Exam Fever: Help Your Child Deal With Exam Stress

We all know that exams are a very stressful affair. As your children get older, they feel more of the pressure. This results in students focusing their energies on stress rather than studying. The good news is that you can help - here’s how:

1) For The Love Of Routine

Once you have the exam timetable in your hands, create a realistic schedule using tools such as Google Calendar and Asana, factoring in - tuitions, sports and play time for your child. By monitoring study time and rewarding with timely breaks, your child will be motivated to stick to the routine.

2) Figure Out What Works For Your Child

With a PC, textbooks are not your child’s only revision tool before exams. Videos on YouTube Education, worksheets from Education World, Google Scholar for reading up - the are many ways for your child to dig deeper into the subject matter. All your children have to do is figure out what works for them and continue doing it.

3) Help But Not Too Much

Be there for your children, especially for moral support but solve their problems after they’ve made a couple of attempts at solving the problem themselves. This will create an independent and can-do spirit which will help them not only now, but in the future, too.

4) Don’t Forget About Play Time

Many parents tend to think that play time is only for when exams are over. However, planned breaks for playing sports and PC games such as the ones on Sporcle help children concentrate better and longer as well since their minds are more relaxed. Just make sure the breaks are very small - half an hour or less so it’s easy for your child to get back to studying.

5) Avoid Over-thinking The Final Result

It’s very common practice to over-analyse the paper after the exam to guess how much marks your child will receive. This is counter-productive, as depending on the presumed result your child can get too overconfident or feel completely unmotivated for the next exam.

The biggest way to make sure your children are not overly stressed out about exams is to understand what keeps them going and making the most of the PC to keep them motivated.