Exam time is near and many students have started studying for their exams specially the ones who are appearing for the boards. However, some students find it hard to sit down and study. This is usually due to anxiety which comes from expectations. These expectations may be their own, their parents – that is you, and their teachers. Their mind keeps wandering when they sit down and they become restless. They would rather do something else than sit down to study. This is where you as a parent will have to step in and handle the situation. Parents are instrumental in helping children succeed. Here are some Tips for parents before exams.
Taking Care of Health
No exam is worth more than the child’s health. Both Physical and Mental Health should be taken care of.
Physical Health.
One of the Tips for parents before exams is to Make sure your child is getting enough physical activity. These are the years when your child grows not only mentally, but physically as well. Introduce your child to yoga, routine jogging or any physical sport of his choice. One hour of physical activity is a must for your child.
Mental Health.
Discussion about current affairs or even a progress report about his studies will help in your child making a point to remember his updates and study objectively. Be genuinely interested in the answers and remember the answers for future reference. Your child should not believe that your questions are just for the sake of asking, but he should know you are really interested.
In case you want to get involved as a family you can remember these Tips for parents before exams. You can, as a family, play mental puzzle games and you can push in the school syllabus as source material for the questions. Your child may take interest in his school work to get higher points in the games.
Teach your child mnemonics and memory techniques to increase their memory retention. If you do not know how then there are enough programs on the internet.
Performance
One of the Tips for parents before exams is about performance. Your child is always doing something competitive that may not be directly related to the exam. He may be taking part in sports, school shows, quiz competitions or elocutions. Whatever the activity encourage your child nurture his interest. Similarly do not criticize his choice of favourite subject in the curriculum.
Bad performance
Do not overly criticize your child’s bad performance and failures. Teach your child that failure is not the end of the road and rather defeat is just a stepping stone to excellence.
Motivating good performance.
Rewarding good performance with bribes and incentives is usually motivates a child to perform better. A pat on the back without delay along with encouraging words also goes a long way for your child to try to perform better.
Revising for the exam
Assist with revision
Parental support in examination time is necessary. Help you child chart out a time table where other important activities such as physical and mental exercises are included with proper rest and studies. The time table can be made according to the examination schedule.
Sit with your child and revise questions that would probably be asked in the papers. Make yourself his sounding board and keep tabs on your child’s strong and weak points.
Practice with Sample Papers – Download Here
Sitting Alone or in Groups
Some children learn better with groups and some are better off when they sit alone. Sometimes this characteristic may have to be recognized by you since hanging out with the group always seems attractive to children. In either case, you may have to allocate some space for your child to sit, where no one disturbs him when he studies. Parental support in examination by giving them physical and mental space is also helpful.
Group Studies
Group studies need to be supervised so that they don’t turn into fun time for children. Although they need breaks too. Here the group can be motivated to create games based on the lessons or you can brain storm some and suggest it to them. It may also happen that other parents would like the group to study in their own house sometimes, so you may allow the children to rotate the location of study. Any group should set one day a week to discuss difficulties at least for a certain amount of time. If not ask them to set one day for discussing difficulties where the child who knows or understands the subject better will help the weaker student.
Studying Alone
If your child likes to study alone you can buy him a study at home learning app which may help him clear doubts. In spite of all your help he may need to interact with classmates or other aspirants about doubts for which you may not have answers. Certain learning apps like Robomate+ do have a group interaction feature. If he feels the need to interact with his friends, set him up with a group and send him to the group on days the group has set for discussing difficulties.
When the Exams are Going On
Helping your child during exams also includes asking about the days’ paper, but not lingering on the doubts he may have about it. Motivate him to move on to the next paper since there is nothing he or you can do about a paper that is done and finished.
These are some things that you can do towards helping your child through exams. You can make your own tweaks to the suggestions and definitely do more or less of what has been suggested. Remember helping your child succeed is your responsibility, but do not be too imposing. The idea is to help them and ease their burden not to push them towards success.
Best of luck to your child and you!
