Exam season: Tips for Parents

Examinations are coming.
All our JC2s have started their prelims this week, the final school exams before the actual A levels. All other students will be starting their exams very soon as well. In this blog post for September, The Learners Council would like to provide our TLC parents with some simple tips on how to help your child through this stressful part of the year for them. They are as easy as A-B-C-D-E! 😊

#1: Affirm Your Child Positively. Being Intentional in Praise and Affirmation. You can affirm your children by being specific, using your words to empower our kids towards achieving greater success in their day-to-day studying and revision. This should not be generic, but purposeful and directed. You can choose to affirm your child by commenting on a particular strength, on a specific positive behavior or whenever you see improvement that they are making, no matter how small the improvement is.

#2: Be supportive! If you want to encourage them to study more or to highlight the progress that they're making, suggest a reward system based on very short-term goals. For example, after they do number of questions or achieve a competency in a certain area, they can treat themselves to good meal, an hour of television or games, going to the cinema at the week-end, going for a coffee with their friends, listening to music etc. If they're expected to tirelessly study without regular small pleasures along the way, it's an awfully tough task and their motivation and mental strength is bound to wane.

#3: Balanced Diet. As a parent, ensuring your child eats at regular timings is very important. Fruits such as blueberries, blackcurrants, and other berries are rich in vitamin C. These fruits will to help improve mental agility and immunity. Eat smaller, frequent meals. Small meals will provide a steady supply of energy to the exam fatigued brain. If you feed your child a large meal, then he/she will experience a dip in energy and also the alertness to study for hours on end. Also, water is extremely important. When we are thirty we get irritable, listless, and can’t concentrate. Now, these aren’t the virtues you would want in a student preparing for exams. Hence, it is important to stay hydrated. Ideally drinking 1.5 litres of water a day is recommended.

#4: Communicate! Talk to your child about exam nerves and realistic expectations gently encourage your daughter or son to talk, when ready, about exam nerves. How are they feeling? What pressure are they putting on themselves to deliver certain results? Emphasise that such feelings are completely normal and to be expected. Remind them of their hard work to date to build confidence and suggest they have a look at our exam stress tips for students.

#5: Create an Environment Conducive For Your Child to Study! Monitor noise levels. When your child is studying, phones, televisions and outside noises distract them and pull them out of their studies – even if it is coming from another room. When your child is studying, help by encouraging family and visitors to avoid unnecessary interruptions, such as loud video games or conversations. Reduce clutter and get organized. Stacks of worksheets and papers make studying appear as a daunting task. Help your child organize his or her learning materials and store them in a dedicated place such as a filing cabinet or paper folders – one for each subject. (of course if your child don’t mind you doing that for them :p)