I am writing to express my concerns about my daughter, who is 10 years old. Over the past six months, she has been experiencing difficulties at school due to bullying from one of her classmates. This classmate has been isolating her from her other friends and has been making her feel uncomfortable. Consequently, her grades have started to decline, and she has been expressing a reluctance to attend school. My daughter has confided in me about this issue, and she is desperate to distance herself from this classmate. However, she is feeling scared and lacks the confidence to do so. Additionally, I have observed changes in her behavior at home. She has become more irritable, moody, and adamant. I believe this may be due to feelings of being neglected in comparison to her younger brother, who is three years old. While she loves her brother dearly, she sometimes feels that I give him more attention due to his age. As a parent, I am trying my best to support and reassure her, but I feel that I may not be providing enough help. I am seeking your guidance and assistance in addressing these issues and helping my daughter navigate through this challenging time.

I need your expert advice in parenting my daughter. I am a 45 year old mother having two children, a daughter (aged 10 years) and a son (aged 7 years). My husband is very bad at finance issues and because of that we had some issues with my marriage. So I shifted to my mother's place with my kids and we were not in touch with my husband for quite some time. It’s been six years I have been bringing up my kids with very less support/ no support either from my husband or my mother. Since my husband is not staying with us, my kids have been missing their father. Of late, my husband visits us often and he spends time with the kids whenever possible. Though she is 10 years old, my daughter is not having that level of maturity. She is very illogical and dull. I have been training her in certain household work like sweeping the house, washing her clothes and all. She is doing all the work with no concentration/involvement/interest and so the output is pathetic. She is like that in her studies also. I have been explaining things in a very detailed way even then she is doing things like that. During my childhood no one was there to explain me but for my daughter I am there but she is not understanding the value of it. I am getting frustrated and irritated because of her. My question is since she was missing her father couple of years in the recent past, her behaviour is like this. Is there anything that I can do for her improvement? Shortly she might be starting her puberty cycle and before that I would like to make her logical and smart. I have been consistently trying for this by chatting with her alone but could not see any betterment. Kindly help me out.

Dear Pooja, my husband and I share a very friendly relationship. When we have disagreements, we often tend to forget that our child is around. In the past few months, we have been arguing a lot and this seems to have taken a hit on our son. He is behaving strangely at school. He has got into trouble with other kids in his class and is often caught scribbling at his desk. He gets angry and throws tantrums in public. When we tried talking to him, he seemed normal but he did mention to the counsellor that even my mom and dad fight when they are angry. Since then we have mellowed down a bit. But how do we address this to our child?

My five-year-old daughter has just started school. For the first two days she was fine, but after that she started crying the whole time. Her teachers called us, asking us to take her home as she was crying relentlessly. We were even allowed to sit with her at school, but still she refused to go to class. Now, she even refuses to go to school. We push her inside the class but she comes out running moments later. Cries the whole time she is in school, whether we are there or not. We asked her if everything is fine, she only says 'I don't like school, don't like teachers and classmates'. Two of her friends, with whom she plays every evening, are also in the same class. But she refuses to even sit with them in the class. She misbehaves with teachers when forced to sit in the class. Though she apologises later when prompted. One day when we left her in school, we got a call within half an hour that she is showing very violent behaviour, hitting herself against the wall and running towards the school gate. All this made us very frightened as school buses keep coming and going on the main thoroughfare. The school counsellor failed to help. She said my daughter is not responding to counselling. We are absolutely clueless about what to do. Forcing her seems pointless.

My friend's niece who is 11 years old is going through a difficult phase. Her parents are separated not divorced. She is currently staying with my friend and her maternal grandmother. The girl is fine until she receives a call from her mother. None of us know what they talk about but the girl becomes disturbed and behaves aloof from everyone. She doesn't want to talk about it either. She doesn't have a lot of friends. How can we help? Should we consult a child counsellor, a teen counsellor or a psychiatrist?