Exam stress among the young: When grades define worth
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buds:
Latest figures show that last year, there were 27 suicides among 10- to 19-year-olds - a 15-year high. This was double the 2014 figure, despite a drop in the overall number of suicides.
I feel so strongly when I read this... Let's treasure our children... Grades are not everything... -
Taking on a different perspective, I understand where the parents are coming from… They want the best for their child… But academic excellence is not the same as academic perfection…
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Agree. We \"push\" because we want our children to work towards greater heights and achieve their potential. However, we must also remember to taper this with love and positive affirmation. I'm writing this to serve as a reminder to myself as well.
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Are we sure that exam stress is the main factor in teen suicides? What about other factors like the "instagram" culture which makes looks and keeping up with the Joneses so important? Or the pressure to grow up into sexuality so early? Or parental divorce or other family breakdown? I’m not saying that academic stress is not a very common factor, but I think that it is often a combination of several factors that finally pushes a child over the edge. We shouldn’t focus on academic stress alone.
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http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/thoughts-of-a-student-on-the-need-to-excel
It is not just the local school system, sometimes it is just this will for perfection.
With a DD near that age, who pushes herself , I felt so affected by this lovely girl's journal. A beautiful life lost because she couldn't measure up,the enormous burden she felt to perform , all self driven , it is so :sad:
In April 2014, New Zealander Victoria McLeod fell to her death at a Clementi condominium where she lived with her parents.
The 17-year-old who was in her final year in an international school here had put great pressure on herself to get into university, even though her parents had told her that passing exams was not the only way to find her course in life.
Seven months after her death, her parents found her online journal. Here are several extracts:
JAN 14, 2014
Dear Friend,
I lost it. I just sort of keeled over and thought 'I can't do this'. Like, I've known that I will never have a dazzling life, what with the grades I get. But if I keep carrying on like this, I might actually end up snapping...
I don't know how I'm going to cope when I get back to school. Will it really help if I ask for it? Would I just be wasting my parents' money? But the whole point is that I can't ask for it anyway. How do you explain that you might have social anxiety... I just don't know. And it scares me.
JAN 15, 2014
Dear Friend; I was out yesterday and saw (). You know, one of those chicks that look like they have it all. Blonde. Lithe. Top grades. Popular. The whole jealously wrapped-up package...
st_20161030_amstress30_2705096.jpg
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It's kind of beyond me how someone can have their life so sorted. Maybe I should start comparing them allegorically to filing cabinets. Each file section is a subdivision of life. Academics. Family ties. Extra-curricular activities. Social stature. Looks. Boyfriends/ girlfriends. Socioeconomic state. Mental health. Physical form. With a person like (), not only is every section perfectly organised, but also each page has the right border, font, page number and grammar with A-pluses on each sheet of crisp white paper inside every pastel folder... I gave up on trying to be an () a long ago.
MARCH 30, 2014
I remember something J.K. Rowling wrote in the first Harry Potter book. That there were more important things than Hermione's affinity with books and cleverness. Like friendship. And bravery. But that's changing. One day, no one will know the meaning of courage or camaraderie.
Sadly, all that really matters, all that grown-ups are trying to drill into young minds, is success. If you are not successful, there is no point in existence. That's a pretty sad message to teach. But that is what's happening, whether we want it to or not.
It doesn't matter if it's at the cost of one's well-being. Even if you were reduced to something barely functioning, but you pulled yourself up and are sitting there, telling your story in an Armani suit, that's all that matters. That you became a success story.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on October 30, 2016, with the headline 'Thoughts of a student on the need to excel'. -
SINGAPORE: A child who acts up could be showing signs of delinquency - or of suicidal depression. So, are parents right to respond to misbehaviour with “tough love”?
Posed this quandary, Dr Ong Lue Ping, the Institute of Mental Health’s principal clinical psychologist, said: “Tough love is still love … A lot of times we find that it’s not really the method that makes a difference. It’s really the relationship.
“If the relationship is strong, even if it’s tough love, the child may see it as my parents having concern for me. But if the relationship is negative (from the) start ... then the tough love may have a negative impact.”
This question was raised at a Talking Point forum held at *SCAPE on Monday (Oct 24), just days after the State Coroner ruled on the suicide of an 11-year-old boy who had killed himself in May after failing his exams. The court heard that the boy’s mother would cane him “lightly” on his palm whenever he scored less than 70 marks in exams.
The case was fresh on the minds of the participants during the candid and sometimes poignant discussion about teen suicide with the panellists - who included Dr Ong, celebrity Irene Ang and Mr Chow Yen-Lu, a father who lost his son to suicide.
The recording of the forum aired in a special episode on Thursday on Mediacorp's Channel 5.
Catch the extended 50-minute version here on Toggle.
http://video.toggle.sg/en/series/talking-point-2016/ep22/455504
Last year, Singapore recorded its most number of teen suicides in 15 years - 27 teenagers (aged 10 to 19) killed themselves in 2015, up from 13 in 2014 and 19 in 2009.
According to the World Health Organization, suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15- to 29-year-olds globally.
Panellist Mr Chow talked about picking up the pieces after his son, who had suffered from manic depression since the age of 18, killed himself when he was 26.
“One of the first things that we did was not to blame ourselves or each other. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here today … we would have gone down the other path. Number two, is to accept what’s happened.
“Three, is to find meaning in what’s happened and to do something about it,” said Mr Chow, who went on to co-found Over-The-Rainbow, a support group to help youths deal with stress and mental health issues.
LISTEN, REALLY LISTEN TO YOUR TEEN
Dr Ong, who has spent 13 years counselling children and teens, emphasised how important it was for parents to listen without judgement.
“(Teenagers) tell me that when they feel like talking to their parents, they want their parents to listen to them empathetically at first, and not jump in too quickly with solutions or with judgements. Let them know … (that you) would be there to help them to solve the problem.
“They also appreciate if their parents can validate and not trivialise their feelings. Sometimes parents say, ‘oh this is just some friendship, you can always find new friends’. But for them, it is really a big thing,” said Dr Ong.
Mr Chow echoed this: “We need to talk less and listen more. All of us. And when we listen, (we should do so) not just with our ears, but with our heart.”
WANTED: COPING SKILLS
While 58 per cent of suicides in Singapore are associated with mental illness, a local study has found two other risk factors at play a lot of the time, Dr Ong noted. These are social factors - such as relationship problems and school stress - as well as psychological factors.
“What we know is that individuals who tend to be lonely, proud, secretive, and have a low self-esteem with a tendency to worry unnecessarily and with poor problem-solving skills, are at a higher risk of suicide,” he said.
He added that this is why we need to “go back to basics” and teach our teenagers certain life-skills - namely social, problem-solving, coping and adjusting skills.
Ms Ang, the CEO of Fly Entertainment, had tried to take her own life three times - the first attempt was when she was just 15, as she recounted in one recent interview.
“What stopped me was really myself,” she told the forum. “What I took away from the three failed attempts was, there’s so much courage needed to kill myself, why don’t I take that courage and try to live and solve my problem? What’s the worst can happen, I die right? But before I die, let me go and try.”
On what she does when she feels the symptoms of depression setting in, she shared: “I take a holiday, I pick up a sport - recently at the ripe old age of 48, I started playing tennis; I play three hours a week now.”
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/at-teen-suicide-forum-parents-asked-to-talk-less-listen-more/3240750.html -
IMO we shouldn’t try to "push" them towards their powers and plus, we shouldn’t "push" them towards something they don’t want to. In fact, we shouldn’t "push" them at all, we just should point them the right direction… just my 2 cents…
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slmkhoo:
Are we sure that exam stress is the main factor in teen suicides? What about other factors like the \"instagram\" culture which makes looks and keeping up with the Joneses so important? Or the pressure to grow up into sexuality so early? Or parental divorce or other family breakdown? I'm not saying that academic stress is not a very common factor, but I think that it is often a combination of several factors that finally pushes a child over the edge. We shouldn't focus on academic stress alone.
Agreed. Difficult to be a child nowadays. Difficult to be a parent also. -
education syllabus is very demanding year after year. if parents set high expectations, then the poor children suffer. but we parents are also stressed because the kids face problems with school work.
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