Robbing Childhood

Sanj is just five and she is already in the rat race – going to a play school in the morning and to the tuition in the evening – which will prepare her for admission to a good school.

So what is new? It is the same story everywhere- especially parents of a four - five years old child can relate better with Sanj’s parents. “Sending my daughter to the tuition is the only option,” says Sandra, Sanj’s mother – a professional. She feels that the tuition teacher will train her daughter to write well as the schools take written tests.

Doctors say that starting school early and pressuring the child to read and write causes trauma, which develops anxiety and later leads to depression. Doctors stress that children develops ‘visual-motor co-ordination’ only at the age of seven, but they are forced to wield pencils as early as two years. This will in turn impair ‘visual-motor skills’. The child’s’ ability to adapt is severally compromised and she is always under stress. Having to perform makes children anxious. Parents too pass on their stress on to the children. This will later lead to substance abuse.

The 'anxious-about-her-future' parents do not think so. According to them – once she gets into a prestigious school, it will be smooth sailing.

Will it be, at what cost? City based counsellors and child psychologists are perturbed regarding the alarming rise in stress related cases among children below ten years of age. According to them, out of the every ten children, seven are acutely stressed. “Parents realise the enormity of the situation only when it goes beyond their control …cases of bed-wetting, stammering, temper tantrums are on the rise.”

Parents have their own reasons for it and so do the schools. Moreover, it becomes difficult after a while to determine who to blame – parents for creating demand for such schools or the latter for meeting the demand. Child today no longer has a childhood and tomorrow they will have nothing to look back. Parents are killing their child’s childhood for their own ambition.

Since at any given time, the number of children out numbers the number of seats in schools the pressure is always on the child. Parents have become more ambitious, exerting more and more pressure on their children. They feel that it is essential to attend preparatory schools as well as evening tuitions, as they help in developing the personality of the children as they prepare them for the rigours of the Kg admission tests.
Monika, (a mother of a four and half year old son) agrees that getting children admitted in a reputed school is a gigantic task and it pressurizes them, but she added, “With changing times, I think children too will have to learn to cope with pressure. Perhaps, this is the price they have to pay to be a part of the information age.”

So while the parents slog it out to pay for a good education for their child, the resultant pressure lands squarely on the child’s shoulders.