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Stress is inevitable when your children are facing examinations,
and it's likely they will become short-tempered and irrational,
so how should you react? Andrew Gillespie offers some dos and
don'ts.
You may have thought that your teenage child was difficult
to cope with before, but now that the exams have started you
have probably learnt the true meaning of the word "monster".
Faced with numerous written and oral exams, even the most mild-mannered
and pleasant teenagers tend to lose any trace of their previous
good nature and all hope of reasonable conversation comes to
an end. "Was alright" is probably the nearest you will
get to a complete sentence until the exams are over. It may,
in fact, be the nearest you get to a sentence until they leave
university or college. No matter what you ask them about the
exams, there will "be no point telling you because you wouldn't
understand", their revision will inevitably be going "OK",
and on at least one occasion you will be told that "exams
were much easier in your day". And this is just the start.
At some point, as you drive them to their exam, you are likely
to be asked who the King of England was in
1237; think very carefully at this point, because your failure
to answer this question may well be held against you for the
rest of your life.
Stress, of course, is a serious problem for students, and as
parents we should try to be as tolerant and supportive as we
can at this difficult time. All of us can remember that tight
feeling in the stomach just before an exam starts and that sinking
sensation when we first turn the paper over.
Similarly we have probably all had that horrible experience when
you are revising and nothing seems to be going in, no matter
how hard you study. Faced with such pressure it is not surprising
that students become totally irrational around exam time. For
example, I remember getting particularly worried before my History
A-level about questions on the Renaissance, even though this
was not a period I had studied at school and I had no intention
of answering any questions on it in the exam.
Typically, students who are working under enormous stress will
have difficulty sleeping and will be rather short-tempered. They
may also have problems motivating themselves. The task ahead
of them may seem so enormous that they just do not know where
to start, so they give up. They may struggle to get out of bed,
for example, not because of laziness but because they know this
will mean they have to face the problem of revising. They are
often genuinely scared of starting the day.
What, then, can you do as a parent?
The main thing to remember is that the only thing that will matter
to your child at the moment is the next exam. Everything else
is an interruption or an irritation. On this basis, whatever
you try and do to help is almost inevitably going to be wrong.
Having said this, the mere fact that you are there is reassuring.
Given the amount of pressure on them at the moment they need
someone to shout at, to scream at or simply to ignore.
As a parent you have elected yourself as their punchbag for the
next few weeks, and the best thing you can do is to stand and
take it. You will undoubtedly end up in a far worse state than
your child by the time the exams are over, but at least you will
have earned your A grade in parenthood. Although it can be extremely
difficult to hold back when you see your children under pressure,
all you can really do at this time is to be supportive but not
intrusive. Try and give them the space and time to work. If you
do manage to catch your child off guard in a moment of unexpected
sanity, you may want to offer to help them with their work; this
will earn you further points of merit, but do not be surprised
if your offer is returned with a look that could freeze the River
Thames. Keep smiling, count to 10 and remember how nice they
were as a baby.
At some stage they will almost certainly come to you for comfort.
Even the most accomplished students find at least one paper is
more difficult than they thought and get upset over the way they
performed. In this situation it is up to you to reassure them
that however badly they think they have done, it is in fact extremely
difficult to assess your own standard in a particular exam. In
many cases, the reason that people think it went badly is because
they are only remembering the questions they missed out or got
wrong, and have lost sight of their overall performance. Year
after year I have seen students come out of an exam room almost
in tears, only to find in August
that they actually did very well.
Students should also remember that what counts in terms of their
result is how they do overall. Even if one paper has gone badly,
they can still achieve a reasonable grade if they can do better
on the other papers. Whatever happens, they should not give up
on a subject. If they keep fighting for every point on every
paper they may yet surprise themselves. In terms of revision,
your child should try to maintain a steady pace throughout the
exam period. Even if there seems a vast amount to do, they should
break it down into small sections and choose which areas are
the most
important and can be realistically covered in the time. "Realistic"
is a key word, because there is no point setting themselves too
much to do in too short a time. They will only rush through the
topics and get flustered. Better to build a little on whatever
knowledge they have already, than to try and do everything in
one night, get upset and confused and walk into the exam room
overtired.
Perhaps the most crucial piece of advice you can give them is
that ultimately there are more important things in life than
exams. Naturally you want them to do well, but you will not think
any less of them if these particular exams do not work out. And
whatever happens, however bad it might seem at the time, there
is always a solution. During a period of enormous stress, your
role is
to take some of the pressure off your children by letting them
know that you will help them no matter what. They are already
putting themselves under great pressure and you do not need to
add to it. This does not mean that exams are not important, but
do let them know there is a safety net if they happen to fall.
Whatever they want to go on to do - whether it be GNVQs, A-levels,
a degree or a career - a good result will obviously help, but
a bad result is not the end of the world. They can always retake
their exams, or find other types of qualifications which would
suit their strengths more successfully, or find some job or training
which will take them on to new challenges.
So at some point in the new few days, try and let your child
know that whatever grade they get, there are always opportunities
open to them, and that all you expect is that they do what they
can. (The best time may well be at breakfast, when they have
their mouth full and cannot easily answer back). As the days
go by, your blood pressure gets higher and your fingernails get
shorter, just remember that exams do not last forever. In only
a few weeks, it will all be over and you will be free to relax.
At least, until the results come out in August.
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