Dr Raj Persaud is a parent of a Brampton student, consultant psychiatrist, broadcaster and author, who is well-known for raising public awareness of psychiatric and mental health issues in the media. He visited Brampton on Tuesday evening to speak to parents on the topic of ‘Motivation’. Raj opened the talk with the fact that 16-25 is the peak age for developing psychiatric disorders and that this period therefore is crucial for training children in psychological arts such as self-motivation and resilience.
When it comes to motivation, Raj believes there are simply two types of people, each with a specific belief system: Internals, who believe if they work hard, the outcome or their destiny even is in their own hands; and Externals, who believe they are the victims of circumstance, chance or luck, and an outcome has little to do with their effort. Externals therefore don’t see the benefit of working hard and often adhere to the blame culture that Raj argues is rife in our society today. Worryingly, recent studies show that 16-25 year olds are becoming drastically more ‘External’.
On this basis, Raj advised parents to attack this Internal/External aspect and ask their children probing questions like ‘in whose hands is your destiny?’ to assess where they are on the spectrum. Ultimately, parents must move their child along the spectrum to become more Internal and Raj went on to discuss various methodologies to help parents do this.
The talk opened into lively debate and one parent asked ‘what if you have a kid who doesn’t want to exert extra effort, will parental pressure to work harder cause them psychological stress?’ In response, Raj explained his belief that gently and gradually increasing stress just helps increase resilience – much like putting gradual stress on muscles builds physical strength. Raj argued that in fact protecting children from stress can in turn make them more fragile. He urged parents to educate their children about the values of hard work and sacrifice being the key to success in any walk of life.
Dr Persaud is an accomplished raconteur and presented his ideas about motivation in a very entertaining and engaging way, through fascinating real-life stories (anonymised, of course) and a very funny excerpt from the comedy film, “Dave Basset: England Manager”. We’d like to thank him very much for coming in to talk to both our parents and students and inspiring us all to think and act a little differently for positive outcomes.
Raj’s talk is part of a series of teenage wellbeing and parenting talks we have planned here at Brampton College over the coming months. Each talk will be given by an expert speaker, covering a specific angle related to the raising and understanding of adolescents, and followed by a Q and A session.
Please see the below for information on the remaining talks and how to book a place.
‘Understanding Adolescence and Surviving Adolescents’ from Emil Jackson on Wednesday 27th November, 6.30 – 8pm
Emil Jackson is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Head of Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. This talk explores why the period of adolescence is a challenging and volatile one – not only for young people but for all those around them. Often parents are not sure how to differentiate between an ordinarily challenging phase of adolescent development and behaviour that might indicate a deeper problem. The premise for this talk is that we need to start with having a good understanding of what is ‘normal’ in order to know when to be more concerned.
‘Mindfulness’ from Lenora Fitzpatrick on Thursday 6th February 2020, 6.30 – 8pm
Lenora trained at Sussex Mindfulness Centre in 2015 and has been working as a Mindfulness Practitioner since 2016, running numerous mindfulness courses. In this talk, she’ll discuss the importance of looking after our wellbeing, exploring what is mindfulness, its key benefits and how to incorporate it into our daily routine. The session will include meditation practise.
BOOK NOW!
Places are limited so please book now by emailing jmulkerrin@bramptoncollege.com
- You will need to book a place for each individual talk.
- Please state the talk(s) you’d like to attend, how many seats are required and the names of each attendee.
- Please inform us in advance if you or one of the party are not able to attend so we can reallocate the seat.
