Children are facing more pressures nowadays from academic, social and commercial perspectives. What are the causes of these pressures and what measures should be taken to reduce these pressures?

It is commonly said that today’s children are pressurized as were yesterday’s adults. That’s true in the sense that children are facing harder and harder academic, social and commercial challenges. It is happening simply because of the ever increasing demands of life, from the same perspectives, on humans in general. While it is important that children excel in their age to become successful as adults, they must be shielded from the mounting pressure by maintaining a balance between material and psychological growth. As the global village becomes more and more competitive everyday, it becomes important for us to prepare for the fight, so to speak, earlier and earlier. This is realized by all, which triggers societies to push their juveniles during their learning stage. The other thing that is contributing to this ever rising pressure on children is the lack institutional opportunities, especially in developing countries. Now, more than ever, children are having to race each other for reaching the privilege of higher education. While healthy competition is helpful for the psycho-social development of young ones, it is rather unhealthy when the race becomes more prominent than the objective. Of course the objective of children competing against each other ideally is bringing the best out of themselves. But, very frequently, a child is compelled to compete for becoming better than the other. In other words, the competition becomes a brawl rather than being a sprint. To stop such spiteful struggle among our young, we must first establish a sense of camaraderie within all our developmental institutions, such as schools and colleges. Students must contest for academic betterment, not social supremacy. Also, parents should get proactively involved in promoting sportsmanship among learners. They must not allow vile aggressiveness and their own vengefulness in the lives of their children. To sustain such social reformation the government must establish ample alternatives to the traditional route to success. The conclusion here is simple. The children today are being put into a ‘survival-ofthe-fittest’ situation much earlier than they must be when they should really be trying to do their best. Such untimely loss of innocence is only going to make civilization more antagonistic. Therefore we must ensure that personal development may be ushered in harmony and not in vile rivalry.