We are all aware of the pressures and stressors most adults experience and the importance of managing them in order to keep healthy physically and mentally. Nevertheless, are we aware that kids also experience such pressure? Yes, you may not know it, and you may not believe it. But, twenty first century kids are also experiencing great amounts of pressure and stress. Gone were the days when kids were carefree and had fun from the time they wake up to the time they sleep. Because of the society we have built, we have also inadvertently built a society for our kids that have promoted these pressures and stresses.

How do we know of these pressures and stresses? What are the indications? Just take a look at what is happening in the news. Kids with no apparent reason or no preexisting indications commit violent crimes. We see it all over the world and we see it more often in the first world countries where kids are more pressured than in other countries.

As parents and individuals, we cannot change the way our society works. But we can try to prevent them from being pressured by keeping their life as simple and as stress free as possible. Here are some tips we can do. Kids at a young age should have fun. Lets not try and complicate their by making it to serious for them. Let them play and have fun. This doe not mean that we should start teaching them some responsibilities. But rather we should not force upon them responsibilities that they cannot yet appreciate or comprehend. Because of our concern for our children, we sometimes think that starting them early in life will give them an advantage when they grow up. But in most cases, doing this only creates an abnormal environment for them to grow in. and in the process gives them unnecessary pressure.

Winning is good but, again, having fun is more important. Teach our kids to be competitive is healthy. It teaches them to strive harder in order to win. But sometimes parents go overboard by teaching their kids that aside from winning being good, that losing is bad and shameful. Most kids tend to try to please their parents. Given this attitude, they become so pressured into winning anything they undertake no matter what. In the process, they miss all the fun they might have while playing. Therefore, the process becomes merely something that must be attained and the purpose of having fun lost.

This is also true with academics. Our society has become based on the concept of having only the best and to attain it one must be the best. Because of this perception, most parents push their kids to be the best in school. They push them not only to get high grades but also to have the highest grades, to be number one, to take first place. This may be the reason why some kids turn to violence. Kids who are considered low performers, kids with low grades or kids who cannot make it to the baseball or football team are branded as "losers" or no good. As such, they are shunned by their classmates and teachers. It may be that these pressures on their life leads them to take drastic, illogical and even immoral action such as taking violent action on the society that oppresses them and the people it represents.

We have a great responsibility in taking care of the younger generation. We strive to ensure that they will have a better life. But in the process, we have forgotten what a better life truly means. In our materialistic society, we have equated this solely in amassing wealth and power. We must try to remind ourselves of how our parents brought us up and how our parents were brought up by their parents. They know the importance of responsibility, of earning a living and of creating a better life for themselves. But they also know how to have fun while doing it. They realize that happiness need not wait until we attain the end product of our life but can be attained while going thru the journey. This is what we must impart to our kids.