>The parents continue pressuring their kids, because "yeah that other kid killed himself, but surely that won't happen to my child. My child will grow up to be

>The parents continue pressuring their kids, because "yeah that other kid killed himself, but surely that won't happen to my child. My child will grow up to be smart happy and ambitious like me..." That's what they think, yes. But from my own experience, environments like this cultivate a uniquely desperate sort of ambition -- they manufacture people who cannot fathom achieving anything less than what their parents have. Something different isn't merely an alternative path. Instead, it's abject failure and a crisis of identity. I wasn't particularly well-adjusted coming out of a secondary school pressure-cooker, but after struggling with alcohol addiction for a while eventually managed to chart my own course. It's tragic that some teenagers take their own lives before they have that chance.