The Artsy Cure

Now that the meaning and implications of Helicopter parenting are established, it is important to get straight to business with regards to preventing it, for it is a silent killer of a child’s individual spirit. You might have come across a couple of parents or a single parent from a couple who may have exhibited this sort of a behaviour; but as observers there is not much that we can do about it (for obvious reasons). It is thus important to attempt psycho-educating helicopter parents and other parents for the good, because hovering around their child is not a mandatory condition for his/her growth and safety, and helicopter parents need to know that; after all, they are humans and they too have a life and they too will someday get exhausted. Here are some tips for transforming from helicopter parenting to healthy parenting: Your child is not a project - Many parents unknowingly objectify their children by thinking of them as “projects”. It doesn’t stop there; parents start to ov...

Ever been in a situation where  a friend or a close family member of yours opened up to you about how they have been feeling low for the past couple of months or something related to mental distress and you didn’t know the right words to say or make them feel better?   People usually in such situations make statements like “Don’t worry, it gets better with time” or “It’s nothing, it’s just in your mind.” While one might assume there is no harm in saying these statements, they don’t understand how difficult it must have been for their friend to open up about the issues they have been dealing with.  The recent advancements in the field of mental health have shed light on the importance of a concept known as ‘Psychological First-Aid’ (PFA). Although it's gaining more popularity in the modern days, it was first coined in the 1940s. P FA may be defined as a compassionate and supportive presence designed to mitigate acute distress and assess the need for continued mental health...

Mental health is an important condition of human existence, and before we can all sit down and highlight the numerous policies that the government or private institutions should adopt to generate greater investment and access, we first and foremost need to focus on what we as individuals are contributing to the understanding and awareness about these issues. We need to question whether we even know what is going on with our own state of well-being, as well as that of the other.     Imagine you switch on the television and the first thing you see is a red, hot, raging wall of fire consuming half of the wildlife to ashes. You transition to another channel, you see farmers on the roads, protesting against the atrocities of capitalism. You see antigovernmental marches; you see a world engulfed in chaos. You realize that while you are aware of certain events, you don ’ t know the background of others. You open your phone and search on Google. You gather the knowledge and feel i...