How to Help Your Children Preparing for the Exam
Final exams can be very stressful for students and their parents.
Often this affects the results not in the best way and sometimes even undermines the physical and mental health of the child. We are going to talk about how to prevent this and how to gently motivate a child to prepare for exams.
What to talk about before final exams?
Children and their parents are in a rather difficult situation: they need to prepare specially for the exam. It is not enough just to study well in a subject: one must be able to complete assignments, master the procedure, and withstand the negative emotional background against which conversations about the exam often unfold.
But in the programs of school disciplines, there are no separate hours for preparing for exams, so students have to cope with all this on their own. Fortunately, there are special services that can assist students. For example, they can help with your exam essay. A writer will write an essay sample that will be useful while creating your own paper.
Schoolchildren know that the upcoming burden – studying in the classroom, preparing for the exam, coping with emotions – is often unbearable. That is why a dialogue with parents is needed: in a dialogue, you can turn a problem into a task. The problem is “too much,” “tired,” “scary,” “I won’t pass,” and “get away from me with your exam.” A task is a specific action: what to undertake, what to do right now, what and how to start doing regularly, and what will help.
Here is what is important to discuss in a conversation with a child.
Guarantee help. Just do not turn this promise into a notation or a verbose lecture. Say clearly: “Son/daughter, I will help. Tell me what you need. You can complain to me; we can find together what manuals and websites you need. We’ll find a place to pass trial exams several times, practice.”
If the child has problems with writing tasks, say that you will pay for a tutor or help from a cheap essay writing service. Also, you can ask a teacher to advise doing some assignments and reading manuals.
In addition, listen to your child. Maybe today, they will tell you, “I don’t need anything!” Or they will only complain about how scary, difficult everything is. You should learn to listen to your child.
Acknowledge feelings. This reduces their intensity and allows a child to move from worries to action.
When a child shows some kind of their worries, your task is to make it clear that you understand their feeling and not to try to remove or remake them. For example, you should not tell your child something like this, “Come on, stop it,” “If you would study properly – there would be nothing to be afraid of,” or “Well, don’t cry.”
Therefore, if a child complains, “This preparation for the exam got me!”, You can answer, “I can imagine. How do you cope with such a load?” Then listen to the child’s complaints.
Formulate a specific task for the near future. This is called decomposition: breaking up a large distant task into fragments that a child can start doing right away.
Let’s take, for example, a student who has a little more than six months before the exam, and their knowledge is weak. They, most likely, will shirk the preparation because it is too much, long, and difficult, and it seems that it is not soon. They need help: set small tasks for the coming days. For example, “There will definitely be tasks of this type, there are a lot of them on this site, and there is an analysis of them. Come on, sit down, look, and follow the pattern. During all week, every day, do two or three such tasks – you will learn.”
In addition to the fact that it is more convenient to work with a big goal, it is also a good remedy for anxiety: returning from a terrible incomprehensible future closer to the present always reduces anxiety. This works for adults too.
Give practical advice. Find out from teachers what types of tasks are required to be included in the exam, what solution algorithms exist, and what mistakes are made most often – and share this information with your child. Perhaps the teacher will be able to advise specific manuals, Internet resources, and video analysis of tasks – all this will be useful for preparation.
Tell a child how to cope with anxiety, overcome reluctance, how to set realistic goals for themselves, and how to relax.
Stay a parent. At home, the child does not need another overwrought teacher – try to give the child, first of all, love, care, support, respite, and adult common sense.
What should not be said to the child?
You can use the image of a suitcase: let’s imagine that you are packing a suitcase for a child for the exam. They will put in this suitcase what you tell them, and they will pull it out during the exam. If you tell your child that they will not pass the exam, the suitcase will be filled with helplessness, guilt, and anxiety. The task of parents is to fill it with common sense, love, and confidence.