15 Things All Parents Say to IIT JEE Aspirants

Almost every successful person credits his or her mom and dad for their achievements. And rightly so! Our parents wake up early in the mornings just to help us get up and sit down to study. If we study late at nights, they check up on us and keep us supplied with milk and eatables.

They motivate us, threaten us, scold us and sometimes are just too upset to speak to us…but they never give up on us. Here are some of the most common nuggets of advice all Indian parents offer to IIT JEE aspirants:

You are not studying for ME!

The truth is that your parents sacrifice smallest of their wishes to be able to pay for your school fee, tuition or coaching fee, laptop, smartphone, books, and all other facilities that  you might need to do well in life. In turn, they expect you to earn well in future and look after them too. But when they see you strolling about with no purpose in life, they get scared that you will not only lead a penniless life yourself and remain dependent on them forever.

Hence, they try to goad you to study more so that you can have a pocket full of cash to spend later (on yourself and on them).This one is mostly triggered when you answer back to your parents or aggressively ask them to back off. However, it is a genuine warning for those who don’t stick to (or don’t have) a study plan. So, be polite, make a good study plan and stick to it.

Everybody in our family has studied on his or her own. Why don’t you?

This family drama is more poignant in families which have larger number of Professors, engineers, doctors, IAS etc. If your family has many achievers (read book worms) and you are not dedicated to academics, your parents remain a worried mess that you will turn out to be a black sheep of the family. They are hell-bent on making you keep up the family pride.

Show them your detailed study plan and point out how many topics you have already covered for the day and how much you are going to cover after your short study break to shatter their myths.

 Our life is over. Now, it’s YOUR turn.

Your parents are not so old yet that their lives are over but there is a grain of truth here. You are actually about to start your life. You are preparing to enter an IIT and in the next 5-6 years, you will be joining your first job. If you are finding it difficult to balance your studies and fun time now, how do you think you will be able to juggle through your hectic job schedules, wife, children, personal interests and fun time later in life.

Make sure you include breaks for TV, internet browsing or Facebook, having a chat with family and friends, a round of badminton, exercising and playing games on phone in your study plan. Keep your daily schedule practical and sustainable. And then stick to it.

Your grandpa’s last wish was to see you studying at IIT.

Now, that’s what we call emotional blackmail. It’s amazing that your grandpa had time to think about all his 5 sons and daughters, their spouses, and their so-many children – all at the moment of his last breath. And he managed to dream of you going into the IIT!Once the family melodrama is over, here is the reality check.

After Class 10, lakhs of students start their JEE preparation. But about 50% start losing interest in the first 4-5 months of hard work and only a few thousands manage to keep their motivation levels up for the next 2 years. Most of the students start looking for careers that can give them big bucks but will not require so much of their efforts.

In the real world, all top slots offering big bucks (irrespective of what career you choose) require much sweat and blood. If you are just secretly planning not to be an IITian just because you have to work hard for it, there is a no chance that you will ever be get at the top of any other career choice too. So, respect your granddad’s wish, fire yourself up and pick up your books.

It’s your preparation for the Future.

True and true again! IIT JEE preparation is an important lesson in time management for the future engineers. Finding a balance between study time, keeping fit and having a healthy dose of fun is a good foundation step for your future.

Study well or you will turn out like this.” (pointing to terrorists, criminals or repugnant people on TV)

This is a parent maxim you might have heard ever since you reached senior classes. For the first 7-8 years (from Nursery to Class V), your parents keep explaining why studying is so important. They point out to all the beggars and the laborers who did not have the benefit of education and to the people in big cars or ones enjoy in shopping malls with their families as the ones who studied well. By the time you reach Class VI, they start expecting you to take charge of your life. Any slackness in the study department becomes intolerable by the time you reach Class 9 (and again in Class 11).

There is no answer to this charge. All you can do is just give them a sweet smile and laugh with them. It might help you to say, “Don’t worry, dad/mom! I have better parents than this poor man/woman.”

 All these privileges (TV, home, car, A/C, generator) are a waste on you. If we had them, we would have achieved so much.

This is often accompanied by anecdotes of Prime Ministers and Presidents of the World who were poor and did not have books to study or studied under street light lamps (or moon light). Sometimes, there are stories about our parents used to study in night lamps and candles when there was no electricity in their respective villages.

According to the parents, if we have a home that doesn’t have a leaking roof, TV with a cable to entertain ourselves, A/C or heater to keep us comfortable and a computer to offer us access to unlimited resources online, then, we should be super-achievers. Perhaps this one has a shred of jealousy too – of not having such facilities when they were children. No arguments here.

What will you do if you don’t crack JEE?

Whenever you give up on cracking JEE after a bad test, this is the tangent your parents take. This is their way of making you realise that giving up on your dream of getting on IIT JEE because of a few rotten days is not going to help you in the long run.

To be successful at JEE and in life in general, you need determination, consistency and the ability to bounce up whenever you take a fall.

How can you find Maths difficult? Should I ask your dad to teach you?

If your dad is an engineer or an accountant or a bank clerk or a Maths teacher…or do anything related to Maths, you are not allowed to slack off in the subject. Most parents think that preparing for JEE means that you should be a Master of Math. They may not understand that Physics and Chemistry are about as important as your Arithmetic and Algebra.

Perhaps the best strategy in such cases is to show them your registers full of Math problems (or Physics numericals) that you have solved and assure them that you love Maths!

IIT can change your life, son. Just look how many IITians have got a package of over 1 crore!

These newspaper and media reports about over-a-crore salary packages have not only added to the woes of IITians who have not received such plum job offers but have also managed to add pressure to the lives of the IIT JEE aspirants too. Parents would point out how one IITian or the other turned around their lives and lives of their families with their golden touch and expect their children to learn the same magic.

While only a small percentage of IITians are able to get such mouthwatering placement offers, putting the spotlight on them encourages us to aim higher and be more positive and confident about the future. The good news is that in 2014, the number of IITians who have received fat pay packages has increased considerably. Otherwise too, we find who’s who in the list of IIT alumni who have been luminaries in their respective fields.

Think of these 2 years as your ‘tapasya’ and you will get lots of time for fun later.

They told that to you in Class 9 and now, they are on it again in Class 11. When you get into an IIT, you will hear that it is these four years of academics that will make or break your life. After IITs, it will be GATE or CAT preparation and then, further two years of rigorous studies. Even if you join a job after passing out from IIT, you will be studying about the business model and business plan of each company you join, its market goals, its competitors, and its strategies.

Otherwise too, you will be reading about new products and new technologies flooding the market.Study is a never-ending process. However, as you immerse in it deeper, you will learn to enjoy it as well. And then, you will be the one to lecture everybody about the joys of learning. Until then…keep trying to have fun with studies.

Look at Ravi, Sheena, Sharma ji ka beta, Verma ji ki beti! He/She studies all the time.

It really gets on one’s nerves when parents start comparing someone else with JEE aspirants. If someone studies for 8 hours a day, he or she probably has no friends. Or probably when the particular person in question sits glued to his desktop, apparently taking online JEE tests, he might just be watching the adult films secretly. But you can’t say this to your mom or dad.

So, it’s best to be quite and let such comments slide. Do your best and let your marks speak for themselves. Once you get that IIT seat, YOU will be the envy of the neighborhood.

If you top the class in the coming test or exam, I will buy you a new bicycle.

This is a classic example of too-much-work-and-too-little-reward. This is not the 80s where high school students in India were happy to flaunt a bicycle. This is the 21st century! So, you are allowed to haggle about this and get the deal for a smartphone or an iPad or an iPod.

But be sure not to let your eyes slide off your pre-negotiated targets and make your parents buy the gadgets for you. Remember, you are old enough to realize when you are pushing your parents too much. Don’t let your family reach that situation.

When I was your age, I was so focused on my future that I used to study day and night.

Whatever your parents say, you need proper rest, time to exercise and time to eat too. Some recreation time also helps to charge you up. So, as far as you are disciplined enough to stick to your study schedule and cover all the topics and assignments for the day, don’t let such stories bother you.

There are high chances that your parents are just making them up to inspire you.

Wake up early morning to be able to concentrate better.

While it is true that early mornings are quieter and allow you to concentrate better, late nights are good for studies too. In fact, you will soon find that most IITians prefer to study late at night and wake up just in time for class. So, if you feel sleepy in the mornings, don’t feel guilty.

Instead, design your study schedule in such a way that your body and mind gets trained to be at their brightest during the usual exam timings, i.e. from 9 am to 6 pm.