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SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
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guyanatimesgy.com
Foundation
10 mistakes parents make when reacting to results By Sean Coughlan
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t’s a tense moment for families when exam results arrive. Emotions are running high. It’s not just the students who are under pressure. How should parents avoid saying the wrong thing?
Not realising whatever you say is going to be wrong
Always being in the wrong is part of the job description of being a teenager’s parent. But when the envelope is opened you need to show the right expression to match the results. Otherwise you face a terrible, emergency, gear-crunching change of direction. Just when you’ve put on your best sympathy-at-a-funeral face, you realise that you’re meant to be celebrating. Those results are... absolutely. We’re proud of you. Never doubted you for a second. Punch the air.
humour. Not about these exams, no way. If you want to destroy my life just tell me to my face.
“Why would I be disappointed? This is fantastic news, isn’t it?”
Keep that smile more frozen than fish fingers in a polar bear’s deep freeze. You have to show you’re happy. Those grades look impressive, but don’t make the error of expecting unbridled joy. For today’s high-pressure teenagers, anything that isn’t per-
a constellation of grade A*s shining in the night sky. This has been winding everyone up since nursery school. Also to be avoided are such morale-boosters as: “Congratulations, you’ve nearly done as well as that eight-year-old in Hong Kong.”
“Of course, these days they more or less give away A-levels.”
You might secretly think this, but keep such careless talk to yourself.
Changing your Facebook status to “gutted”
You know the dangerous territory we’re entering. A Facebook mother armed with an iPad and something chilled, makes a stray comment about exam results not going entirely to plan. There’s a throwaway remark about the Titanic. It’s only intended to be a bit ironic, a little joke between parents. Teenagers might laugh a lot but don’t mistake this for a sense of
“We still love you anyway. It isn’t that bad, considering”
There are some well-intentioned phrases that are about as supportive as a trap door. File them away with “Not the end of the world”, “It could have been worse”, and “To be honest, I wasn’t really ever sure about that university, even though you’ve already bought the sweatshirt”. You may as well start hand-stitching them a banner with “Loser” written on it.
CONTINUED FROM FRIDAY
Richard Branson didn’t go to university
Folksy optimism works in animated movies about puppies with special powers, not in a world where teenagers’ bad news spreads like a plague from text to Tweet to social networking. Avoid life-affirming success-from-failure stories, especially when someone has just unexpectedly found themselves in a failure-from-success story.
Not really meaning it
This is a tough one to get around. You’ve delivered what you thought was a little gem of supportive parenting. It was so sincere that it more or less came with its own orchestra. It’s so empathetic that parts of your head have dissolved into soft focus. But you hit the crash barriers at speed, because you’re told: “You don’t really mean it. You’re just saying it. If you think it’s a disaster, just say it.”
seen the price of tickets? I know we said that if you revised really hard and got good results we’d be really pleased. But let’s not get carried away. There’s always room for improvement, look at your cousin...
Why having big families is good for you (and cheaper)
fect is a disaster. They may as well scrap their career plans right now. The world has ended. Look at all those blonde triplets jumping on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. They’ve got an A* in everything. Why haven’t I? Keep smiling.
“Almost as good as your cousin.”
Don’t even think about it. The most inflammatory parental response is a comparison to the perfect cousin or sibling, so clever that their results illuminate the entire extended family like
This generation can only take the exams put in front of them and they’ve worked harder than we ever did. Mind you, come to mention it, until 1987, there was a limit on the amount of top grades, so in fact... Stop, there’s no going back.
“If you were really pleased you would pay for my festival ticket.”
Difficult one. Of course, we’re pleased about the results. Not so much about the blackmail. And have you
Looking slightly wistful when you’re meant to sound delighted
You know it’s really good news. Everything has gone well. All the hard work has been worthwhile. But you can’t help but feel that twinge of parental nostalgia. And the “twinge” is a lump in the throat the size of a supertanker in a canal. Five minutes ago, they were bringing home drawings from primary school and now they’re getting exam results at the very end of all their school years. Raise a glass and say nothing. (BBC News)
BY COLIN BRAZIER Chua’s views on parenting have been heeded by millions. But I also wanted to listen to those anonymous child-care professionals who will, often sotto voce, argue that British children are changing, and not for the better. The kindergarten nanny, for instance, who told me of the game she plays spotting which of her new intake has a brother or sister (she claimed a 90 per cent success rate). To some only-children and their parents, that will sound the ancient hollow note of animus towards those deemed somehow selfish in not – where possible – having another. In truth, that bigotry has fewer adherents nowadays. People understand that being a one-off parent is a natal no-brainer, a logical response to the economic challenges of parenthood. What, hitherto, they have failed to see, is that modern social science is rewriting the way we see siblings and, yes, it may be worth paying in the short term to benefit in the long term. Either way, the Cost of the Sibling is nothing like as high as some would have you believe. And what of my own children? How do they feel, providing the material for a sibling laboratory? The eldest, just 14, has already announced that, should she have children, their numbers will be limited. My wife and I started out similarly sceptical about fecundity. But, having struggled to have a second child, it was hard to shake the mindset that a pregnancy was anything other than a blessing. As our family expanded, necessitating bigger cars and fewer holidays, we took to heart the views attributed to Elizabeth Longford, the historian and Roman Catholic mother-of-eight. Asked why so many, she said that since her children were so different, curiosity drove her to find the limits of genetic diversity. We find that a big family has unleashed the inner anthropologist in us, too. Some friends flinch at the managed chaos of our home, but my wife and I love the abundance of human interaction. We are the directors of our own daily soap opera. (The Telegraph)