HURRIED CHILD SYNDROME: A Case Study

A Micro Research Proposal

Submitted to Dr. Cornelia Soto
In Partial Fulfilment
Of the Requirements ED

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Submitted by:
Praise Abigail P. Belmonte
March 2015

Introduction
Schools in our country today are adjusting to a new orientation adapted by the
Department of Education in its desire to be globally competitive while ensuing what they
consider as quality education for their school children.

This change in curriculum

including the number of years in primary and secondary education does not only affect
the whole school community and system but more especially the learners. These changes
has a direct effect on the children in terms of the number of subjects to be learned as well
as the numbers of hours given to each subject. Even the medium of instruction had been
changed to adjust to the learners first language. These many changes in Philippine
education somehow have a bearing on the learning styles of the children today.
Added to this new set-up in school is the change brought about by the emerging
new family dynamics such as OFW families, single families, separated families, which in
like manner directly affects the learner emotionally and physically.
Still another change would be the strong effect of social Media where its
advantage to promote easy communication also caused great disadvantage in the lives of
our children. These include their easy access to information that are not for their age.
Their access to unlimited information with no adult supervision had caused more

problems than good. As a result, unsupervised social Media access has affected very
much the school childrens academic achievement and performance.
Moreover, there are some parents who make excessive demands on their children
to excel academically that they sometimes forget that their children need time to explore
their world with others through play and develop not just their mental abilities but also
their emotions as well as their inter and intra personal relationships. Children, who have
been compelled to be top of the class, end up stressed and hating the process of learning.
The extended tutoring hours will not be fun but a stressful event. In this case, learning
will not be an enjoyable experience.
With the boom of technology, everything has become fast and quick. Sometimes,
it seems like our society liken our children to that of the technology. Our society seems
to imagine that it is good for young people to mature rapidly ( Elkind, 2007 mentioned in
Bonnet, 2012.) thus we hurry our children to adulthood. We have neglected their
developmental milestone that instead of celebrating the beauty of childrens
developmental task, we have made them adults at their young age.
This new concept termed as hurried child syndrome has intrigued the researcher
to conduct a study to identify the characteristics of a hurried child particularly in some
private schools in the Philippines and its effect specifically on the childs learning as
he/she copes with the demand of being hurried to adulthood. Likewise, the researcher
would also like to find out if the hurried child syndrome is more prominent among the
girls or the boys.
Three Specific Questions:

1. What are three main characteristics seen in a hurried child?

2. What are the effects of being hurried in terms of learning?
3. Is the hurried child syndrome more evident among males or females?