Sumana's home is hushed. The atmosphere is loaded with tension. Everybody is tiptoeing around. A young child's voice raised in fun is immediately shushed with urgency. An illness in the family? A crisis? No, just an older child in the family preparing for the board examination.

Seems familiar? Almost every family faces this situation. The last two years of schooling become a collective nightmare for the family. As a mother, you feel inadequate because you are unable to help your child with almost any of the subjects; the matter covered seems to be beyond anything you ever encountered during your school days. The stress of guiding your child in her future endeavours seems a heavy burden you are unable to shed, awake or asleep.

Your dilemma

It seems that every time you meet a friend or relative the same question jumps out at you. "So, what is your child applying for?"  You are left confused and apprehensive. Does everybody else's child know exactly what he or she wants to do? Is your child the only one floundering in a sea of choices? Have you been remiss in you parenting? Have you not been a strong guiding light? Should you have recognized your child's concealed talents and unmasked them? Relax. As a parent you have probably done all that is within your means to help your child realize her potential.

Being a child in today's world

Culturally, our children are under pressure to go to college, preferably professional, and then have a clear career path laid out in front of them. So much so, that our children are placed under stress from a very early age. Burdened with unrealistic expectations from their parents, they falter in their choices, losing their own fervour and zest in their anxiety to fulfill their parents' hopes.

At a time when they are dealing with their own demons of adolescence, our children are also expected to make life-defining decisions. Completely unexposed to the softer side of learning, they come to believe that education is only the memorizing of endless pages of textbooks. The creativity and curiosity latent in them is suppressed and they are not allowed to deviate from the restricted, controlled and constrained methods of learning which pass for education in our schools. Our children are left fervently agreeing with Pink Floyd's song, “We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control.