POLOKWANE – Keeping this in mind, Review spoke to a local school psychologist to hear what she thinks parents should avoid while their children are writing exams.
“It will have been a long time since most parents sat their school exams, so it’s easy to forget just how stressful a time it was. Keeping this in mind, it is difficult for parents to sometimes do the right thing. “They may sometimes even add to the stress learners may have without knowing it,” Anne van der Merwe, local psychologist, explained.
Some of the main things parents do wrong:
1. Remember to encourage, not nag
Children may need some encouragement to study hard because they may not always understand the importance. But there are positive and negative ways to motivate children.
Try to avoid nagging. Help them work out a revision plan, breaking the work down into bite-sized chunks, and then help them stick to it. But ultimately they also need to take some responsibility as they will be the one in the exam room.
2. Help learners be less stressed
A child’s personality will affect how they respond to stress. Some may become over anxious, moody or irritable, whereas others withdraw, procrastinate or pretend the stressful event isn’t happening at all.
Try to help them find some perspective. Find things to do and say to help them relieve some of their stress.
3. Remember to be there as much as you can
During this stressful time, learners are likely to need more support than usual. Listening to their issues will help them know that they have your support.
4. Having unrealistic expectations
Let your children know you expect them to work hard and do their best. Parents sometimes go overboard and have expectations that even they themselves will not be able to reach. Keep any expectations within the learner’s means.
5. Taking over
Parents need to show interest but it is important they do not take over for the learner.
Check in occasionally to offer sympathy, support and a snack or drink, but don’t impose your ideas on the learner. Every person does something in a different way.
6. Using a negative situation as motivation
You think that telling your child they’ll be disappointed with their marks or won’t get into varsity if they don’t study harder will provide a much-needed jump-start. In reality, parents simply planted the thought of failure in a learner’s brain.
7. Comparing them with others
Learners already know their sibling/cousin/parent got eight distinctions, and reminding them is a sure-fire way to make them feel unable to achieve the same and have a low self-esteem.
8. Telling them to ‘make you proud’
Fear of disappointing their parents is a major cause of exam stress for teenagers. You run the risk of making your children think if anything goes wrong during the exam or they don’t get top marks in all their subjects, you won’t be proud of them.
Van der Merwe urged parents to take interest in their children and have them evaluated if they feel there may be a study problem. She also encouraged parents to speak to teachers regularly as there may be underlying issues they may know about and this may effect the child’s achievement in school.
