The pressure to study well and score high marks is creating a lot of stress in teenagers that is damaging their physical and psychological health, a doctor said at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City last weekend.

Dr. Nguyen Le Binh, lecturer at the pediatric department of Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University, which co-organized the conference with the Paris School of Psychology, said their parents’ hopes, their teachers’ desire for good results and peer competition were significant stress factors for students.

“But their ability is limited and children suffer internal conflicts that they dare not or cannot tell anyone else.

“The strong emotions compressed over a long time will cause functional disorders such as headaches, insomnia, loss of memory and allergies, and in girls, abnormal menstruation.”

The internal conflicts together with the functional disorders will worsen the children’s overall health, damaging their immune and endocrine systems while hindering brain development as well as the release of growth hormones, Binh said.

Younger children will suffer more problems from stress because they’re not good at solving problems, she said.

According to Binh, parents and teachers should “think again” that different children master different things and “it would be illogical and unnatural if they are always forced to score 10 marks in all subjects.” 

The doctor also suggested children be ranked with non-numerical grades like A, B and C and their results be informed in private to prevent comparison and competition among students who are different from each other.

“The most crucial point in teaching children is to help them improve their weaknesses without hurting them or making them lose self-confidence.”

Binh said a course heavy on theory also destroys student self-confidence as they cannot apply what they learn in real life.

Some students in Binh’s study said that in exams, Vietnamese students can beat all their overseas counterparts, but when it comes to practice and creativity, they are confused.

According to Binh, there should be changes in both teaching and evaluating children’s performance. Effective teaching should help apply knowledge in real life and effective evaluation should not rely on exam results, she said.

She cited examples in Finland, where schools do not have exams but evaluate their children through daily observations and weekly reviews.

Parents need to listen

Binh said parents do not understand their children’s difficulty or anxiety but usually blame them for not trying hard enough.

“Many parents don’t accept the real abilities of their children. They fail to realize that what they want do not match what their children want or what their children can achieve.”

The report by Binh at the conference concluded that obedient children will get stressed more easily as they try to meet their parents’ expectations and hide all their troubles.

“When children can talk back to what they consider unreasonable, that means they still believe that they are respected.

“So parents, please listen to your children,” Binh pleaded.

In her analysis, Binh said parents and teachers are not the one initiating the pressure. Teachers are stressed by the requirements from higher institutions demanding a hundred percent pass results, for instance, and they share this with the parents.

Ultimately, “The children will receive the entire pressure.”

(Source: TuoiTre)