We all have this ultimate fear of scoring well in our exams. Those exam fevers just before our finals, the nightmares of failing our exams and all those negative thoughts of giving up as we think we will not be able to achieve what we dream off just because we assume of getting low scores.
But ever wonder how our marks are the ones responsible to end up our dreams? Are they really responsible or are we as parents and the adults make our children believe so. As working adults how many of us ever came across the questions in our promotion interview- How much did you score in your 10th or how much did you score in your 12th? However, as we keep pressurizing our children to score well in exams, keep pushing them to be top scorer and keep comparing them with other children, we somewhere forget to carve them as the person who knows to prepare their own Plan B and Plan C if their Plan A doesn’t work out. As we always enforce our children to score a 90% or a 95% to make it to the best college and best of the streams, However what we forget to tell them is what to do if they don’t score these marks?
We do tell our children that scoring a 95% will take them closer to their dreams, but what if the child for any reason might end up scoring a 65% instead, is it an end to his dream, his goals? When we guide our children by saying they can take up science only if they score above 80%, they will end up taking commerce if they score between 60 to 80% and only low scorers below 60% takes up arts and the most hopeless ones ends up taking a diploma, are we really motivating them to score good? or are we creating another bench marking system like casteism. This bench marking that we create in their minds, is more or less similar to the age old existent caste system, The Brahmins as the most superiors, then the Rajputs, third in the sequence are the Vaishyas and at the end the Shudras.
With the rising competition and the number of students appearing 10th and 12th rising every year in lakhs, it is very important that we carve our children to be the best in whatever they choose. We help them realise their goals and provide them with a pathway to achieve these goals and not form their goals based on the marks they achieve.
School of Counselling 