Family Life Education Series
Our Teenage Children in the 21st Century
How to handle school pressure

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This article is provided by Mr Yip Kam-hee, a Registered Social Worker, who spoke at the Family Life Education Programme organised by the Kowloon West Regional Welfare Office and Kowloon West Region at a campsite in Sai Kung last month. The subject of the programme was "How to Handle School Pressure", when both parents and children took part in an in-depth discussion in the morning, and in various activities in the afternoon. The followings were some salient points raised by Mr Yip:

Apart from individual physical and psychological "growing pains" issues that children have to deal with in general, they are also facing environmental hardship brought about by family, school, society and their peers. Among various stressors, learning difficulties are, by far, one of the most common, bringing pressures on them for the following reasons:

(1) Overloading of work brings along a sense of failure for children;

(2) Boring and tedious traditional teaching style from parents and teachers, tends to bore children easily;

(3) Punitive and over-disciplinary teaching and parental style tend to provoke rebellious behaviour in children, which applies in the learning arena;

(4) Parents who tend to compare their children with others will diminish the former's learning motivation;

(5) Children's emotional development, which is impacted by their families and interpersonal relationships, also affects their learning, and

(6) Parents' over-emphasis on children's learning, which fails to balance their playtime and rest-time, will bring negative impact on their learning.

Learning difficulties can be dealt with in two separate ways:

(1) Handling negative emotion strategy: taking deep breaths, listening to music, dancing, drawing, reading, watching TV, video & board games, exercising, sleeping and giving praise and encouragement. Parents can exercise their discretion according to their children's interest, strength, weaknesses and personality.

(2) Problem-solving strategy: improving learning ability and increasing learning capacity of the individual. To deal with learning difficulties, a new way of learning is incorporated, focusing on learning at an improved speed. Some of the hands-on strategies were also introduced and discussed at the camp.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT : LEARNING CAN BE FUN

from PS & SR Branch Welfare Services Group