[enfoires]

foo,

i was chatting to my son about the suicide last night and he said that the family still doesn't want to talk about it. no one even knows how the boy actually killed himself. the family is obviously having a very hard time & my heart still goes out to them.

i think part of the story is that there was probably very high expectations on the guy. my son goes to a school that about 3/4 of the kids are in a very academic french program but my son is not in it. about three years ago another boy committed suicide and that was the story that eventually came out. he just couldn't handle the pressure of the ever-increasing expectations from his parents & teachers.

i recognized early on that being a high achiever was not a ticket to success so i've only pressured my kids to make sure that they did their best, had respect for their teachers, have lots of interests but kept an active social life.

i was a good student and spent many years in university only to find that i was being fed a bunch of bull from professors who were trapped in a bureaucratic bubble. but i've warned my kids that they don't want marks that will be closing doors to opportunities they may want to pursue in the future.

then again, sometimes you can't overthink this stuff and you have to just go with your intuition.

foo, it's good you are thinking about this now!

hugs,
stacy