Anxious times for parents

Anxiety meter is shooting sky high as only days are left for the declaration of entrance and CBSE board exam results

KOCHI: The results of Kerala Engineering, Agriculture and Medical (KEAM-2017) entrance examination besides CBSE Class X and XII will be out by May 25, 24 and June 2 respectively. Kerala HSE results are expected to be out tomorrow, while of those like JEE Mains and SSLC have already been published.
Tension is palpable at the homes of students who have appeared for these exams. Apparently, it is the parents who are the most anxious.

“I want my child to be successful. I want him to get a good job and for that he needs to do well in his studies. Get good marks,” said Graceamma, a parent.
While some parents are only worried about whether their wards are going to score very high marks or not, others pray for a decent score that will help their kids to get an admission to a good college.
“We are not financially well off. So my children need to study hard to get into good colleges and finally get a good job,”  said Theyamma Joseph, a parent.
Students too are keeping their fingers crossed. “I was often told to take up medicine. You need good grades in science for that. So whenever my marks dropped a bit, my parents went ballistic,” said a student.
In the race to achieve the best, parents often  become overbearing. They fail to understand that what their kids need is support and encouragement.
Rather than giving positive motivation and encouraging their children, parents often criticise and scold them. “It’s very irritating when parents keep bugging you to study. Even if there isn’t much to study,” said Amrutha, a student.

Psychiatrists caution parents from taking an overbearing attitude. At times the parents go berserk after getting performance updates of their wards from school authorities. “Parental pressure forces students to develop a sulky and arrogant attitude towards everything in life,” says C J John, psychiatrist.
Counsellors frequently get calls from worried parents seeking advice on improving their children’s grades.
“Parents with kids in Class VII and VIII too approach us very often expressing worry over their wards’ performance and lack of competence,” said Dr Joseph Sunny, director of Prayatna Centre for Child Development.  
“Today children are not a worried lot due to the lesser workload supplemented by concise syllabi,” said Meera Sudheer, family psychologist. Exams in the form of summative and formative assessments help reduce the burden. “The parents are too focused on the grades. Rather than appreciate good grades, they focus on the lower scores,” Meera added.    
They end up taking their children to counsellor and psychologists.

Tackling anxiety

For starters, what’s done is done. Accept that you have taken your exams and you cannot go back in time. You will get several other chances to prove yourself and succeed
Know your strengths and believe in them. You are bigger than any of the events happening in your life certainly bigger than something as mundane as an exam result
Although parents and close ones may shout at you, they care more about you than about your results. At the end of the day, YOU are the most important thing in their lives; not your marks

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com