I read an article today about how stressful it is now for kids studying. Parents lamenting that their kids couldn’t cope.
It was stressful went I went to school. I don’t think much has changed. The stress points might be different, but it doesn’t mean we had a free ride because we didn’t. Certainly, I didn’t. For me, it was stressful because of the volume of work, the expectations that my parents placed upon me and being away from home; boarding. I hated boarding. I missed my family and my animals. I have always liked my personal space and you can forget that as a boarder. I couldn’t wait for the holidays, and in my first year away from home, I cried all the way back to school after breaks.
I fear we are raising a generation who are being excused from the hard graft. My parents were kind and generous, but, they had huge expectations. If I complained about the pressure, they listened, offered help, but in the end the response was always the same. You get nothing in this life without effort and sacrifice. If you want to be successful you simply can’t fall at the first hurdle. If you do, you pick yourself up and try again. I am eternally grateful for that advice and for their constant encouragement to be better than I thought I could be.
Even past governments have encouraged school leavers to walk straight out of school onto the dole. Whilst our current government has tried to do something about that, they receive little or no support from the opposition, independents or even the public. It’s all too easy.
As a nation we are becoming soft. We make excuses far too often for failure or lack of effort and, conversely we give far too little credit where the reverse is evident. You only have to access our media to see that reality. Or, just follow our courts. If parents are falling into the same trap of excusing lack of effort or commitment, the future as a smart nation, full of achievers and achievements, will be nothing more than a ‘pipe-dream’. That, I feel, would be very, very sad.
Time to toughen up.
