By CHANTELLE VALENTINE
READING the daily news, I am greatly saddened by the suicide cases.
They would have been budding musicians, doctors, engineers, pilots etc. Lives that are young and vibrant snatched away in a mere blink of an eye.
There are many causes of suicide and one in which is the lack of support from family. Of course, there are other reasons.
Reasons such as the child isn’t doing well academically and parents constantly berating them.
Bullying by peers at school or the neighbourhood, depression, broken families, lately social media has also become a culprit and most of the time, simply because we think there is no one to turn too.
But we couldn’t be more wrong! There are always people out there who can help us go through problems.
For us teens, we have that one friend who we trust with all our secrets, we have that cousin or aunt or uncle who we can confide with and even Google.
I have a seven-year-old baby sister who is going through a phase where she is constantly asking Google questions and literally does whatever Google gives as answers.
I admit, I was skeptical about her reasons and I even laughed at her reasons but what she doesn’t know is that I now and than secretly Google some of the questions in life that I simply cannot ask a grown up.
There is always someone to listen. There are many contributing factors to suicide one is largely because of achieving low academic results.
Some parents constantly berate their children when they get low results, that belittles children. However, we must always keep in mind that our parents only want the best for us, and sometimes parents need to be careful with their choice of words.
Their constant pushing us to excel academically is only because they want us to succeed, to become successful and to achieve what they couldn’t achieve.
In an undated letter by an unknown author who is simply identified as a Singaporean principal to parents;
“Dear parents, the exams of your children are to start soon. I know you are all anxious for your child to do well.
“But please do remember, amongst the students who will be sitting for the exams, there is an artist, who doesn’t need to understand math. There is an entrepreneur, who doesn’t care about history or English literature. There is a musician, whose chemistry marks won’t matter.
“There’s an athlete whose physical fitness is more important than physics. If your child does get top marks, that’s great! But if he or she doesn’t please don’t take away their self confidence and dignity from them.
“Tell them it’s OK, it’s just an exam! They are cut out for much bigger things in life. Tell them, no matter what they score you love them and will not judge them.
“Please do this, and when you do watch your children conquer the world. One exam or a low mark won’t take away their dreams and talent. And please, do not think that doctors and engineers are the only happy people in the world. With warm regards.”
These are the most beautiful words I’ve ever read. As a teen, I may not know what you are going through but I understand pain and I know for sure that suicide isn’t the answer.
It is, however, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yes temporary problem, because they is always a solution.
I want to be a journalist, you want to be an engineer, a pilot, a teacher, an architect, an artist and the list goes on and on one thing for sure, we are our tomorrow!
Let’s support one another and become the great leaders of tomorrow.
*Chantelle Valentine is the deputy head girl of Levuka Public Primary School and she is our Kaila! contributor. The views expressed are hers and not of this newspaper.
