Don’t jump, seek help
Hong Kong is a stressful city. There has been a spate of student suicides in recent years. As Hong Kong citizens, we must all help to tackle this problem and lend a hand to others, especially students ourselves, who need help. We must find out the reasons of suicide and think of some solutions to ease this situation.
Students who decide to commit suicide may probably be under huge stress. Their stress might come from different sources like from society, their parents, peers and so on.
First of all, the norm of Hong Kong nowadays is that students must get high marks and get into the university. Otherwise, they may not be able to get a good job in the future. Entering a university has become a standard to weigh and prove one’s value. Under the highly competitive atmosphere, some students doubt their own values. To them, getting poor grades means a total failure. The shame and frustration may pile up and unluckily, without timely help and support, they may easily reach the impasse. Finally, the sad students may choose to take their lives.
Next, it is about parents’ high expectation. Under the Hong Kong’s education system, getting into the university is not that easy because the number of places offered in a degree program is limited and so it is very competitive. Sadly, most parents have high expectations on their children because they hope their children can enter the university. However, it is always difficult for the children to live up to the expectation of their parents. Once the students fail to reach their parents’ expectation, they will feel being defeated and miserable too.
Last but not least, it is about the stress that comes from peers. As young people in general are easily affected by their peers, they usually care much about what their peers say. Sometimes they get hurt or even feel extremely depressed by the bad words and criticism from their friends. Besides, cyber-bullying, rumour-spreading and rivalries among themselves may give great impact to them and that may bring to suicide in the extreme cases.
To ease the trend of student suicide, here are some solutions. Firstly, the school could organise talks to encourage and help students to think positively. Secondly, parents should leave more space to their children, not to give them pressure but show more understanding. Lastly, peers should give mutual care and support to one another and to show more love to their friends who need help.
To sum up, if all of us are always mindful of the ones around us and are willing to lend a helping hand to each other, student suicide will be greatly reduced.