A city school has started a peer mentor group in the middle and senior classes to help identify students who require emotional support.
More often than not, children share problems with friends instead of adults.
The peer mentor group takes the problems to the teachers at Delhi Public School Megacity.
The school said the initiative was there before the pandemic, too, but the problems have become more after the last two years. Some students are identifying problems that go unnoticed by teachers.
A Class IX student was depressed and had distanced herself from her peers.
A member of the student mentor group found out that she felt overburdened “being compared to an elder brother who was excellent in studies”.
A Class XI student was showing disciplinary problems in class and meetings with parents and teachers did not yield results.
The mentor group informed teachers that the boy had to go to a shop, work with his father in the morning and again after school.
He was “frustrated” and it was getting manifested in school.
Once the problem was identified, he received emotional support and is now a “discipline-in-charge” at the school.
“Children need help but they do not always open up. The need for support has increased since the pandemic because they could not share their problems with friends. Small differences with parents became a big thing. In some cases, with students’ intervention, we are able to identify problems,” said principal Indrani Sanyal.
“When teachers cannot resolve a problem, we send the child to the counsellor and at that level, parents are also involved,” she said.
The members of the group are not students who are academically brilliant but those who are sensitive and patient.
“We select students who are good listeners and can empathise with other students,” said Sanyal.
The mentors keep their eyes and ears open for behavioural problems like if a child is dissociating themselves from their peers or is not showing any interest in school activities.
In the last two years, students have lost family members, including grandparents.
Some children perhaps no longer have family members that they could earlier open up to, said a student.
“Students share problems related to academics or co-curricular activities with parents and teachers. But at times, there are differences with parents. We can relate to this,” said Anshika Debroy, a Class XII student.
