The increasing demands on young people to achieve academically create unacceptable levels of stress. One estimate I have seen suggests that anything up to 30 per cent of children are suffering inner conflicts that need professional intervention. Yet a recent article in this paper by guidance counsellor Gerry Flynn showed that well over half the second-level schools in the State are deprived of the services of a full time guidance counsellor.
I have a great deal of sympathy for students who feel under pressure to get the points to get into college. The majority cope well with the stress of examinations. In addition to examination pressures a significant number of teenagers are also trying to deal with incredibly stressful personal situations like family break down, parental separation and unwanted teenage pregnancy. There is very little psychological help available for students trying to cope with such traumas. Stressed out teenagers often behave very badly in class. Many teachers recognise that there is little point sending for the parents when they have a complaint about unacceptable behaviour. When pupils are forever in trouble both in and out of class there is usually a problem in the family.
Psychologist Tony Humphreys says: "Emotional and behavioural problems among children arise primarily from what happens in the family". When parents are not getting on and there is conflict in the home children are adversely affected. Marital conflict is a major source of stress for children as well as for the parents.
Such problems are to be found in every level of society and almost every school has a small number of pupils with a parent who has a chronic problem with alcoholism, substance abuse, physical violence, long-term depression or psychosomatic illness. I also include sexual abuse because the sexual abuse of children is a horrible reality and young people find it incredibly difficult to reveal.
In many instances the child has been threatened that something awful will happen if he or she reveals the terrible secret. Children think very literally so if they are told "if you tell it will kill your mother" the younger child will take this as a statement of fact and believe that if she tells it will literally cause her mother's death. Disclosure is difficult at any age. Adolescents will sometimes blurt it out in the middle of a row because they want the abuse to stop.
Media reports have destroyed the myth of the dirty old man in a raincoat hiding in the bushes waiting to interfere with children. In one study of male offenders D. Robinson discovered that 41 per cent of offenders were biological fathers, 24 per cent step-fathers and 27 per cent other family relations. Dysfunctional patterns of relating are passed down within families from generation to generation. A significant number of students in both primary and postprimary schools are emotionally damaged by difficult family situations and need psychological intervention. In a tiny number of cases the school principal is able to arrange for a student to have a few meetings with a professional counsellor.
The school psychological services are totally inadequate to cater for the needs of students who come from families with chronic problems. There is a widespread assumption that youngsters who have problems at home are more likely to leave school early without the basic qualification that will equip them for work. This is not always the case. A small number manage to work hard at school, do remarkably well academically and end up highly successful in the work situation. Sadly their personal lives do not mirror that success.
Adults do not naturally have healthy relationship skills. What skills they have are learned, mainly in the family. Students who are aggressive and hostile grow up to be adults who treat people badly. They bring those same traits into their family relationships. A few hours a year devoted to relationships and sexuality education is insufficient to break the self-perpetuating cycle of dysfunctional relationships that are repeated within families.
There is clearly an urgent need for an extensive psychological counselling service in schools. We all recognise that there are limited Government resources to spend on education. Given the choice, which do you think people would choose - to spend money on services that have the potential to build self-esteem and teach healthy relationship skills, or on computers and science equipment? The hard question we need to answer honestly is, of what use is academic success and a well-paying job if a person is unable to sustain loving relationships?
