Richard Hogan: How parents and students can survive Junior and Leaving Cert exam stress
Hogan Moya Picture: Richard Nolan
Today a record 136,160 students will sit their Leaving Certificate or Junior Certificate exam.
That’s a lot of families currently living with young adults who are in the middle of State exams. I remember my own home, many years ago, as I sat the Junior Cert (not a breeze of worry) and my brother (slightly more conscientious) was doing the Leaving Cert. How my mother survived!
Many families are experiencing this today. That can place a considerable amount of pressure on parents as they try to manage their child’s emotions and energy levels while they go through these next difficult two weeks. I often meet parents at this time of year who describe the tension in the family home. They delineate living with a diva or an emotionally unpredictable young adult. They often describe it as, ‘walking on eggshells’.
It can be very challenging trying to support an exam-stressed child. So, here are a few tips:
Sleep is vitally important for the brain to function at full capacity. We need the brain to be rested to take information, code into memory, and recall it later in the exam. But here is the rub: telling your child this information is more than likely going to cause them to become stressed about sleep, and the moment that happens, sleep will disappear.
When I’m working with a student who struggles with sleep when they are stressed, I explain to them how sports stars such as Nadal or Bolt sleep before a huge game or an Olympic event. I tell them that they come to realise that they can function and perform at a very high level even when they haven’t slept well. Usain Bolt, tells the story about his first big race, he was so stressed he put his shoes on the wrong feet. But he still won, and realised that even with such stress and shoes on the wrong feet he could win. So, he never really stressed again before big races. Nadal also talks about how he won a Wimbledon final after a poor night’s sleep.
So, your child understanding that they don’t have to sleep well to do well in the exam will relax them about sleep and ironically allow them to get a good night’s sleep. I often have students tell me, ‘I was counting all night, if I fell asleep now I’d get 5 hours, 4 hours, 3 hours...’ — this is such a detrimental mindset to get caught in, and one that makes sleeping impossible. So, get them to relax about sleep.
Understanding that there is good and bad stress is important as your child does exams. Of course, they will be stressed going into the exam. That’s normal. Bad stress is when it impacts on memory and causes them to have a blank in the exam. When this happens, cortisol (stress hormone) is released and memory is impacted. This is not a good situation in an exam.
But I always tell students that if this happens the key is not to get further stressed by worrying you have forgotten everything but moving on to the next question. This will settle you down and memory will return. The more they understand that getting stressed is a normal part of exam performance, the more they will be relaxed in the exam.
It’s when they feel like they are hit by something they were not expecting that provokes an episode of bad stress.
Another key tip around stress, is being consistent in their routine this time of year. Try not to change anything too drastically: they should study in the same room and sleep in the same bed and go through a predictable routine for these two weeks. They know a lot more than they think, and they will get to their destination whether that is in a straight line or a more circuitous route.
Keeping everything in a normal routine helps reduce stress.
Help your child to avoid the post-mortem that students get caught in. It will not change the outcome of the result but potentially disrupt momentum and study for the next day's exam. I have watched as students get derailed by feelings that they didn’t perform well in a particular exam, only to find they achieved better than they had initially hoped.
Help your child to stay focused on what is important — the next exam.
Make sure the fridge is stocked with healthy food and also a treat that they might like after an exam. The healthier the food the better the energy. But it is also nice to acknowledge the exam by having a little treat after. We all need a release after a tough exam, and a nice treat or food they love would be a nice way to honour that experience.
Also, students are hungry all the time, it will keep stress at bay when they open the fridge and see all the food they like there.
There is no doubt about it: the next two weeks will be tough. You have to watch your expectations of your young adult as they go through the gruelling process we all went through on our journey to adulthood. Allow for them to be a little less emotionally regulated than usual, and soon it will all be over and you’ll only be worrying about the group holiday they’re all heading off on. Ah parenting!