A page from the diary of Mishty Sharma ( one of Aesha’s Musings young contributor). She is my daughter’s friend and insisted that I share her thoughts with my readers. Though I have been a bit late in doing so and she has been desperately waiting for comments from us.
Read it out and share your views on steps that we can take as parents and educationists to address a 10-year-old’s concerns.
Hi, friends,
I am Mishty Sharma and I am 10 years old. Today I wanted to share with you all about the studies stress we 10 years old are going through. First I will tell you about my daily routine. My day starts at 5.30 am in the morning. I reach the bus stop at 6.40 a.m. We reach school and our class starts from 7.20 am till 2.20 pm. We do lots of studies and writing work during these hours we also have a spa class (sports & performing arts) on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We leave our school at 2.20 am and reach home at 3.15, after I reach home I get a break of 30 minutes in which I eat food watch T. V, till 4.00pm.
From 4.00pm I do my studies; the first one and a half-hour go in finishing my homework and after that, I and my mother read a chapter which has been taught at school. We have a surprise test for which we need to prepare ourselves well and for that, we need to go through all the chapters we have learned in the school daily. I finish my studies only by 7.00 pm and as I need to awake early so I also need to sleep early. So after 7.00pm, my mom serves me food which takes me half an hour to complete after that I make my bag for next day and then I do my favourite things which I like to do for the next half an hour. By 8.30pm I go to my bedroom and sleep by 9.00 pm. This is the end of the day for me.
I don’t get time to play with my friends in my building. I cry many times because of this. I feel we are very pressurised to excel in studies. We are just in grade 5 and I feel our school should be a bit lenient. We want to enjoy our childhood in a carefree manner. But then today’s world is full of competition and challenges so if we don’t keep us updated, we will be left behind. I just want the school to be a little fair on us and give us time to play and have fun. I wish our education minister could understand our problems and help to reduce this extra burden on us. I really miss my grade 4 when I use to enjoy my fullest but now, it’s only during Friday, Saturday and Sunday I get time to go play with my friends in my society garden. So I request our parents to please talk to our teachers to give us less pressure and let us enjoy our childhood which we will never get back. Here I close my topic hoping that the school will be a little fair with us and will help us to enjoy our childhood.
There is no better adventure than to be a child growing up experiencing life for the first time
Mishty let me tell you that you are lucky.There are other kids who come back home 4.00 because they do extra performing arts in school.After that from school they directly go to SPORTS CLUB to do their regular coaching of sports.From club they come back 8.00 and eat their meal and take their studies.So in that case your routine is cool. But yes I agree that this pressure should be monitored and kids should have stress-free childhood.All the best for everything you do.
Thanks for writing in, Madhu.
Hi Mishty I agree that your schedule keeps you too busy and you dont get time to play and stuff. I would suggest if you start cultivating interest in your studies and take it as a medium of gaining knowledge then you will never feel it stressful also do some reading exercise everyday it does miracles. All the best darling – god bless you??
Regards,
Amee
This too bothers me. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. My kids are just 7 years and are mostly occupied with projects, activities, dictations, short speeches, completion of homework the list goes on. The bags are too heavy, the time of meal in school is too short.
We were lucky were care free and enjoyed school.
I guess the competition now a days are killing our childrens childhood and we become spectators.