Hi Parents,
Mid-year examinations are around the corner for your child within a weeks time. You must be as excited and nervous as your child right now. We all understand your anxiousness to see your child do well for their studies, and in a “realistic & blunt” society like Singapore – to see them score high in Academic Results.
I have beeen talkig to parents for the last few years during my coaching career, and realized one thing that a huge percentage of parents have missed out – that is to Support their Child positively by providing a “safety net for failures”. Many times parents emphasized too much to the child that they have to study hard to get all the As, but never give the child any kind of support if there is “failures” along the way. Many students have also feedback to me regarding this stressful trend.
Parents seems to neglect the feelings of their child and neglect that they are still very young, and have a developing mind. They can crumble anytime if the stress level is too high, without parental or peer support. Just like how i advise my elder sister towards my nieces, i would like to suggest to parents to think before we speak to our child.
“Think before you speak” we also tell our children. But really how well are we taking our own advice? Very few of us would intentionally say things?that hurt our children’s feelingsm but too often the words and tonality that we used can confuse them and do a lot of emotional damage to these teenagers and teens.
This is going to be controversial and many parents would not like to hear but i would certainly like to bring out. Different child have different level of understanding things as well as reaching their stage of peak performance in learning. As such, i would suggest to parents to not compare their child’s result with what their siblings have achieved previously. Imagine if you have a boy taking his graduating GCE O Level Examinations and are sitting for the Mid-Year examination in a week time. He might been struggling to do well in school and have to sit down and listen as his parents brag about his sister’s straight A average results in GCE O Level results in previous year. Can you see the detrimental side of that speech? You child will feel the stress so much that he will lose all his interest to study hard for his examinations.
Some people just develop slower than others. Take myself for example, i did not do that well for my primary school education (aka my PSLE results) was just average. But when i went to Secondary school, i am very fortunate to meet few outstanding teachers that encourage me positively throughout the 4 years and i became one of top students for my Secondary School when GCE O Level results was announced. It was emphatically enjoyable! This could not happened if my parents were not suppotive of me to learn and develop at my own speed.
Just want to say that what we say and how we say it can do irreparable harm to our children’s self-esteem and image. It may be a perfectly harmless comment, but our children may take it as a major insult – most we wont know, cos they definitely wont tell us.
So parents, do encourage your child in a more positive way while you accompany him/her throughout these stressful period towards the preparation of their major examinations.
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