It's that time of the year again when everyone celebrates their children's achievements, posts their children's "first honor" thing on facebook. Dont get me wrong! I actually appreciate achievements and conquests. But life is not all about their being first honor in second grade. life is about training the next generation to be problem solvers, resilient to change and competitive to face the real world. What we had seen all over the news for the past few days about the UP student who committed suicide because she was not given the financial grant (scholarship) is just a wake up call that we need to stop fooling our children, praising them too much on small conquests. We need to prepare them to face the realities of life- train them that life is difficult, and that the only thing you can do is find solution. Suicide by the way is not a solution. In fact, it manifests how weak the person is, how fragile her foundation was. Raising children and raising the nest generation of GREAT FILIPINOS should be about resilience to change, because there will be a lot of changes in our society if we really want progress.
Having a conversation with young great men who the government has tasked to fix some of the "internal" stuff in the system, I have seen how crucial it is that they were trained to be men of steel. Two of them were UP Law graduates, who got shouted at by professors after professors, ridiculed and even put to shame. But thats what we need. We need to train our kids to stand up on their own feet, be strong, be resilient and find solutions.
This March, Im celebrating my Oakridge kids' achievements. But its no big deal. No first honor, no  Magna Cum Laude in Grade 6 graduation. Those are just silly. This year, I celebrate their strengths- each one of them and their strengths, train them to face the complexities of life and prepare them for the future.