The Exam time is coming and for parents, it is the time when we face tremendous stress, exam stress. As parents, we are worried for our children and want them to prepare well and perform well in the exam.
To cope with balance in routine and extra load of exam preparation is important as your role as a parent is not to give extra burden to your child but to help them to cope with exam stress and teach them how to handle tough situations.
Parents often face a range of challenges during their child’s exam time, as they try to support their child while managing their responsibilities.
Common Problem that Parents Face Exam Stress with Tips
1. Increased Stress Levels
• Parental Anxiety: Many parents feel anxious about their child’s performance. They want their child to do their best and perform to reach the top rank. Sometimes they are projecting their own fears onto the child.
• Pressure to Motivate: Balancing encouragement without adding unnecessary pressure can be difficult. This creates more pressure on parents than children as they have to balance motivation and pressure
• Tips to deal with —First, we have to encourage open communication with our children, which gives you an idea of what the child is going through. This way, you can guide them throughout the process and encourage them without putting too much pressure on yourself.
Setting realistic expectations for your child is crucial for your health and also for your child. Just encourage your children and praise their efforts over the result will build self-esteem in your children.
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2. Time Management
• Supporting Study Schedules: Parents may need to adjust their schedules to ensure the child has an advantageous environment for studying.
• Balancing Work and Support: Managing household or professional duties while being available for their child can be challenging.
It needs lots of energy and time management. Take time to evaluate your priorities and sort them out into categories like urgent and important. This will give you the idea which helps you manage your tasks.
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3. Emotional Tensions
• Handling Mood Swings: Children may become irritable, stressed, or resistant to studying, and parents must navigate these emotions delicately. Try to understand their underlying emotions without being triggered or taking their behavior personally. Sometimes it becomes tough in this situation to navigate own emotions and to regulate them.
• Conflict Over Expectations: Differences in expectations between parents and children can lead to disagreements. The conflicts create more fluctuation between children and parents. As a result, it affects the mental health of both parents and children.
• How to deal- Learn different techniques for regulating emotions. You can start to write journaling which helps you to know your triggers.
Remember parents’ emotional and mental stats reflect on children which can be seen in their behavior and that is the biggest reason to learn about regulating emotions and co-regulation of Emotions.
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4. Providing Academic Support
• Lack of Knowledge: Parents might struggle to help with subjects they are not familiar with. And that is normal, we are not the perfect all-rounder. So, without feeling guilty find the solution for it.
• Access to Resources: Ensuring that the child has the necessary materials, such as notes, practice papers, or tutoring, can be demanding.
You can ask for help from teachers and tutors if you find yourself stuck.
5. Managing Distractions
• Screen Time: Limiting distractions like social media, video games, or television is often a battle. These days managing screen time is like a huge task as children also want some time to refresh their minds.
• Creating a Quiet Environment: Ensuring the home environment is conducive to study, especially in noisy households, can be challenging.
How to deal- You can set screen time limits according to schedule. You can add some outdoor time to make them refresh after a long and tiring day.
Make sure you set the study time according to the quiet hours to avoid unnecessary distractions like early in the morning or in the afternoon. You can also try nighttime for night owl children.
Before starting their time to study to avoid distraction you must find out the circadian rhythm of your child.
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6. Health and Well-being
• Ensuring Proper Nutrition: Preparing healthy meals and snacks that boost energy and focus requires planning. Plan their meal that contains essential nutrition like protein, fiber, healthy fat, carbs, and other micronutrients.
• Sleep Patterns: Parents may struggle to enforce regular sleep schedules when children stay late to study.
• Tip to Deal- Make a healthy meal chart in advance which helps you to plan the meal in advance. Nowadays you can also get help from online apps which gives you the luxury of home delivery and you can save your time and energy.
Your health and well-being are important so take care of your meal and sleep as well as your child’s.
7. Financial Strain
• Cost of Preparation: Expenses for tutoring, study materials, or extra classes can add up during exam time.
• Opportunity Costs: Some parents may take time off work to support their child, affecting income.
• Tips- These expenses are unavoidable so if you plan these expenses in advance it will help you. I believe that these are not expenses, they are investments in our children.
8. Social Pressure
• Comparisons: Dealing with comparisons from other parents about their children’s performance adds to the stress. We all somewhere dealing with this comparison throughout our parenting journey.
• Community Expectations: Cultural or societal expectations can heighten the stakes for parents.
• How to deal– Be positive and realistic in this situation as there is always someone who is one step ahead and this is the reality. We should focus on the learning and efforts our child takes in their academic scale.
Unrealistic expectations only put pressure on our children and in return give us more dissatisfaction. It will increase the risk of stress and depression and in return, you will find yourself alone.
9. Overcoming Fears
• Fear of Failure: Parents may fear their child’s failure will reflect poorly on them. Parents’ mindset always affects their children. This will increase self-doubt in children and it affects their personality and lowers their self-esteem too.
• Unrealistic Goals: Some parents struggle with setting realistic expectations based on the child’s abilities. Every child is unique and has unique abilities. There are lots of examples of successful people who achieve that success through their uniqueness instead of their academic rank.
• How to deal- Constant reminder of the realistic approach toward the expectation. Know your child and their uniqueness and focus on that ability. Failure is the mind game, it is our attitude towards our actions. Don’t make the failure greater than the happiness and life.
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10. Maintaining a Balance
• Over-involvement vs. Independence: Striking a balance between helping and letting the child take responsibility for their studies is tricky. Be mindful and realistic while dealing with your child. Don’t be a pushy parent or neglect one.
• Emotional Stability: Parents need to remain calm and composed to be a stable support system. Your child has not learned to be emotionally regulated and you have to understand this. Don’t take their behavior personally, there are underneath feelings they are having and they don’t know how to execute those difficult emotions.
Conclusion Tips to Overcome These Problems:
• Practice open communication and encourage the child without pressuring them.
• Collaborate with the child to create a study plan that includes breaks and leisure time.
• Focus on the child’s effort and learning rather than just results.
• Seek help from teachers, tutors, or counselors if needed.
• Take care of your own mental health to better support your child.
• Avoid unrealistic expectations and comparison