My son is just 6 years old but I am really worried for him due to the considerable increase in his school stress. He is only in the first grade but is over burdened with an excessive amount of school homework and the extracurricular activities. What he is taught in the first grade was learnt by us probably in the 3rd or 4th grade. The increasing demand of the education system is becoming really stressful especially for our younger children who rarely get an opportunity to play and enjoy a carefree childhood. After a school of 5 long hours he comes home and then hurries for his tuitions and by the time he comes back he is all exhausted. He is so tired that he does not want to be awake even to have his supper. His school follows the ICSE pattern wherein they do not have a unit or a terminal or final test. They have regular tests and surprise assessments so we need to keep the child prepared every day. If this is less for the school they also ask the children to make at least 2 projects in a month which screws their weekends too. Again to be at par with the current educational standards he has extra grammar classes and abacus classes on the weekends, their homework and assessments. At times I start pondering if I have taken the right academic decisions for him. But then parents are not left with any choice. I am sure a 6 year old child will not have the vocabulary to say that he is much stressed but I make it a point to daily talk to him and emotionally support him. I had recently read somewhere that biologically even a 2 or a 3 year old kid can get depressed and eventually grow up to be a suicidal. Nowadays the recent movies and newspapers also keep raising these academic issues and the increasing parental expectations and pressures ultimately unknowingly leading to student suicides. Parents, lets always be around for children, supporting them, loving them in all the possible ways. In future at least we will not contribute to the increasing suicides among young adolescents.