Let the child play and have fun

mumbai: when seven-year-old abhishek tried to shake a leg to a govinda dance number on television, his mother promptly enrolled him in a dance school. courtesy other programmes on tv, abhishek was soon attending singing and even acting classes. his mother, now apprehensive that her son would miss his studies, has started sending him for tuitions as well.for 13-year-old smita, her tryst with classes began when she joined a new school where her classmates spoke fluently.predictably, her evening badminton session with her friends was cancelled as she was enrolled in `accent' classes.the so-called `privileged' child is indeed busy with most of the time spent learning. from algebra to art class and from music to karate class__the child has little choice but to attend all these classes and learn. while there are children who enjoy these activities, there are quite a few who resent it.``out of ten at least seven children consider these activities as a burden,'' says dr nirmala rao, psychiatrist, adding that since they are forced to attend them they lose interest in them easily. moreover, she points out that these activities are structured and the child does not go there to enjoy but to learn and perform. and this leaves no time for children to be with themselves. ``children have more fantasies than adults and they get no time to fantasise. they do not even get enough time to absorb the situation,'' dr rao says.psychologist and family therapist maya kriplani dispels the myth that attending more classes would make the child smarter as most parents seem to believe. ``when children are given too much, they do not realise the value of these activities and then it backfires. the child does not perform well in anything as he or she is under constant pressure.'' spending quality time with parents, she says, is essential, which is more often spent in reviewing the child's performance in various activities.most children, says ms kriplani, enjoy only one or two classes if they are enrolled in four. those who are really forced to attend these classes for two months and then drop out, only to be enrolled in another class. ``most parents do this out of love for their child and fail to realise that the child might just want to play,'' says psychotherapist rani raote, adding that the idea is to make their child the best.however, while striving to achieve their ideals, normal childhood activities like playing remains an unfulfilled desire for many. ``they may be privileged in terms of being able to go for all these classes but they are deprived of something as essential as outdoor activities,'' notes dr anureet sethi, a clinical child psychologist who also works as a school counsellor. most of the children who visit dr sethi are bored, fatigued and fed up of attending so many activities. ``parents are just trying to keep up with the competitive world and it is not a bad thing, but the child should be given the right to choose,'' she says.ms kriplani says that what the child likes to do should be kept in mind. ``let the child draw for fun and not to produce the best picture,'' she says.however, given the fact that parental expectations are soaring high with dreams ranging from their child becoming a computer wizard to a dancing sensation on a television show, the child's right to choose appears to be a far-fetched thought.``moreover, they are under supervision all the time,'' says dr hemangi dhavale, head of department of psychiatry at nair hospital, who had conducted a study on tv-viewership habits of children. the study revealed that these children did not watch much television__which was a good sign. however, as they were so busy in other activities, most of them hardly had any time for themselves and very little time to play. some had even started tuitions at a very young age.the result? while their exposure to the world is far better than many other children of their age, they have little interest in reading and socialising.the solution? ``let them play as much as they can,'' dr sethi suggests.(this is the concluding part in a series of articles on children who have been robbed of their childhood)