Each one of us is different and so are our capacities, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. We keep hearing this over and over again with no effect on our conscious mind. The story remains the same. Parents pressurize their children into competition, to ape someone or be like someone. While having its obvious benefit that it might boost confidence, it has far reaching long term negative consequences. These include development of jealousy, low self esteem, the need to always be right, thrust on winning always, poor performance, few friends, falling grades and the list is endless.

With the new age need to be an all rounder, parents push children into learning and knowing everything possible within their purview of possible wisdom. In their eyes, their children should score well, play well, dance well, debate well, present well and so on. This need puts additional pressure upon the child. In the link, parents forget the fact that, the way in which each one is different in their capacities and capabilities, each one of us is different in our strength to handle pressure and competition also. Some students might take off the ‘’being all rounder’’ pressure quite well, others might shrink within and might loose contact with their inherent, inborn capacity.

With board exams around the corner and parents planning looking for career options after 12th, this pressure building and pushing takes various forms and shapes in all families. I as a Career Counselor, would appeal to each parent out there whose child is about to appear for board exam to first understand your child. Your kid is not an aspiration fulfilling machine. Having expectation is one thing, and pressurizing them to meet over expectation is another. The only difference being in understanding what my child can do (actually capable of) and what I expect him/her to do.