How Over Stressed Is Your 10-Year-Old?

Stress on school children
Image used for representation only

 

“In this day and age, children scoring less than 98% in their 10th Board exams have next to no career prospects. Admissions in science are impossible too,” believes Gauri Agarwal mother to eight year old Vani (a student of standard five).

“As a parent, the onus is on you to make sure your child has good grades bolstered by significant extra-curriculars that look good on their CV,” says the hassled mother.

Although school hours are 8am to 4 pm, Vani has extra-curriculars such as horse riding, tennis, swimming and martial arts keeping her busy every evening the entire week. “Vani’s tuition classes are 6.30pm to 8.30pm,” says Gauri adding that her daughter’s schedule is no different that several of her classmates.

Stuti Goenka, Teacher at a private school questions the pressure parents exert on their pre-teen wards.

School is mandatory. However, extracurriculars and coaching classes are optional and mandated by ambitious parents leading to an over stressed child!

Kaustub Gole a Communications Systems Engineer is father to nine year old Shreyas. Gole and has much to say on the subject.

The requirements are different for children brought up in the digital world.

There is so much more to learn and so many access points to information thanks to smart phones and the internet. This warrants a heavy curriculum.

However, the emphasis is all wrong!

The curriculum needs a revamp. Certain subjects like Geography and History should be limited to primary school. Higher secondary school needs to embrace computers as more than one subject.

Manisha Dasgupta Lawyer and parent to twelve year old Shayantani adds, “My key point is that children are overloaded till class 12. Then the burden is almost completely lifted.

I believe you must ease the stress off pre-teens and exert it equally all the way through college and post-graduation.

“I remember going to school in the 90’s,” says Deven Merchant. “The timings were simple, 8 am to 3 pm and not a moment longer. My brother and I were home by 3.30pm and off to play by 5 pm. We returned only by 8 pm when my father would oversee us doing our homework and we would be off to bed after a quick dinner.

It was a simpler time when after school classes or even detention was unheard of. The only punishments we got were standing outside the class, a sharp rap on the knuckles by female teachers and a tight slap by our male teachers. Merchant ends his reminiscing remarking that he’s glad he isn’t in school today like his nephew Vikalp.

~~

# The views expressed in this article are those of the individual respondents (names changed for reasons of privacy) and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.

Aditi Balsaver