Jennifer and Allwyn D'souza
BORIVLI, FEBRUARY 04, 2012: The family cell of St. John Bosco's Parish conducted their first program an interactive session called "Mind the Gap…..The Generation Gap." The session was conducted by Dr. Fabian Almeida, a psychiatrist with working experience in the UK, along with his team mates from Wellspring Clinic, Kalyan. The participants included parents along with their teenage children. Fr. Ronnie, the Parish Priest introduced Dr. Almeida to the hundred and fifty parishioners present for the session.
Dr. Almeida brought out important issues in a parent- child relationship through his effective power point presentation. He spoke extensively on issues such as generation differences which evolve with regards to attitudes, beliefs, values and choices. He also enlisted various situations where one experiences problems of generation gap. He divided the audience into groups of five and each group was asked to discuss five issues of parents with regards to their teenage children and enact the same through a role play. Each group spontaneously and effectively presented their views and solutions through the role play.
He also stressed on the facts that lead to differences between generations; lack of communication, dominating attitude, peer pressure, hormonal imbalance, etc. He urged parents to respect each others' opinions and to talk about issues instead of persons involved.
The next topic included Family discipline to be fostered in every family. Values of equality, family rules, role modelling, spending quality time were some of the points discussed during this session.
Later, factors leading to mental health problems/mental imbalance were discussed. Academic problems, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, behavioral patterns, addictions, depression, schizophrenia are all causes of mental imbalance.
All those present, young and old, felt enriched with all the suggestions given by Dr. Almeida and each person left with a renewed family bonding. The insight gained through this session hopefully will lead families to a better understanding of each others' opinions. It is truly said: A healthy mind will breed a healthy body which will in turn breed healthy families.
The family cell thanks Fr. Ronnie for arranging this session with Dr. Fabian and his team, thus enabling our parents to deal in the right spirit with their children.