I observe many parents pushing their kids to get into the IP schools (Study hard! Do well in primary school! Sail through PSLE with flying colours! Get in and you're set for life!!!). But I wonder if they think beyond getting in, and consider what six years of being in an environment full of super-achievers will do to their bright kids. It's not just schools and teachers and parents perpetuating the stress. Quite apart from these external 'culprits', kids are perfectly capable of creating stress for themselves too. Especially if one is an achiever who has been "conditioned" for success from all those years of being in elite schools and expects a great deal of oneself.

Just to illustrate. I graduated from a JC where the usual questions before and after A levels were along the line of :

I just want to share something that a child psychiatrist friend once told me about behaviour related to sibling rivalry.

When I had my second kid, my friend advised me to tell everyone around me NOT to tell my firstborn that it is his duty/job to take care of his younger sibling and that he must 'grow up' now etc etc. Of course, helping out like passing the diapers etc is great for participation, but her advice was essentially not to constantly make the firstborn feel like he is responsible for the younger one; all the 'setting a good example stuff as a big bro/sis' thing can come later.