Parents vs me

When it comes to life after school, does it feel like it’s what you want to do versus what your parents expect you to do? Our recent graduates, Sai, Jasper and Ciro reflect on the pressure from their parents to follow an ATAR pathway and go to uni, how they realised that it’s ultimately their own decision, and their tips for anyone else feeling the same pressure.

Transcript

Parents Vs Me

Sai: Parents always telling them you have to get A’s.

Jasper: Just be supportive.

Ciro: I would have been the first one to go to uni.

Sai: I’m going to choose my parents want me to get A’s, get an ATAR, go to uni and get a job. I want… I feel like a lot of high school students, you know, their parents are always telling them to excel you have to get A’s, get an ATAR and go to uni, blah, blah, blah. You don’t have to go down that road. But honestly, there is there are all those parents, you know, especially like with, you know, cultural backgrounds pushing their kids to go to uni or whatever. It’s just like I think it’s a reflection of themselves.

Ciro: Yeah, it is.

Sai: They’re trying to push that onto their own kids because they never got to do that themselves. But it’s like you’re not living your kid’s life.  You know, you should let you kid decide what they want to do in school, like, you know, talk to them about what they want to do. If your child is stuck.

Jasper: Just be supportive.

Sai: Just be supportive and be there for your child. Just talk to them about what their own passions are, what their own goals are in life, not what yours are.

Ciro: I feel you because like my family, we come from the former country of Yugoslavia, we’re Serbian, and I would have been the first one in my family to go to uni. Yeah. So my mum’s like, you have to go. It took so long for her to kind of accept that I didn’t want to go to uni straight away.

Sai: Same as you took my old man a bit. To I guess get around the fact that I wasn’t going to go to uni. Even though he wanted me to because I would have been the first one as well. I just feel like when it gets tough, man, you just got to talk to your parents. You just got to talk to them, even if they don’t listen. But as long as you, like, voice, like communicate it to them, that it. It’s hard but it’s out there. Yeah, it’s out there that you don’t want to follow that pathway.