Yet another conundrum that my husband and I, as parents, are currently going through is education and choice of school.

Of course, we want the ‘best’ for them! A cliché that you must have heard time and again from all ‘ideal parents’, if there ever were some! But what is ‘best’? What do we want them to imbibe? What do we expect from todays’ education system? As parents how do we define the goal post for our kids? So many questions just to make a choice of which school for Std. I…unreal!!!

In this ever-dynamic world where boundaries are constantly blending, the world is shrinking and any informal information and knowledge is considered “education”, the choices remain endless and even more confusing.

Furthermore, competition and the greed for our kids to excel, put parents in the zone of rigorous planning and charting the course for the next 10 years of our lives. If schooling wasn’t enough, tutors, extra circular activities and ensuring no down-time for our children, enhance the concept of holistic education, exerting pressure on both, the kids and the parents.

When I look back on my years growing up, I really don’t recall my parents pressurizing us to that extent. The one-point communication that would be assertively passed down to us was “study well and do well in your exams”. And that did the trick! I believe, self-motivation is the key here.

So what has changed now? Why are we burdening our generation? Is formal education the only source of enrichment of a child’s mental make-up and psyche? Are we actually doing us proud and the children a favor by making them go through the grind each day for the next 15 years of their life? These questions still keep me up at night.

I think kids by far are more resilient than adults. They need to be loved, nurtured and guided. I’ve learned about education more through life lessons - when my parents loved, nurtured and guided us through the rights and wrongs. Now, I totally intend to continue this piece of education through my kids. But alas! In the meantime, the search for “formal education and the best school” continues.

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