Growing up in Pakistan I have often heard from our elders that unless you don’t fall you will never learn to get up. Ironically, despite those words of so called encouragement that makes you believe in your family and them being you strength through thick and thin, when you actually do face failure you are deemed and termed as a disappointment. You not only hear words that shatter you and a strange kind of fear is instilled within you. A fear that makes you shiver, stunts your growth, makes you push yourself to a point that if you ever again face failure you become suicidal. You associate not being able to achieve something as the end.
A Retrospective study was done and 68 cases were retrieved from 11 renowned e-newspapers over the period of eight years (i.e. 2010-2017). Suicide rate in male was 76.5% and in females 23.5%. Of them 42.6% were from schools, 23.5% colleges and 22.1% from universities. The real question is why? Why has such expectations been set up by family, society and teachers that students simply are unable to face a minor setback?
Students commit suicides on account of the devastating pressure that they have to go through due to pressing factor of expectations applied on him/her from numerous sides. Parents need their kids to excel, teachers need them to win laurels for the school, and society continues to advise them that success and assurance for a protected future relies upon the grades they accomplish in the tests. In Pakistan scholastic reasons top the rundown for student suicides, academic reasons means failures or perceived failures in accomplishing the educational goals set by student for himself or the achievements that parents anticipate that their kid should accomplish. As an adult in professional life also such a child will only live in fear.
A ton needs to be done, we can no more afford to play the role of silent spectators, we as a society should change the social conditions that are driving our youngsters into not being able to comprehend that failure is only a restart button. Pakistani children need greater independence and freedom of choice in subjects they want to study and careers they want to adopt. Teens should be empowered to make their own choices regarding their own lives and their decisions and choices should be respected.
As a parent rather than pushing you own standards, opinions and yearnings on youngsters, space should be given that can help and propel them to set up goals of their own without any fear.
Tyrannical parenting and emotional blackmailing has no place in this age and time. Sooner we understand the better it will be for our people in the future. Positive motivation, support and freedom in decision making ought to be the guiding principle of raising children, these qualities can take us far in raising a more joyful and more fruitful generation.
As said by Marilyn Monroe “Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re going to fail at everything.”
A reminder to all my fellow students.
