Children now a days are stressed out so much that come their examination results, I read so many reports of suicides! But why? The reason for the child to die in that most horrible way is failure in the examination or not able to score the expected marks in the annual examination which the child feels is the only achievement in life. If the child fails to achieve the goals set forth by parents, then he/she feels it as useless to continue living and die.
I know a very typical case of a 12th standard girl student, she scored very good marks in 12th standard examination and desperately wanted to become a doctor. Unfortunately, she could not score the rank required to get a government seat in any medical college in the state and her father could not afford a management seat by paying very high fees. She felt so dejected that she ended her life by jumping in front of an express train. Just imagine the situation her parents would be when their daughter ended her life like this, for what? for failure to secure a government seat in a medical college. Actually, the girl had gone to the Common Entrance Test Counselling Center with her father on the day her counselling was scheduled and on realizing that she was not getting a medical seat in any college under government quota, she left the center without even informing her father, who searched for her everywhere and lodged a complaint with the police. Ultimately, by evening, he got that shocking news. Can any parent imagine to lose the child in this horrible manner. I feel some times fault lies with parents also. There is a crazy race among parents to get their children in an engineering or medical college. They have failed to realize that time has changed, it is not what it was about 20 years ago, when the only field of education used to be either B.A, or BSc, or BCom, apart from B.E, or MBBS or BDS. Now children have so many choices, they can get into Business studies, Computer Application/ Computer Science, Hotel Management, Physiotherapy, accountancy, fashion designing, interior decoration, so on and so forth. They have umpteen choices in front of them, I have only named a few. After completing their respective courses, they get decently placed and earn a decent living. At the end of the day, this is what most of the parents are expecting from their children, is it not? Then why force the child to study only one particular field when the child has so many options open which can be completed in a relatively lesser time and with less efforts.
We have to understand the amount of pressure we are loading on our children when they come to 10th standard. I have witnessed many cases wherein a child in 10th or 11th or 12th standard having no life at all. Their routine starts very early in the morning and goes on up to late night. They are not given time to even sleep peacefully. They are made to run from school/college to tuition center and home and this routine continues. It is good that we want our child to score good marks, but don’t imbibe in the child’s mind that he/she should score a particular percentage of marks only and that he or she should get into a particular course only, otherwise, the child’s life is worthless. If this impression is embedded in the mind of the child, then even the slightest deviation from the target yields only disastrous results. Please remember, it is not for this you have raised your child all these years. The marks that your child scores is not worth its life at all. If he/she has not scored good marks, don’t taunt the child, don’t worry you have so many options in front of you. Give confidence to the child, in case the child fails in the exam also, don’t taunt the child, because he/she already will be depressed because of the failure and on top of that as parents instead of counselling our children and giving the confidence to them, if we also taunt them or condemn them, where will they go. Once we lose them, that is the end, they will not come back to us. Marks are not everything in one’s life, I know so many average and above average performers academically have excelled extremely well in their real lives and those who always excelled academically have fared poorly in their profession. So, please remember, never taunt the child for its failure to score good marks or succeed in the exam. If the child failed today, it can clear in the next attempt, give it all the support and hope to clear the exam. Instill that confidence in your child so that he/she will clear without any hassles and in case of a failure, he/she can clear it and nobody is going to lose anything, make them realize that it is not the end of life. So many options are there now for these children to succeed in life. Those options involve less efforts too. With these kind of encouraging words, your child will feel confident and definitely do well in life also.
As parents, it is our duty to take good care of our children. After all it is for them we are all living and if something goes wrong in their lives, imagine the trauma we, as parents have to undergo. So, be wise, don’t scold them or condemn them in case some thing goes wrong. After all, nobody is perfect. We as parents and with so much of experience in life also commit blunders, such being the case, how can we expect our children to be perfect and remember, nobody is perfect in this world. It is only God, the Creator who is perfect, had we been perfect, then we too should have been Gods and Goddesses.
The year is coming to an end in another two months’ time and come January teachers also will be stressed up to complete the portions for the examinations and drill the students to give their best in the annual examinations. So, children, especially those writing the 10th and 12th standard board examinations will be under tremendous pressure. Stress level will be even more for those studying in 12th standard Science stream as they will be expected to write multiple entrance examinations. Many children because of the mounting stress, tend to forget and go blank when question papers are given to them in the examination hall. The culprit is the examination system in our country, which needs to be modified completely to ease the stress children undergo, especially the 12th standard ones. Talk to your children, allocate some time for them to release their stress, by playing some nice music or taking them for a walk in a park or go out of the house, just like that, reduce their stress levels, by giving them frequent breaks in between their studies and allow them to have adequate sleep as it relaxes the mind and reduces the stress levels in your kids too. Give them nutritious food, discourage them from eating junk food. Have a healthy discussion with them and be their good friends. If you have a pet at home, then that is a great stress buster. Pets give unconditional love to their owners, and children relate with their pets very easily and scientific experiments have shown that when you pat your pet, you get a kind of positive energy, which is beneficial to you.
Finally, all I have to say is as parents don’t stress yourselves and pass on the same to your kid also. Life is uncertain, make it as memorable as possible and enjoy every moment of life. Be friends with your kids, so that they feel free to come and discuss their problems with you and express their feelings with you. Be their best friends and first point of contact. Make them take you into confidence. Gone are the days when the theory of being afraid of parents was the order of the day. Today, in this fast paced world make the child feel comfortable in your presence and make the child open up everything with you, else tomorrow will be a day of surprises and shocks for you which you might not be able to absorb and digest. After all your children are part of your flesh and blood, why do you want to treat them as a separate entity, make them feel they are a part of your system. Instill that confidence in them that you are there for any kind of eventuality and that they can depend on you for help and support either moral, financial or physical, whatever be the case. Win their confidence. Assure them your support and in case you find them going in the wrong direction, guide them properly so that they are in the right path and do not go astray.
All the best to you all and Happy upbringing.
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