25+ Pros and Cons of Parental Pressure (You Must Know)

Parents always want their kids to be the best at everything they do and achieve more than anyone else. It is granted that parents do want the best for their kids and want them to lead a successful life with minimum hardships but to make this happen, they push their wards to work harder and put pressure on them.

While it is important to make a kid realize the importance of hard work and maintaining discipline in life, putting too much pressure on them can act as a boomerang and affect the kid’s mental health in a negative way.

Benefits of parental pressure	Drawbacks of parental pressure
Learns to work hard	Mental illness
Achieves higher grades	Dissatisfaction with oneself
Get into highly acclaimed institutions	More susceptible to cheat
Better involvement in school activities	Failing to take care of oneself
Leads a disciplined life	Pushing oneself too much
Higher self esteem	Refusing to participate
More interaction with children	Sleep deprivation
More involvement in children’s life
Learns to follow instructions

Advantages of Parental Pressure:

Learns to work hard:

Working hard is a very important virtue that children should be taught early on in their life. It is only through hard work that one can achieve their goal.

If one is used to be sitting around, spending their life in leisure, they can not possibly expect to achieve their goals. Parents ask us to work hard constantly and thus a little bit of parental pressure can sow the seed of hard work early in the life of their kid.

Achieves higher grades:

If a kid is academically inclined, then it is imperative for them to show the best of their ability and learn on their report cards by achieving higher grades.

A student with academic goals can achieve little in their life academically without a report card that impresses. If a kid works hard constantly in their desired field due to parental pressure and their own wish, then they can achieve higher grades.

Get into highly acclaimed institutions:

To receive the best of education or the best training in a certain field, it is required of a student to get into a highly acclaimed institution of their choice.

But for this, one needs to show the institution their achievement until the time they applied to get a seat in the institution. Again, this can be achieved only by hard work which parental pressure urges us to do.

Better involvement in school activities:

Parents do not just urge us to excel in our academics. They also constantly ask us to participate in other activities and get involved in things that do not involve academics.

They understand that extra-curricular activities are a major part of our life and give us the much-needed break from the daily routine of life.

Leads a disciplined life:

As much as they put pressure on us to work hard, parents also know the importance of doing the right things at the right time. They urge us to get to bed on time and wake up early, eat meals at the right time and be disciplined. Thus, children learn to be disciplined.

Higher self-esteem:

If one works hard and leads a disciplined life as parental pressure urges us to do, one is more likely to achieve their goals and succeed in their life. Once they achieve goals, it boosts their confidence and raises their self-esteem.

More interaction with children:

Children who are not much attached with their parents suffer from various mental illnesses and feel lonely. If the parents interact with the children more, they would feel more confident about themselves with the support of their parents.

More involvement in children’s life:

One can be considered a successful parent if their children consider them their friends. If the parents are involved in the children’s lives, they can warn them about things that might harm them and ultimately protect their children.

The children would also know that they have a support system to fall back on if required.

Learns to follow instructions:

If a child becomes hard working and disciplined early in their life, then it can be said they are obedient and have learned to follow the instructions of their parents. This virtue of being able to follow instructions is something that will help them in life.

Disadvantages of Parental Pressure:

Mental illness:

Too much parental pressure can never prove to be beneficial to the children and instead can make them mentally ill. Parents need to take care that they are within limits while putting pressure.

Dissatisfaction with oneself:

If parents put pressure on a child all the time and are never satisfied with his achievements, then it might lead to the child’s constant dissatisfaction with himself.

More susceptible to cheat:

Parental pressure mostly focuses on making children achieve goals rather than making them learn things. As the end goal of achievement is far more important than the learning process, it makes children more susceptible to cheating.

Failing to take care of oneself:

Hard work is as important as taking breaks between working hard. These breaks are an act of caring for oneself, something that parental pressure might exclude.

Pushing oneself too much:

Sometimes it is okay to accept failure and start afresh. This is something that parental pressure fails to teach and thus, children end up pushing themselves too much.

Refusal to participate:

Parental pressure asks us to achieve goals and be the best at everything we do. This unrealistic notion gets stuck in the head of the child and as a result, he might refuse to participate in activities that he may not shine at but are still important.

Sleep deprivation:

Too much pressure does not do good to anyone. It only makes people mentally sick but also deprives them of sleep. People who suffer from sleep deprivation struggle hard to perform any activity throughout the day.

A bit of parental pressure might prove to be useful for the children but parents mostly tend to overdo it which ultimately harms the child.