolescents would go a long way in helping youngsters imbibe basic values like honesty, integrity, love, faith, loyalty, discipline, respect and fairness.