I was reading some Aunt Agony posts when this particular issue
came to my mind.
I remembered when I was in secondary school (21 yrs old this
year), most parents and teachers were always advicing the teenagers
not to get involve in a romantic relationship, that we might not be
mentally mature enough for it and it's better to spend the time on
school work.
I was, and still is, wondering: seriously, who in the right mind
would actually think a student will put his/her 100% into his/her
academics even without being in a relationship?
A few years on, it seemed to me that within my circle of
friends, it is those who are daring enough to enter into a
relationship at that age that gain more experience in the field of
romance, and also are more tactful (or successful) around the
opposite gender.
Perhaps it has got more to do with one's character rather than
so-called 'experience', but why surpress this phenomenon when I can
hardly see any adverse effect?
At the very least, I don't know of any one who had failed a
major exam because of relationships. Or rather, I should put it in
another way: I don't see students who're in relationships having a
higher chance of doing badly in school as compared to the others.
(More often than not, it's 'not studying' that makes one do badly
in school)
And the funniest thing is, once you're out of sec sch, it
becomes very normal to have a girlfriend in JC, depressing if you
don't have a gf when you're in NS, and somewhat worrying if
you still don't even have a relationship experience after ord (i.e.
me)
Just a few years and it's so much of a difference?
Not every relationship can last all the way till marriage,
whether it be between sec sch students or grown-ups. However,
I do have a pair of friends who were couples from sec sch till
now.
So what I really want to say is: why ask students to 'focus
on their studies' and not think about relationships. Where's the
harm in that?
I've known of a decent number of students who get distracted and
have thier results affected due to problems with BGRs. A good
relationship may be fine but kids at that age are usually not
matured enough to handle BGR well when even many adults fail. Any
breakups or arguement during the exam period especially is usually
very bad for the student involved and results are almost certain to
be affected.