Testing Times: Ahead of the upcoming Boards, how parents can help kids expel exam fear

(Published on DailyO)

The mood is keyed up for Boards. Although I don’t have a Board candidate at home burning the midnight oil, as a tutor, with every class that I spend with my 12th grader, I am becoming increasingly aware of what those of his ilk are going through in this week before the exams — I am also receiving news about children overwhelmed by the situation fleeing their homes, and l become jittery myself.

My empathy for these young students is giving me a vicarious experience of their world. Fear, anxiety, self-doubt and social expectations are arching over their hours of hard work and disrupting their well-being. It is the usual story. One which we bear testimony to year after year. Millions of students and parents pass through this phase. As if it is par for the course, part of life to struggle and suffer when exams are close.

It is not easy to be a student in these times — neither to be a parent. Adolescent behavior and parental control are usually on a collision course and the result can often be disastrous. So what can be done to defuse it? It is hard, say parents. It is horrendous, say students. But somewhere, there has to be a resolution to this recurring ordeal. We need to take control of this terror that seizes children and the apprehension that makes parents become monstrously overbearing in the eyes of their wards.

In our kids’ stress and strain, there are simple things parents can do to help rather than harm. (Photo: PTI)

This is what I said to my pupil yesterday when he said that he was afraid.

“Don’t give power to your fear. Give power to your hard work.”

As parents and teachers, we have a responsibility to bring assurance to their mindscape when they cower under imagined fear. It is a pity that after months of slogging, a majority still lurches in a negative range, dwelling chiefly on all the adverse probabilities that can nullify their efforts.

When we know that our children have used every ounce of their intelligence, put in every hour possible and are all set to give their best shot at the tests, we must pull out all the stops to uproot the fear of failure that grips them unconsciously and makes their exam date analogous to the Ides of March.

Let not exams invalidate the inner power of our children. They need to know exams are one measure of ability, but not all. (Photo: PTI)

Many parents that I meet aver that they put no pressure on their children. The pressure is often self-created, imported from outside home, inspired by peers and society. Point taken — but are we doing enough to weed out the pressure and talk them out of it?

There are simple things we can do. Give them brain points for the work they are doing, appreciate their seriousness in studies, convince them that their willingness to work is their greatest virtue which will take them far afield. But, for that, we as parents and teachers must first be sure about the value of hard work that will bring long-term results, than to give credit to just numbers and percentages.

Their fear, as we know, is not of failure as in ‘flunking’. They fear not measuring up to our expectations.

They panic about not being able to deliver when they are called up. They worry that they will not make it in the rough and tumble of this world.

Our children don’t deserve to live in this fright, not after giving all they have to their studies.

These Boards, let not exams intimidate and invalidate the kids’ inner power. (Photo: Facebook)

This exam season, let us help our children look their fear in the eye. Let them know that fear in a limited measure has a place in their settings — but only as a stimulus. A dot of fear is good to keep them spurred and out of complacency. But fear cannot be given power to paralyze their capabilities and reduce them to nervous wrecks.

Hammer in the fact that if anything, fear can only take away from all the hard work they have put in and fog up their mind. Encourage them to hop over the fence and perform from a space of positivity, inspired by a sense of self-worth and confidence. If they have prepared well, then they have nothing to be afraid of.

They have the strength of their intelligence and resolve to bank on — and the influence of a universe that will favour them. It is from this wellspring of optimism that they should launch their future, and not from an imagined region of diffidence and fear. Let’s give them a new perspective to build their lives on.

Let not exams intimidate them and invalidate their inner power. Let not exams bully them into believing that they aren’t good enough.

They are competent and primed for success as long as they are determined and driven. This belief is what we must implant in them when they fret. We are our kids’ bolsters. Let us not become their partners in fright. Or for that matter, in their flight.

Prayer

How to beat the self-doubt blues

(Published on DailyO)

‘You are very talented,’ someone texted me recently in response to a random piece I had written and shared on Facebook.

‘Thank you,’ I texted back, pinning a smiley with it self-consciously, and wondering what their words ‘you are very talented’ actually meant or implied.

I got a rapid sense that the person was being nice and kind to me – like several others before them have been. I am an average writer, better than many perhaps, but clearly not a patch on several outstanding authors out there. It’s hard to beat that dismal thought, no matter how many miles you have charted in the sea and how many islands you have seen.

Self-doubt is a constant with even the most successful people in the world.

‘Am I good enough?’ is an inescapable thought that can plague even the best pianists and painters. This self-deprecating itch that begins at the back of the ear slowly grows and gnaws at our creative innards.

Many motivational speakers mention their own brush with diffidence and depression, caused by a sense of inadequacy. They are people who have been there, seen that and eventually overcame the condition to become life coaches.

‘Am I good enough?’ is an inescapable thought that can plague even the best pianists and painters. (Photo: Facebook)

Adding to the woe is our tendency to compare our work and progress with that of others, especially those we look up to and say, “Chuck it. I can never be that good.’ And if we are not alert and don’t fortify ourselves against this, it will dry up the very wellspring of all the good things that we create.

But here’s the redeeming truth. No matter how we evaluate ourselves – and what we think of our capabilities – we have had our own highpoints in life. And that’s what will salvage us in moments of acute self-doubt and low self-esteem.

Scour your past, dredge deep and find those pearls of accomplishment. It can be anything. From raising fine children to winning a culinary contest to completing a marathon to getting the ‘best employee’ certificate to clearing that driving test to writing random poems to even losing a few pounds and getting back in shape.

It would help to remember that none of these happened on its own. You invested time, energy and commitment into it, and if you don’t pat yourself on the back for it, who will?

Scour your past, dredge deep and you will find those pearls of accomplishment. (Photo: Facebook)

I have realised that as much as this excites and inspires us, external approval from people around is just that. External.

Our real anchor lies deep inside. It would help to remind ourselves that if we could do it once so well, we are good to do it again. It’s in our own little accomplishments that the inspiration we sorely need in times of low self-esteem rests.

Having said that, let not the triumphs be mere passing moments that you reminisce over now and then, and sigh over as a thing of the past. Record and document them. Make pictures, videos, souvenirs and anything that will help you relive the memory and fill you with a sense of worth and fulfillment. Draw your strength and motivation from these self-made tokens of appreciation.

Every single feat is a validation of your capabilities.

Put them up prominently, as props, in places that you will see. Take time to pause, look at them whenever the mood is flagging, and tell yourself, ‘I did this.’

As JK Rowling famously said, ‘There is a little magic in all of us’. (Photo: Facebook)

No, it is not bragging. It is an effective way to knock you back into the realisation that ‘you are good enough.’ It is not arrogance. It’s a technique to silence your malevolent inner voice that deflates your spirit time and again.

Taking a cue from this deliberation, I framed the cover pictures of my three books a month ago. Along with them, I displayed the best of my paintings and created my own ‘walls of fame’ in our living room. Now, every time self-doubt threatens to cripple my creativity or I suspect a compliment to be a nicety, I take a moment to consider how these books and paintings came to be.

And I smile, not with conceit, but with a buoyant sense of self-assurance that makes me believe that if I put my mind to it, I can even write a magnum opus.

They remind me every time that ‘there is a little magic in all of us’ as JK Rowling famously said. Magic that we fail to see in our scramble to measure up to others’ standards.

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