The Destructive Power Of Peer Pressure

Have you ever been pressured by your parents with any school work, I have. My parents are always on to me, have you done your homework Faizana?, have you read?, have you done this?, have you done that? I know the feeling, it’s not to good, especially when you get a bad grade. Many kids from the age of 8-13 are actually being pressured from their parents or peers to get the best of grades the school has to offer. Kids are studying way beyond their limit, not having a social life, not being able to do things that most majority of kids are doing. At that age they are proving or pleasing to parents that they are capable of accomplishing something when their parents should know that they are capable of doing that. Yes, we all should encourage kids to do the best they can but that doesn’t mean they should put success upon everything else.

One reason I think that parents put too much pressure on kids is that many parents put pressure on their children to earn perfect grades, no matter the cost. Guidance couns telors say that this is one of the kid’s biggest issues, they get a lot of stress to please their parents or peers. Parents can be very eager and forceful for their kids to success in life, but they also need a social life. I think that for this issue, a way to solve it is for the parents to listen in on what is going on in their kid’s life and understand where they are coming from, not just accusing them. Kids have a lot of stress already from school or from friends, one of the biggest issues of stress are from social media. At many schools, such as UWCSEA parents can track their child's grades and tests, they can also track personal emails, and homework assignments. When the parents find that the grades are out, it is quite obvious that the kid will get a slight under confident feeling, that their parents might get angry at them. Of course, they would be worried, especially if it is coming near to the end of the year. Parents always are wondering how their kids are doing in school, that is normal, every parent should think that, though it can make the child agitated at times as they keep on getting reminded “studying comes first before anything else”. By rising the pressure, as they grow older, they will always want their parents to be happy or teachers, but it’s not like that, kids should please themselves, they should be happy, if they tried their hardest, that should be enough. It doesn’t need to show in the grades. "Rejection can be heart-breaking and devastating. Especially for high-achieving students who spent countless hours studying and preparing for assignments, exams and projects," said Anxiety.org.

Another reason for pressure is stress and anxiety. Kids get anxiety, they get worried. This can lead to depression, anger and frustration. So stress can affect anyone who feels overwhelmed — even kids. In preschoolers, separation from parents can cause anxiety. As kids get older, academic and social pressures (especially from trying to fit in) create stress said "Childhood Stress." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. As it says, “as kids grow older, academic and social pressures create stress”, it means that, if any kid has any stress from school, their peers or family should notice this action and should help the kids otherwise what if the kid might hurt himself/herself, in some cases that might happen.

Girls and boys also adults, have this kind of pressure from work, family, friends or even social media. Parents should be aware of this, everyone should be aware and should help, everyone should be careful if it happens to their friends or it happens to yourself. If you are in this position get someone to talk to, they can help you.



Bibliography:

https://www.anxiety.org

http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/stress.html

Why You Should Give Your Teen More Independance

Dear parents,

I am here to tell you why you should give your child more independence and space while in their teenage years. Child independence is very important in a teen’s life during their transition into adulthood. Teens need to learn important life skills/lessons such as decision making, money saving and time management.

I have no experience in giving children independence because I don't have a child but I can just imagine how hard it must be letting them go. This is an important and difficult time in all parents lives, but for the teen it is a lot harder. They will feel happy and sad, excited but scared and most of all they will miss you being their ‘protector’. You as their parent and guardian have to help and guide them along the way.

Firstly, between the ages of 10 to 15 your child will be going through many mental changes. Your child is almost definitely going to make many mistakes as they grow up and start to discover/understand their true self. Making mistakes is definitely ok, actually, research shows that making mistakes is the best way to learn in life. A Raising Kids and Independence article says that, “Your child needs to make some mistakes, to explore and have new experiences. This will help him learn life’s lessons and continue to shape his brain’s development.” This shows how important it is to let your child be independant and discover things themselves, even if that means making mistakes along the way. It is Important to show you teen that you do not expect perfectness from them.

Secondly, teen’s need to learn important life skills such as decision making. A teen can not depend on their parents to make all their important decisions for them, because in their later life when they are in university or a job, they will have to make many important life changing decisions. It is very important that they learnt how to do these skills in their early life, where if they make a mad decision it won’t affect their life drastically, this comes with independence.

Thirdly, teen’s need to learn the skills of money saving. An interesting Investopedia article shows just one of the many reasons why it is important to save money. “If you get sick and need expensive health care that your insurance doesn’t cover, you’ll have a way to pay for it even though you can’t work while you’re getting treatment. And knowing that you have options because of the money you’ve socked away can give you even more peace of mind.” Other reasons for teens to save money, is to cover insurance, college funds, saving for housing, loans to be paid off and there are many more. Just think about this, do you really want your child to be depending on you for money, do you want your child to be living off bank loans or in debt.

My final reason why teens need to be given independance id for them to learn how to manage their time and not procrastinate. Encourage your teen to be responsible for his or her own time. Ask questions like, “How much time do you need for homework?” “How long to do you need to unwind after school?” If the answers to the question is “None” and “Until midnight”, you need to sit down with your teen and have a conversation about how to fit everything into an orderly time table. I am pretty sure you don’t want your child to be running around to classes late or have forgotten to finish important essays and not handing things in on time. A suggestion for helping your child from a Teenagers Independance article is, “You may want to let her try out her schedule through, say, one grading period. If grades go down, the schedule needs work and maybe more supervision from you.” There are many ways you can help your child manage time but sometimes you need to let them figure out a way themselves, something that works for them.

In conclusion, all though letting your child go and giving them more independence may be a scary and worrying time, it will greatly help them in the future. They will need to learn important life skills such as time management, money saving , and decision making. You can help them learn these but at some point they need to discover these things on their own but all the time with your encouragement and support, especially when they make mistakes. Always be there as their parent and protector in the hard times, have their back and support them when times get really though. But most importantly, don’t be afraid to sit down and talk with your child about how everything is going.

Thank you for reading,

From Nadia

Bibliography:

"Raising Independance in Teens." Raisingchild.net.au. N.p., 05 Nov. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/independence_teenagers.html>.

Fontinelle, Amy. "Why Saving Money Is Important | Investopedia."Investopedia. N.p., 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/031215/why-saving-money-important.asp#ixzz43KviW66F>.

"Huckleberry House." Teenagers and Independence. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <http://huckhouse.org/parents/teenagers-and-independence/>.

Homework vs Videogames

The idea of homework has been debated as good or bad for many years, however till very recently, the concept of video games has not been a factor in such debates. In some cases, homework can help children further consolidate their knowledge and understanding about topics learnt in school. However, homework more often than not is a negative use of time and time that instead could be devoted to video games because despite cliche stereotypes, many video games provide psychological and academic advantages. This paper will explain why parents should allow children to play video games in moderation alongside homework as it can provide many psychological and academic benefits.

Homework has been adopted by many schools all over the world, it is now almost a tradition. However as it has grown more and more popular, no one has had the motivation to challenge it. But is homework really worth the time? The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia decided to look into homework and how much it really benefits children. These researchers reported no “substantive difference” in the grades of students related to homework completion, (Fuglei, 2016). This means homework plays little if any role in a child’s academic success. Another study by Penn State’s Education Policy Studies department found that “Pages and pages of homework that is simply marked and handed back have less effect than short assignments that are marked individually and discussed later in class, (Fuglei, 2016). This shows that the quantity of homework is not related to its benefits. Akshat Jain, an extremely academically successful middle school student, says “The reason I do well does not lie in the homework provided by school, I would be better off without the stress and pressure of homework.” (Jain, 2016). This represents two things. Firstly children do not appreciate homework as it build stress and wastes time. And secondly, homework does not blossom into success, success is found in other factors of a child's life.

Many people think that video games lead to a drop in grades. There are countless studies that have formulated theories putting video games down. However recent research and studies show that video game can provide many academic benefits. Drew Guarini (an experienced and active contributor to the huffington post) says “your mother was wrong. Video games aren't bad for you. They're actually making your life better.” (Guarini, 2013). Studies conducted in england, provide strong evidence that video game, especially strategy games, massively develop skills that they believe to be key factors to learning, like brain flexibility (Guarini, 2013). This not only proves all the olden day research to be horribly wrong, but also proves there is a positive side to video games. However this study wasn’t the only of its kind, a study, based on a set of psychological test done before and after the 72 patients play video game for 40 hours over the course of 6 weeks, conducted by the Queen Mary University of London, found there to be an improvement from the first test to the second test taken after videogame play, patients were also able to complete cognitive flexibility task faster after playing video games. This is fact based proof that video games can have a positive effect on a child's academic life.

However, video games are not only good for academics, despite many stereotypes that video games damage eyes and make people violent, video games can actually help prevent problems like bad eye sight and depression. Depression, a problem faced by many of our youth, depression can lead to bullying, aggression and worst of all, suicide. It is obvious it is an itch that needs scratching. Researchers in New Zealand, tested a new way to treat depression. Instead of using traditional counseling techniques, they experimented with video games. They experimented on over 150 teenagers with depression problems, most of which had already attempted the classic counselling treatments and saw no effect. Half were given the usual one on one counselor, the second half were given video games. 44% of the second half recovered completely, while only 25% of the first group recovered, (Guarini, 2013). This means video games could be the answer to one of the biggest problems faced by today's society. However videogames aren’t only good for curing depression. Researchers at the University of Rochester, found a significant improvement on people’s eyes after playing video games. The results for first person shooters like Call of Duty and Halo, were especially encouraging. Scientist found that they improved the players contrast sensitivity function. This allows people to pick out small changes in light and color, an important skill for common task like driving at night.

So why keep children from playing video games. Would you ever prevent your child from doing their homework? Focusing too much on homework can lead to stress and ultimately waist time. Homework in large quantities does not benefit a child any more than a solid 50 minutes a night. Success comes from developing skills like adapting, learning and flexibility, not pages of repetition. Video games provide the specific skills one needs to be successful in school like the three mentioned earlier. Video games can also decrease stress and allow children to focus harder at school. Video games also provide a variety of benefits outside of school as well like better eyesight and curing depression. So as the age old debates about homework continue, it is time to throw video games into the mix and give it a chance. Society moved past the old stereotypes about social media, children having mobile phones and even LGBT, so why can’t we do the same about video games.



Fuglei, Monica. "The Homework Debate: The Case Against Homework."Concordia Portland Online. Concordia Online Education, 14 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.

Pilgrim, Trevor. "Homework: Harmful or Helpful?" Eduflow. Eduflow, 03 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.

Guarini, Drew. "9 Ways Video Games Can Actually Be Good For You." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Teenager Independence

Dear parents,

I am writing in the perspective of a 12 turning 13 year old, and with the experience of having an older brother, I believe I can legitimately say that I see both sides of the situation with teenagers. You are all parents of a 12-13 year old son/daughter. The issue of having a teenager living under the same roof is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. I believe that you, as parents should provide guidance, care and patience for your teenagers but at the same time giving them the freedom to make their own decisions. I believe this should be done while showing love and support to their ups and downs, strengths and weaknesses.

It is a popular belief that teenagers are emotional, irritable and not pleasant to live with. Have you ever asked yourself why? The scientific answer you usually get is puberty. But have you ever imagined what it would be like if they didn’t desire to be independent growing teenagers? If they were content under your control, never wanting to leave the house, never questioning your commands? You have to understand that a teenager’s desire to become independent and self reliant is a natural trait leading into growing and adulthood. Remind yourself that it’s not your fault and in a way it’s not your child’s either.

Firstly, you need to let your teenager make mistakes and learn from them. “Your child needs to make some mistakes, to explore and have new experiences. This will help him learn life’s lessons and continue to shape his brain’s development.” An article stated from Center of Adolescence Healthy, part of Royal Children’s Hospital. Through mistakes teenagers learn what’s right to wrong, life lessons etc. As hard as it is to watch your child stumble and fall, you have to understand that at the end of the day they will be positively developed adults. You have to believe in their ability to take a fall, recover and learn from it. This requires patience. Usually more than you’re ready to give. There is good news though, if you can make it past this rough patch of rudeness, arguments, scowling, your lovable, kind child will emerge.

Secondly, a popular topic when it comes to teenagers is the struggle for control. As they grow they’ll begin to want more of a voice in matters. “To put it in political terms, they want a democracy in which they are a voting member, rather than a dictatorship run by parents.” Stated Teenhelp, an organisation whose goal is to bring awareness to both parents and teens.

Although, some parents may argue that they are beginning to have less and less control over their teens in some issues, they still have influence. I can confirm this with my own experience. Understand that the more illogical and unreasonable rules and regulations they become, the less serious your teenager takes you. As hard as it is to admit it, there are times where it becomes appropriate to give in to the argument. This does not mean giving them free control all the time, it means sometimes you have to admit you are arguing the losing, irrational side of the argument.

In conclusion, you have to understand that parenting doesn’t mean having full control over your teenagers. They require guidance and support, not directions and commands. You have to loosen the rope over time, letting them explore, learn about themselves, their talents and weaknesses. This means being supportive and loving, , showing genuine interest in their everyday lives, giving space and privacy, yet setting family rules. "Don't panic; stay on your child's team, even when it appears to be a losing team, and give the whole process time to work itself out." Wrote Dr. Dobson professor in pediatrics. Remember, stay patient, keep talking and keep trying.