Case Study

MICHAEL, age 16 first obtained his SPM results and found it was not good enough to enter Form 6 to do his STPM. He was in the Arts stream and personally, was not very academically inclined -- it was his parents, especially his authoritarian mother, who wanted to push him to aspire to going to Form 6 and kept on nagging him about this. They insisted that he re-take his O Levels and do better the next time to try and get in. They enrolled him in a private institution (even though the family was not well off) and after a few months, much to their consternation, he called it quits because he was not really interested in academic studies. This resulted in a lot of frequent fights, arguments and conflicts especially with his mother, who complained that they had spent their hard earned money on his education (only to see him quit) – they asked what he was going to do with his life? He was put under a lot of pressure, especially since Michael had two elder brothers who were in university and another elder sister in Form 6. He was always under the impression that he was being compared with his siblings who were seen by the parents as more successful and smarter than he. He thought of himself as “quite useless” but not totally a hopeless fellow!

In fact, Michael was very musically inclined. Since young, his parents had encour­aged and supported him in musical activities. He was particularly talented in playing the drums, keyboards and guitar. He enjoyed singing, was a natural performer on stage, having taken part in various talentimes in school and played in concerts fronting his own indie rock band. Therefore, he wanted to be a professional musician, form a rock band and see how far he can go. However, his parents, particularly his mother objected strongly because she was “old-fashioned” and stereotypical in her thinking and abhorred the lifestyle of a rock musician so there was a conflict in values. (Besides, they were church goers and see rock music as the devil’s music). They were willing to sponsor Michael to take up classical music and hopefully, he could become a music teacher. However, Michael was interested in developing his per­formance skills and really enjoyed playing and singing in a band as this made him feel worthwhile as a person, rather than teaching classical music, which he did for a while and found it was really boring and not his cup of tea. This irked his parents even more (since they paid for his piano lessons and he only finished Grade 7) and resulted in frequent quarrels with his parents over what he wanted to do with his life. Michael (now 18) was confused and frustrated and did not know what to do. He needs your help and advice to cope and be a ‘bridge over troubled water’ at a critical time of his life.