HOW TO HANDLE EXAM STRESS
Examinations. This is a word which can leave children swaying in different feelings. As the exam season starts nearing, it brings with it time of worries, anxiety, nervousness, fear and stress for children. The higher the studies, the bigger the stress.
With the ever increasing competition in studies and rising expectations of excellence from teachers, parents and relatives, friends and society, every child is directly or indirectly forced to excel in exams. Parents are not ready to accept below 99 percent, and if it appears, they find it very hard to digest, burdening the young ones with exam stress.
All these things contribute towards building an environment of pressure around children. Children are mostly not expressive of this pressure, but we as parents can clearly find it dominating over their face.
Though, a certain amount of such stress acts as a motivator and energizing, higher levels can be troublesome. In these times, support, care and guidance are the foremost needs of children. Parents, though they understand, it becomes difficult for them to handle this situation due to their own work pressure and other commitments. We all know subconsciously what needs to be done. However, bring that thought to our conscious mind, prioritize and execute well is all it takes for the parents to help their children deal with this monster.
Here are a few tips which can help parents and children to work together, manage stress and enthusiastically pass the examination period.
Proactive Preparation: Preparation of exams, if done over time rather than in rush hour, can avoid stress build up. Parents need to help children from early years by making them used to habits like making notes, using flip charts, markers, whiteboarding, notes review etc. This helps the children understand the subject more effectively rather than just learning. It also makes them prepared as they progress with time, and reduce the intensity of learning to be a bit high above normal before exams, rather than being abruptly higher and build stress.
Relax in between sittings: Understand your children’s concentration span, and have them take breaks from longer sittings and relax for sometime. Studying for extended hours than normal is an added activity which the body is not used to. It can disturb the body clock, making the children sleepy or dizzy during on hours. Monitor your kids and subtly ask them to relax, take a nap or do whatever, that makes them relieve the exam stress.
Sleep right: Ensure your children get a decent sleep. Children may fall prey to insomnia due to exam stress, which may prove negative during exam times. If you think your child is having difficulty sleeping, show your love, affection care and cuddle; and do get engaged in their studies by being a coach. How? Understand separately what topics they are prepared with, brainstorm and ask them questions related to the same topics without judgment or evaluation. They will answer right, and will feel more confident and relieved from one side. This would help them concentrate more on the subjects or topics they are running back at.
Eat well: Keep the dining balanced. Ensure they have their meals on time, without fail! Change the menu frequently. Kids love food, and eating variety would make them feel satiated. Supplement their diet with extra fruits & salad in day time and hot milk while sleeping. This ensures they get their daily supplement which their body needs for extra efforts. Keep them well hydrated. You may choose to keep water bottles next to them so that they keep on sipping as they need.
There are many other things which can be done to manage the examination time stress in kids I could elaborate. There are disturbances in daily life which are unavoidable and difficult to deal with, but we as parents need to set our priorities right; and execute without a second thought. I am saying so because as other things in life are inevitable for us, exam stress too is unavoidable for our kids, and it is natural.
The above pointers are mediocre activities which do not take extensive efforts, but an active presence of mind and a bit of innovation in problem solving. If done, it becomes easy for both the children and parents to navigate through the exam time and keep kids safe from exam stress and associated disorders.
Let me know what do you think about the above pointers. Do comment what do you think are other ways exam stress can be managed. I would be keen to hear your ideas and experiences which can be of a colossal use for everyone.
For any other ideas or pointers over this topic, you can reach out to me at deep@augmentedutech.com
Important:
Along with learning how to deal with exam stress, it is important to teach your kids how to manage their time within the examination hall to avoid that “in-moment” pressure. Read our simplest and most effective tips over How To Manage Your Time Within Examination Hall During Exams.
