Yuvraj, 15, would stand frozen in a corner, watching his mother cry when his father would subject her to mindless physical violence and verbal abuse. It started when he was five; too young to make any sense of the violence. It went on for 10 years. As a teen, he was too scared to interfere. This bottling up of emotions for years had a deep impact on his mental and emotional health.
“Even small things trigger him now and he ends up lashing out at his classmates. His grades have suffered. He is anxious all the time and struggles to trust people,” says Juhi, his mother. But there is something else that has changed in his behaviour that is concerning her. “He is detached around girls his age. He does not believe in love or relationships anymore. Sometimes, I see in him the same coldness that I saw in his father and that terrifies me,” she says.
Juhi is trying to do everything she can to show him that there are healthier ways to deal with pain and anger, but the violence he witnessed at home while growing up has left deep scars. “Watching your child become a reflection of the very trauma you tried to protect him from is the most helpless feeling in the world,” she says. Often, children who witness violence at home struggle to express their emotions as they grow up.
Teenagers internalising fear, anger, dejection and helplessness for years often end up badly. This has been captured in a heard-hitting manner in the recent Netflix series Adolescence. It deals with issues faced by teenagers and also delves deep into the struggles of parents. It has managed to start conversations around many contentious issues that impact adolescents and more and more people are now willing to share their stories.
Among them is Anita. She has two daughters—Ananya and Shanaya. The two did not have a happy childhood. As a child, Ananya saw her mother cry multiple times. Her father would beat her up and would control everything—from what she wore, what she ate and who she would talk to. As a child, she failed to understand why her mother was putting up with so much and gathered the courage to ask her once. This encouraged Anita to leave her husband. Her father is now absent from their lives, but that absence strangely hurts too.
“Ananya struggles with abandonment issues. I see her craving validation because somewhere, deep inside, she is still that little girl who is searching for a safe, whole home,” says Anita. She adds: “She knows we made the right choice. She is undergoing therapy now but the scars of that violence, the ache of not having a father around, they don’t just vanish. They shape you. And even when you accept the reality, a part of you still longs for a family where both parents are present—and kind.”
Farah Abbasi, a child psychologist at the Society for Applied Studies, talks about how the mental health of teenagers is interlinked with parental behaviour. “Parents are often not careful around children. Not just their actions, their words matter as well. These small things shape up the way children grow up and perceive the world around them,” she says. She explains that teenagers who witness violence at home end up dealing with mental health issues such as anxiety disorders, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
She shares how parents, in a bid to discipline children, often resort to verbal aggression, physical abuse or emotional neglect; factors that lead to lasting psychological wounds that don’t heal for years. “Parents need to be vigilant, especially when children are over-exposed to social media content. Parents often don’t have a system to track what their children are consuming on the Internet or whom they are interacting with,” she says.
Things are especially difficult for children who are not getting enough love and respect at home. This is when they look at external sources, like social media, for validation or, in worse case scenarios, end up becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. These children also suffer at school, she says.
Talking about gender differences, she says boys tend to be more aggressive than girls. Sharing examples from her counselling session, she says she was once talking to a young boy who had witnessed domestic violence at home while growing up. He was of the view that it is okay to hit women and that they are inferior to men. On the other hand, a girl, who was in a similar situation, was more open to accept help.
She also feels that there needs to be an ecosystem to address issues faced by teenagers. There is an urgent need to regulate the kind of content teenagers are consuming and the government should enhance digital literacy to shield youngsters from fake news and harmful content. Parents will have to find ways to be extra vigilant when it comes to the viewing patterns of their children. “Having open conversations and limiting screen time would help. Overexposure to social media content and the way teenagers are seeking validation from the virtual world are harming their personalities. Their behaviour is becoming more and more aggressive, and they are more prone to anxiety, depression and loneliness now,” she says.
Apart from domestic abuse, several other factors contribute to teenagers’ mental health and overall well-being. They typically feel more vulnerable and absent if they live with a single parent. Other factors such as divorce, placing a child in a shelter, or just one person controlling the home can all be contributing factors to their personality and behaviour.
According to the World Health Organisation, domestic violence (physical, emotional or sexual) is among the major causes of death in adolescents and young people worldwide.
While efforts are being made to address the issue, more needs to be done. In India, cinema has tried to deal with this aspect and several films have tried to address issues related to mental health and parenting.
“Tumhare bachpan ki best memory kya hai? asks Jehangir Khan (Shahrukh Khan) to Kiara (Alia Bhatt) in Dear Zindagi while he was talking about how parents must have pleasant memories for children. As the film progresses, we see Kaira talk about her childhood trauma and how her parents left her at her mother라이브 바카라 maternal place, making her feel abandoned. The childhood trauma is affecting her relationships—friendships and relationships—in adulthood. The film shows how childhood experiences, positive or negative, shape and influence personality, behaviour and emotions of others. The film also raised an important issue regarding parenting that is hardly discussed in mainstream Bollywood films.
Udaan is another film that talks about teenage issues and how the presence of an authoritarian and abusive father ruins the mental and physical health of a teenage child. The father has high demands but shows very little affection. He keeps telling his child he is not man enough, reinforcing toxic masculinity. He keeps ridiculing his son for him wanting to be a writer. This impacts son, Rohan라이브 바카라, confidence and mental health.
