Parents play one of the important roles in shaping the future of their children. Often, before exams, both children and their parents are in a delicate situation, The parents’ minds are on how well their children perform on their exams, and the children are worried about their grades as well.
Both parents and children go through anxiety during exams, so ideally, as a parent, you should act as a facilitator for your child before their exams by motivating and helping them prepare for their exams. However, there are things you should not do when preparing your child for exams such as:
1. Increase their fear
Exams already bring fear to students, so as a parent, you need to ensure there’s no communication gap between you and your child.
Children can easily pick up on their parents’ anxiety levels. So you must learn how to deal with your own stress before helping your child. Why? Pressurizing your child to score high marks in the exams could cause mental distress to them.
What then do you do? Maintain a calm and composed demeanour and explain to them why they need to perform excellently in the exams. And when you find out they can’t concentrate and study, find out the cause and develop strategies that will help your child focus.
You also have to reassure your child by constantly knowing how the preparations are going and also assisting them in areas they are struggling. This will motivate your child and make them confident that they will do well.
2. Comparing your child to others
Do not compare your child with other kids, even the well-intentioned comparisons could demotivate and dishearten them. Appreciate your child for the subjects they are the best at and try working on those subjects they are struggling in.
3. Not creating time for your child
The exam period can be stressful and often children don’t talk about it, causing them to bottle it up. And when you don’t create time to identify signs of distress it can result in poor performance. You have to spend quality time to understand their mood, constantly support and motivate your child for them to know you love and cherish them.
You know your child better than anyone else. It’s great you get involved in helping them prepare for exams, however, know where to draw the line. This will help create the foundation of self-reliance and self-motivation in your child to take on challenges independently.
However, you don’t need to carry this burden of preparing your child for exams alone. Our expert tutors at Gradely can help your child with all the revisions they need in any subject. Book a free academic counselling session here to get started!
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Eniola Makinde
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