Times of India
14 April 2010
By Shruthi Balakrishna
Bangalore, India

What worries children the most? Broken friendship. A survey of 532 students in the age group 12–14 has revealed that children have three major concerns: broken friendship, fear of failure and uncontrolled anger.

Edumedia India Pvt Ltd, a company which is a pioneer in creating progressive learning avenues for schooling in India, has conducted a study across six cities – Bangalore, Mumbai, Agra, Nagpur, Madurai and Patna – covering 95 teachers and 80 parents too.

During the process, about 20 options were given to the students like inability to balance studies and hobbies, feeling of jealousy, inequality between boys and girls and smoking and alcohol consumption. Similar options were given to parents and teachers. Interviews with parents and children were done parallely.

According to the study, in all the cities except Mumbai and Nagpur, students worry about broken friendship (11.58%). In Mumbai and Nagpur the major concern is influence of friends (positive and negative) which is 16.3% and 11.7 respectively. The other concerns are fear of failure (10.47%) and uncontrolled anger (9.58%).

Interestingly, parents and teachers share same concern. If the teachers felt that peer pressure was the one, parents strongly voted for the fear of failure.

In a nutshell

• Study in 6 cities: Bangalore, Mumbai, Patna, Nagpur, Agra, Madurai
• Children surveyed: 532 Age group: 12–14 20 options given: These include concern over broken friendship, peer pressure, uncontrolled anger, fear of failure