Exam Season is Upon Us

By ALICE O’BRIEN Alice O’Brien Counselling, Newmarket

It’s that time of year again; the sun is out, the skies are blue, and the sound of neighbourhood children playing goes on long into the evening. Lawnmowers are running and weeds are being pulled. All very carefree and easy. Unless there are exams in your household. The atmosphere is less sunny in the home of the exam student, with Mothers - and the occasional Father - stressed, tense, and overly using gentle encouragement to study. It might not be researched based information, but it is a proven fact that parental stress of exams is far greater than that of the stress for the student themselves.

Study plans, curriculum’s, and teacher encouragement as well as many grinds can all help students to manage their stress. No such services are available for the mammies who rely on minimal information and a series of grunts.

So here is a few pieces of advice to get the parents though the exam season:

• Try to remain calm, especially when talking to your student. Children, even the older ones sense the stress and react with hostility at times. So, work on your stress techniques, get out for a walk or do some gardening.

• Keep focus on the here and now- try not the think too far ahead. Right now your household is only preparing for exam, there is no need to focus on points or results- that will all work out in time.

• If you need to feel useful then work on practical things. Make sure there is enough food in the fridge, meals are regular and nutritious and sleep patterns are maintained.

• Keep it real- do not allow catastrophic thinking to creep in. It is a set of exams, it signifies the end of schooling but it does not define them as a person. They will make you proud in many ways during there life that will have nothing to do with exams.

So, keep calm and carry on takes on a whole new meaning from now until the end of June.