The Counseling Unit of BRAC University hosted a seminar on parenting titled “Making Mental Health a Priority in the Family” on the university campus recently. Open to parents of BRAC University students, the seminar explored the meaning and purpose of parenting and discussed areas where parents can bring changes to manage psychosocial issues among their children.
The seminar aimed to explore and apply family support systems for each other’s mental wellness. The event started off with Shami Suhrid, Coordinator of the Counseling Unit, explaining the unit’s activities and services. Facilitating the event, renowned psychologist Professor Mehtab Khanam, Advisor of the Counseling Unit, focused on exploring parents’ challenges while communicating with their children. Tahsina Rahman, Joint Director, Student Life also enlightened the seminar by her insightful presentation.
In the seminar, psycho-education was provided about the meaning of parenting, mental health, and barriers of effective communication. In addition, some healthy ways to deal with such challenges were also shared. The significance of parents’ mental well-being, and its impact on parent-child relationship was also discussed. Ayesha Seddiqa, Psychosocial Counselor, shared a gist of the issues shared by the students at counseling sessions. This helped parents understand their relationship with their children.
Dr. Rubana Ahmed, Proctor and Assistant Professor, shared how people could be respectful towards each other. Moreover, she welcomed parents to share any disciplinary action with the proctor office.
Approximately 140 parents attended the seminar. At the end of the session, many parents expressed their need to join such seminars in future. They have suggested arranging sessions on mental well-being with the students as well. They appreciated the effort of BRAC University to address parents’ mental wellbeing, and parent-child connection. In addition, they also shared that the seminar was beneficial for personal growth, and showed interest to be connected with the team of the Counseling Unit for their child’s wellbeing.
The parents attending the seminar have expressed a great deal of contentment since the session was very experiential and interactive.