by Amal Shakeb

Created on: July 15, 2009   Last Updated: July 20, 2009

Birth hour is not the only time, when a mother pushes her child, this pushing process continues from both the parents till the end of times. Babies are pushed into adolescence, and then into adults. They are pushed to learn, to walk, to talk, to write and read. They are pushed out of their parents room, then out of the house, to earn, and sometimes even out of the country. Sometimes children are also pushed to be strong, greedy, sensitive/insensitive, and so on depending upon how much parents want to push their children and in what direction.

Parents do not necessarily deal with all of their children in the same way. While some children are pushed just to pass their exam, some are pushed to get an A plus. They say they know how much and what kind of pushing each child needs. If they are happy with Sara's C, but not with Ali's B, that's because they know that Ali has the capability of scoring an A and Sara can easily flunk. So in her case, even a C is equivalent to an A.

However, children usually find this concept hard to grasp and give it other names, like child favoritism, and injustice. These situations often result in jealousy, sibling rivalry, frustration and hatred.

While some children are easily pushed, some need a lot of pushing. However, sometimes the pushing gets out of control and children start to repel the push. That is the time when the child says that 'I can't take any more pressure now'. He feels as if his parent's expectations keep getting higher and higher with his every achievement. Instead of being happy and satisfied on his straight As in O' Levels, they immediately start pushing him to grab a distinction in A' Levels. An American Research Centre recently conducted a survey between March to May 2006, on parental pressure in which it was found that in Asian countries majority say that children are under too much pressure.

This extra pressure is the point where parents have to be asked 'how much?' What do they mean when they say that "we want our child to go to a medical college"? Would any medical college do or does it have to be the best one? And what about when they are in the medical college? Is it over or has it just begun? Would passing through to become a doctor be sufficient or would the child need to pass through every stage in first class, to become the best doctor? And what after medical? Is that enough or would they have to go on for a specialization, and that too only in nothing less than heart or brain? And then maybe own

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