Thank you for sharing such a meaningful and appealing article Sir. It was quite relatable.

I
have been a mother teacher throughout my teaching career and handling an emotional
conversation has never been easy. I totally agree with the Sara Wilson that handling
emotional conversation plays a significant role in creating a conducive environment for the
students. What I have observed in today’s generation is that they are not as emotionally
strong as they are supposed to be. There could be several reasons behind it. Talking about
emotional conversation reminds me of two related incidents. This occurred in 2019. A
student, though not from my class, but still I knew him because he from my segment(8 th
segment) and was unfortunately detected with cancer, 3 rd stage. We all, including him, knew
that he had only few weeks or months in hand. It was midterm exam and as he wanted to
write his exam, he was made to sit in isolation and write. I had to administer the exam for
him. The moment I saw him; I couldn’t believe that he was diagnosed with cancer. He was so
very normal in his behavior, he wished me, asked me how I was? And just went about writing
the exam. I was in fact emotional and with great difficulty managed to control my tears. It
was a challenge for me to have a normal conversation with him during those exam days. But I
tried my best. I can’t call it an emotional conversation, but it was an emotional situation.
After the mid-term exam break he never came back to school and left for heavenly abode.

The second emotional conversation took place recently. In the current school where I am
working, I am the class teacher of grade 7. There’s a student named Arjun (name changed)
who is not only bubbly and active but is also quite good at studies. His parents ran their own
restaurant and he was the only child. During the Term Assessment 1 that was conducted in
the month of September, he didn’t perform well. He got low scores. His behavior changed, he
became quite arrogant and rude with his classmates. I knew there was something bothering
him. So, I just casually started a conversation with him. We talked about food, places etc. and
gradually during the conversation, I told him that he could have performed better in his exam.
I then asked him the reason and told him that if he doesn’t want to confide in me, that’s fine.
Arjun trusted me and told me that there was a theft that occurred in his parents’ restaurant
and the amount was quite huge. The police had come several times to his house for inquiry.
Seeing his parents ‘anxiety, he was also greatly disturbed and hence he couldn’t concentrate
in his studies. For a moment I was at a loss for words. I then empathized with him and told
that I was always there to support him in any which way he wants. I then connected with his
parents and they were also shattered due to the incident. I assured them that I will take good
care of Arjun in school and closely monitor his studies. I first took him into confidence, made
him feel comfortable and encouraged him to open up about the issue that bothered him.

Hence, from my experiences I can say that having an emotional conversation with a student is
quite challenging because you should use the right words, the right tone and the right body
language to have a meaningful emotional conversation which would subsequently help the
student to overcome or face his emotional adversities positively.