Family, friends, aspirations & hopes is what a soul lives for. We dream to make it big one day, and so does our parents hope us to see on the heights of success. Our parents play an important role in nurturing us, they invest in us, provide us with the best education, fulfill all our need even if they had to sacrifice their requirements. Parents serve as a major influence in their children’s career development. Parents want their children to find happiness and success in life and one factor which influences happiness and success is career choice. Research also indicates that when students feel supported and loved by their parents, they can be more relaxed at mind and focused towards their goals. Parents play the biggest role in our development. They play important role in our mental, physical, social, financial and career development. They help us in every step of our life, they trained us very hard style for the future challenges. Parents are living for us, they are real God and our first teacher parenting a child is not easy. But what happens when our parents pressurize us with their high hopes. How do we deal with their expectations?
Pressure and stress caused by our parents
India has one of the highest suicide rates among teenagers and adults between the ages of 14 and 29. Failure in examinations is among the top 10 reasons for suicide in the country while family problems among the top three. Even in cases where suicide is not on the child’s mind, due to parental pressure– people who are charged with nurturing and caring for the child – leads to a number of psychological issues, manifesting in different stages of youth and adulthood.
1) Psychological impact on children
One of the highest suicide rates amid teenagers and adults is in India. The common reasons are failure in examinations, high expectations and pressure coming from parents. Excessive pressure from parents can even lead to a number of psychological problems, manifesting in diverse stages of adolescence and adulthood.
With the growth of sports and entertainment as high-income businesses in India, most of the people have turned their focus towards these fields. Most parents still are unable to ward off the need to pursue academics constantly. ,Because of the inevitable competition in every field, parents push their children to become all-rounders and children end up as victim, and go into depression.
3) Academics vs Sports vs Arts
Failure to recognize learning disabilities like dyslexia and seeing academic failure to be the end of life are the two biggest failures of the modern parenting and education system.
The activities which are imperative for growth and destressing in children are the sports and physical activities. Instead of inspiring enthusiasm of children for these activities, Competitive parents make it worse with shaming kids and comparing them to others.
Dance, arts, music, sports and other activities are brilliant choices to inspire the creativity in children. They teach focus, discipline and team work in them. Unfortunately, parental pressure has turned these enjoyable activities into competitive events resulting in immense stress on children.
How to deal with the parental pressure?
- Put some distance between you and the rest. If you’re living in the same house with your parents or grandparents and you see them every day, it’s hard not to succumb to their pressure. Make moving out at priority, save the money it takes and do it.
- Realize you don’t need to please your family. There is this false belief that because you family is, well… your family, you must get along perfectly with every family member. You don’t.. There’s nothing wrong with upsetting dad once in a while or not living up to mom’s dream for you to be a doctor. You need to realize you passion. Its you who has to live your life not them. Feel free to do what you want if you see yourself doing the right thing
- Learn to communicate assertively. Assertive communication is one the most valuable people skills you can have. It allows you to express yourself in a vivid, direct way, but from a position of respect for others, and it’s a great way to deal with all the criticizing and negative comments you can get from family members which are not happy with your actions. Learn to put your point forward . Be clear with what you want.
Ask for help. Its not always important to do everything on your own . You can ask for help, guidance, supervision from anyone you feel comfortable to talk to . It doesn’t always have to be your family member, it could be anyone – an older friend, a mentor, your teacher or a counselor.
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