Page 328 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Guidance and Counseling

Notes 32.1.2 Counseling with Families Concerning Children

The family is the primary group of society. Its characteristic feature is the affective bonds among the
members in the family and a concern for each other. Counseling cannot afford to ignore such an
important aspect of human life. Family relations are broadly of two types–the parent-child relations
and the husband-wife relations. When the members of the family are disunited, tension, distress
and misery are the natural outcomes. The family counselor should help find ways and means of
reducing, if not eliminating, the strife, mutual distrust and ill-will among the members of the family.
Most problems in family relations have been identified to result from misunderstandings which is
the layman’s term for lack of communication. The parent-child relationship comes under stresses
and strains for very simple reasons. Growth is a natural process and a normal phenomenon. Children
grow and consequently become progressively less dependent on their parents. Each family has its
own ethics and provides to its members a philosophy of life which is communicated through non-
verbal and informal means. Many a time parents forget that children cannot be judged from their
own standards of morality or decency or culture. Quite often parents try to compensate for their
failures by wanting their children to achieve what they could not. They tend to become unrealistic
in their demands and this causes frustration on both sides.
Sometimes parents take decisions on behalf of, or for their children. These may not be to the satisfaction
of the children themselves and causes tension between the parents and children. There could be
fundamental differences in important issues such as values and relatively unimportant ones such as
fashions. The generation gap leads to an identity crisis and sometimes to alienation which adversely
affects family health. There is yet another area of family relations which concerns sibling relations.
Most common conditions are sibling rivalry and jealousy and unfounded antipathy among children
in a family. Family counseling is concerned with these and other related problems and aims at the
release of tensions and the building up of harmonious relations. The counselor here uses the group
counseling techniques as well as individualized counseling techniques to realize his goals. He may
have a few sessions with the parents individually and then several with the children. The major
effort is towards increasing communication leading to better understanding and appreciation of the
individual members of the family. Unfortunately this area has received minimal attention partly
because it is very impracticable, especially in a highly industrialized society, to be able to assemble
all the members of a family for counseling sessions.
32.1.3 Counseling with Parents
Most problem children are products of problem homes. The disturbing features in a home affect the
harmonious development of the children. The incalculable harm which parents do to their children
is usually not grasped by most parents. Parent counseling is aimed at helping parents become
sensitive to the possible adverse effect of their behaviour on their children. By helping the parents
gain a better understanding of themselves and their own personalities much harmony could be
effected.
Parent counseling deals with the area of parent-child relationships concerning the dimension of
dependence-independence. Most parents are deeply concerned about the well-being of their children
and are afraid that if left to themselves the children may harm themselves. Hence they become over-
protective which is resented by the children. Another area of parent-child conflict concerns vocational
choice. Most parents begin with the presumption that they know what is best for their children.
Children have their own ideas and this usually results in a clash of ideas, interests and personalities.
Parent counseling thus is one of the important services that can help foster a healthy home atmosphere.
It is becoming increasingly recognized that there should be a close liaison between school and
home, parents and teachers. For this purpose parent-teacher associations (PTAs) have been formed.
The schools managed by local self-government bodies in India pay scant regard to the need for
PTAs. A few missionary schools and private schools have been successfully holding PTA meetings

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