Nepalese society bestows a great deal of responsibility on teenagers. Students are expected to keep up to the standards of their classmates, siblings, or even their parents.

This pressure breaks the child piece by piece into developing a sense of perception that studying is more important than their level of contentment with studying itself.

A child’s sibling or classmate’s success has absolutely nothing to do with the mental ability of the child itself. You are way off if you think otherwise.

It is no secret that studying brings a level of boredom that even staring at the wall could replace; but it is of no use if the child is forcing himself or herself into it. To mitigate this, the parenting technique must be changed, not the child’s daily routine into studying for hours.

“What would others say?” has killed more Nepalese dreams than any other sentence. We are more conscious of other’s judgment of us than our own.

We would rather change ourselves and not care what others would say. Regardless of your stature in the Nepali community, you will be judged, wherever you go, whoever you are, and whenever that is.

The same is the case with parents. Parents fear being judged and developing a disreputable image in society due to their child’s result. This fear is so immense that they enact punishment-based parenting rather than reward-based parenting on their child, and often give them a sense of fear when it comes to the matter of studying.

A child could not care less what others think about him or her and puts his or her future above all else. Can we move on from the conventional thinking of society and try to learn to support the children’s decisions in life for once? Give them love, not scolding.

Reward them for good deeds, not punish them for bad ones. Talk to them, don’t keep yourself away. Hug them, not beat them. Tell them it is going to be all right, not that their life is pointless and that they have no future.

Loving is not a crime, it is a normal teenage emotion. Explain it to them about it hampering their studies and to take it lightly. Reason with them and watch them turn to you for advice every day.

Don’t bring in emotional blackmail which parents are often found doing. Don’t scare them off, bring them closer. They wouldn’t love someone else if your love was more than enough.

Don’t laugh at your child’s academia, don’t frown on them, be proud in what they excel in. Find out their hidden talent if academia is not it.