In newspapers and social media we can see every now and then, there are often reports of children and teenagers taking the path of suicide due to parents' or other people's bullying because the results are not as expected by their parents, including the capital city Dhaka. It would not be inappropriate to think that the negligence or aggressive behaviour of the parents and especially the school authorities are more responsible for this very unfortunate outcome of the children and adolescents than the so-called 'failed' children and adolescents.
We all live in a sick society where we are constantly chasing an all-encompassing success of our children. We attach great importance to achieving good results rather than quality education at any cost.It is not unusual that Bangladesh, a country of limited resources, has fierce competition for survival among large populations. When we treat toddlers like marketing managers setting some kind of sales target for success, it's definitely sick. By giving too much importance to academic results alone, we are not only killing the childhood and adolescence of children but pushing them into such a miserable life that they are often unable to keep pace and get involved in various unwanted deviations; it even leads to suicide. In this case, many things are said about the role of parents, teachers and school-college administration and many of them may be related.
In this way, we are only making them self-centered and sometimes even limiting their thinking to a very limited range. Children and adolescents attending good schools or achieving good academic results have become status symbols for parents in many cases. However, to ensure the academic development of children and adolescents on a larger scale, it is much more necessary to develop the desire to know and the habit of questioning them than to get good results, many educators may say that.
Doing well in all academic exams in life is definitely a matter of achievement. But always having to be first or having to do what the parents want, cannot be the goal of a healthy life. In order to achieve good academic results at any cost, many parents encourage students to skip school-college coaching and prepare for exams on the pretext of illness. If we understand what we parents are teaching children and teenagers by encouraging or condoning lies for this temporary success, it would be good not only for children and teenagers, but also for the country and the nation. It would be unusual if these children and teenagers grow up and do not follow various shortcuts to success in their professional life.
Let's say, a child who can draw well, who has basic creative writing skills, who is interested in playing, is unlikely to get good results by over-exerting him in studies. With good academic results, today's children may become successful or powerful professionals in the future.
Those who run the society, those who bring about great changes in the world, those whom we hold as ideals, many of them have academic results, but they are not small in any way. A child who can draw well, who has basic creative writing skills, who is interested in playing, is unlikely to get good results by over-exerting him in studies. With good academic results, today's children may become successful or powerful professionals in the future.But that should not only be the goal of life, especially for those who don't want it. The number of children studying medicine or engineering to please their parents is also not negligible. Even in conversation, I hear many students say that they are studying law because their parents want them to. The question remains as to how appropriate it is to encourage children, sometimes even to the point of coercion, to fulfill their unfulfilled dreams in life.
Children and teenagers always do not understand anything about their own good and bad. Their likes and dislikes are unimportant, parents are the masters of all their affairs and this idea may not be suitable for the times. As desirable as a financially successful or secure life is, I see no reason why a happy life or the pursuit of a happy life should be less desirable. We should think about whether our parents' excessive affection makes children and teenagers commit suicide, whether it is love or a deadly crime. Let us give a second thought for the sake of our own children’s healthy and bright future.
The writer is Principal, Pradipon Secondary Bidyapith, Chuadanga , UN ITC-ILO fellow 2014 in Italy