The next round starts!
I’ve spent quite some time talking about the stress and anxiety kids face as they head toward their final high school exams. I thought on that last day, when the last exam was over…………..we could get a break for a while…………at least till the trauma of receiving results was upon us!
NO SUCH LUCK………..particularly if you’re artistic and want to get into a degree in any of the visual or performing arts!
As soon as the exams were finished in my house, we jumped on the “portfolio” treadmill…………design exercise, interview, design exercise, submit portfolio, interview………………over and over again, from one University to the next…………….and a whole new range of stressors!
It is quite intimidating for kids to sit in a room for 2 hours with 250 other ‘hopefuls’ and plough their way through design exercises that they think are so simple they have been ‘tricked’ into saying or designing something that will ’stuff up’ their chances of being offered a place at that particular Uni!
They look around and measure themselves against the kids with $$$$ worth of technical drawing equipment, the kids who have only a pencil and eraser, the ‘groovy’ kids, the ‘daggy’ kids, the ‘rich’ kids, the ‘disadvantaged’ kids etc. etc.
The kids have to face interview panels of often “sector snobby” artiste types who by virtue of their status and position of power, often make the kids being interviewed feel like they are ‘not up to scatch’ or ‘not good enough’.
As a parent and a NORMAL compassionate human being, I struggle with this ’succed or fail’ attitude that disempowers our kids and makes them feel ‘bad’ about themselves. We spend our lives as parents, encouraging our kids, building their self esteem, preparing them for life in the ‘real world’, but when ‘push comes to shove’ we have no capacity to ‘hold their hand’ and protect them from the people out there who seem to get some sort of bizarre joy from belittling others.
SO the point of all of this rambling (apart from the therapeuitic value of ‘ venting my spleen’) is to ask every one of you to THINK before you speak.
Before you put someone down, before you gossip behind someone’s back, before you ’shut someone down’ with your body language………….imaging how you would feel if YOU were the recipient of that kind of treatment (or your child or someone else you love)……….STOP…………….THINK…………….and then ACT WITH COMPASSION………….it’s not difficult………….it just takes a bit of practice!