As an Asian kid, my expectations are pretty high. We are expected to be incredulously smart, always be top of the class, we have to socialise and respect other people too. Which I think most people are pressured to do so too, but sometimes it gets way too out of hand.

Some children don't care about their physical and mental wellbeing because of these expectations. For some time, I was one of these kids. I put studying in front of mealtimes, which didn't really delight my parents but they seemed pleased at my good grades. I finally began eating properly this year but I still do it sometimes. Also, I have some friends that stay up until 3 am every day just studying. This seriously kills their mood and makes them grumpy.

That's not all though. The stress from all of these classes, these exams and whatever just absolutely kills me internally. I used to constantly have horrible headaches and now whenever I'm intensely stressed (which is quite a lot) I cry. I don't like having this much work dragging me down.

I get that people want their child to have a bright future and whatever, but so many kids are just done with this. They don't want to have to study all the time, they don't want to have to drown in math and English papers just so they can make their parents proud.

Let's talk about that for a second. Whenever I am genuinely proud of my work and show it to my father, he just says "Okay". Some kids would understand this because I feel like a lot of parents do this. When I am doing something like art, my dad would be like "Stop wasting your time on shitty things like this and do something." It hurts me so much. The fact that whenever I do try and impress my parents I usually just get a "Good job" or an "Okay" and not a genuine smile and an "I'm proud of you" is probably why I'm so praise-thirsty. 

Moral of the story, be proud of your kids for how amazing they are, don't put on these intense goals that they are supposed to reach. Yeah, educate your kids and make them a good kid, but don't have them literally sobbing each day because they have a heavy workload. They're kids, let them have their couple of years of childhood before they are robbed by work and stress.

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Got suggestions on what I should rant about? Comment them and I will definitely try and make a chapter!

-JustAnotherTem

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