How words of praise might save young lives
Updated: 2014-04-02 07:36
By Albert Lin(China Daily)
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How many Hong Kong students have considered committing suicide because of the constant nagging by their parents over their poor performance at school? And, far more important, how many of those students have actually carried out the ghastly deed?
Going back over the years the toll of wasted lives is a shocking indictment on those many thousands of pushy and demanding parents, who now have on their consciences the guilt of ignorantly pressuring a son or daughter so hard that they ended their lives.
Hong Kong prides itself on being a pacesetting super-city at the cutting edge of modern progress yet it abounds in a range of lifeline services specifically set up to patiently listen to the heart-wrenching experiences of young would-be suicides, and talk them out of taking that irreversible last final step.
They include the Suicide Crisis Intervention Center of the Samaritan Befrienders, the Suicide Prevention Service, the Institute for Children's Mental Health, the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association's school crisis support program and Youth Outreach.
And every day they and similar organizations are getting calls of final ultimate despair from deeply troubled students as young as 10 all spurned by their parents in their greatest hour of need.
Psychologists and other expert analysts agree that many of these lives would have been saved if only the parents had taken time to give some attention to their child's school problems, actually looked through their schoolbooks, made helpful suggestions, and where applicable even found reason to compliment the child on some aspect of their learning.
The following idea is such a quick and simple suggestion that might work - should Hong Kong set up one more helpful group in the child welfare field, specifically to advise parents on how they can help their children over such crises; a group that might justifiably call itself PRAISE - short for Parental Response in Assisting and Influencing Students' Education.
Hopefully, as it grew in public acceptance, PRAISE could help reverse the present trends in parental behavior towards their student children and stop them from almost automatically admonishing their children, and instead take a genuine interest in their studies. Then, as the boy or girl begins to get a balanced parental appreciation of their problems, the next step would hopefully be for the parents to find various points in their children's schoolwork deserving of some praise.
And when they utter those magical words of encouragement, an enormous weight will be lifted from the shoulders of their loved ones. As their spirits rise and their mood changes from negative to positive they will at last begin to see a green light on the road ahead, not the previous angry amber or the completely condemnatory red one they have become accustomed to.
Parents should be aware of some of the stark facts about student deaths in Hong Kong: Because we all live in high-rises, the leap from a window ledge or balcony is a favorite with boys. Girls usually resort to slashing their wrists or burning charcoal in a locked room.
There are danger signs to look for. Defiant sons often turn to drink, smoking and bad company. Girls stay out late and behave irrationally.
Does your child keep a diary, and if so have you checked recent entries? Perhaps more important, have you noticed your child behaving irrationally?
Although the following incident occurred a few years ago, there can be few more poignant stories than that of 10-year-old Ethan Ng, who sat at his computer one Saturday morning and sent his best friend this forbidding e-mail: "Something terrible will happen on Monday."
Ethan had been steadily growing more and more depressed since he was falling behind in his studies, and was getting absolutely no support from his parents - just criticism.
They were shattered, and conscience-stricken when, the following Monday, their highly troubled son jumped from the family's fifth floor unit. Only after the boy's death did they examine his diary and get an insight into his misery and desperate need for help and support.
Ng's mother and father wept as they read entry after entry in his diary that revealed the boy's mental torture: "I want to die I want to kill myself I want to be put into jail I want death."
How they must have wished that, instead of offering criticism and urging him to study harder, they had looked through his schoolbooks and found points about which they could justifiably have praised their son.
What troubled the boy so deeply was his parents' criticism of his poor results when he failed his examination in Chinese - which came on top of lack of positive parental guidance when his music teacher had also criticized his performance.
What makes this heart-rending episode all the sadder is that such tragedies are not isolated incidents but painfully regular occurrences across Hong Kong.
The author is op-ed editor with China Daily Hong Kong Edition. albertlin@chinadailyhk.com
(China Daily 04/02/2014 page9)