Exam time is a dreadful time for both parents and children. The exam fever as it is called, has turned out to be more than just a fever. Anxiety during exams squeezes the juice out of the child. It takes out the excitement from learning and the aliveness in living. Dr Montessori referred to these children who have lost the zest, as dead butterflies pinned on a board. It’s time to approach exams in a more conscious way.
There are many factors that are playing a role in making exams dreadful. Let’s inquire into these:
- Parental conditioning: We are conditioned to believe that the outcome in this exam determines the child’s worth. Why? Because, if you look deeply, we place our own worth in accomplishments, outcomes and achievements.
- Taking it personally: Somehow we feel that our child doing well or not doing well, determines the quality of our parenting. We feel that our child excelling in something is in someway related to and validating our parenting. While our parenting can aide or not aide the natural unfolding, it certainly is not causing the unfolding. Bubbles surface no matter what and so do our children. The surfacing may not be as defined by us.
- Belief systems: Depending on our own upbringing, we believe that doing well in school equals doing well in life. What is doing well in life? Is it a prescribed list with all boxes ticked, or is it the waking up to the aliveness to who the child truly is?
- Fear: We parents are experts in playing out worst case scenarios in our heads. Our child not getting a 100 % means that they will end up homeless and broke. We act as if the child’s future life is dependent on the child doing very well in their 1st, 5th or 10th grade. When is the child supposed to fail and learn if they have to excel at the first step they take? Think about it. There is something called a growth curve. If one started anything being great at it, where is the curve? When can they fail, make mistakes and learn?
- Parental worth: We attach our own worth to the achievements of our children. If they fail, that means we failed. We are living our dreams through our children. All that we couldn’t or didn’t fulfil in our own childhood, we want to achieve now through our children. We have got to remind ourselves that the child is not an extension of us. The child is a sovereign spirit with a journey of their own .
How can we parents help out children approach exams consciously?
- Look deeply into the above 5 points and clear up your own misconceptions of doing well. How much importance do you give to grades vs learning ? What is having a good life? What does success mean to you? Establish your own relationship with exams and their outcomes.
- Align with your child’s present moment. What are your child’s challenges? How can you show up consciously, so that the child can sail through these challenges consciously. Be there with them not against them. See them for who they truly are without our conditioning of how they should be.
- Look at exams and their role in the child’s learning consciously. Exams are a feedback mechanism to show what we have learnt and what we need to spend more time on, to learn more. It’s not to show that we know everything right now right here. Use the outcome of the exams to evaluate what is learnt and what needs more learning. Punishing or rewarding the outcome does not serve the purpose of learning.
- Help your child set realistic goals. Work with the child in front of you, not with the fantasy child in your head. It’s very important to set goals and not have expectations. In setting goals your child is a part of it, the goal begins from where the child is at and moves towards growth( whatever growth may mean to this child). Expectations have nothing to do with the involvement of the child and does not meet the child where they are at in this moment and nor does it take into account this child’s pace of growth.
- Look at exams as a process not an end in itself. Waking up last minute, when the exam is almost here and yelling at the child to study, is not helpful. Be a part of the process. Help your child from the get go, partner with them from the beginning to make study schedules, short term goals, self evaluation to see if these goals are actualised, if not support them to actualise it to the best of their capacities. It’s important to let goals arise from the child and not forced upon them. Giving false authority does not help. Be willing to be ok with a plan different from the one in your head. You can suggest, discuss but ultimately the goals need to be set by the child.
- Appreciate effort. We parents are so hung up on the grades and desired outcome that we forget to see the effort that the child has put. Excavate this and highlight the effort. The child is already feeling miserable if they have not got the grades they wanted. Your punishing and yelling will only make them feel worse. They are already doubting their capacity. It is then that we need to show them – what they did right, what worked and what did not. Brainstorm ways you can work on things that did not go well. Uplift instead of push down
- Be here now. Talking about the past failures, times wasted, should have’s are of no use after the exam. ‘Now what ?’ should be the approach after an exam and ‘ what else ‘ should be the approach before the exam.
- Connect before you correct. Hold space for the child – an environment that intimidates criticizes and ridicules is not a healthy environment to learn. Children thrive in understanding, compassion and love.
- Get your priorities right. What’s more important to us parents? The end – or the means to the end? Grades at any cost or connection at any cost?
- Prefrontal cortex wisdom – Connect to the universal wisdom through your prefrontal cortex. Look at the bigger picture. Show up with compassion and understanding, work with the child and help the child give it their best. Once the outcome is out, accept and act anew. Empower your child to keep learning for the joy of learning – not just for the grades. This happens when we appreciate and celebrate effort and not outcomes.
- High-stake exams – Some exams are taken to get into schools like IIT’s, medical colleges, colleges of preferred choice . These are all high-stake exams – which means the child gets in or does not. These create added anxieties in children and parents to make it. While I understand the advantages of getting into such schools, I urge you to look at the damage in making the child feel like that’s the only possibility. Yes, the child gives it better than their best but outcomes are not under our control only action is. When we parents give so much regard to just one school and increase the stake of an exam and not discussing other possibilities, we are not empowering our children to handle an undesired outcome. If the outcome is undesired, the child feels so let down and dejected that they cannot see any other way except the one highlighted by their parents. Parent pleasing disconnects the child from seeing beyond. This is the time we need to relook at the high stakes we are placing on a particular school, profession etc. While it’s great to motivate and inspire, keep in mind the interests of the child, probabilities and possibilities so that whatever the outcome, the child does not lose love for themselves, trust in themselves and connection with their inner guidance. While disappointment can energize, dejection pulls one down.
- Self regulate and co- regulate – If we parents do not have a self regulation routine, we cannot expect our children to have one. Only when we are self regulated can we help our children regulate themselves. This self regulation like everything else is a process. We can get connected to our breath, or nature or our senses to come to the here and now. Taking a periodic pause, entering the present moment and self inquiry can all help us open the door to our safe sanctuary within us . A place we can retreat to when the going gets tough. When we have found our safe sanctuary we can hold space and guide our children as they go about finding the safe sanctuary within themselves. They can retreat to this place as the anchor to the here and now, even as anxieties of exams grip them. Taking time from the busy schedule of studying to pause and connect to the sanctuary in them will help children and parents approach exams consciously.
It is important for us parents to look deeply into these places where we put the high stakes and question why? Look into the egoic identities with these high stake challenges we put our children through and determine what’s more important – the achievement of the high stake or the well being of the child.
There’s a college, a profession, a path for every child. While we parents can aide the fulfilment of our child’s unique potential, we cannot force things to happen or throw temper tantrums when they don’t. The path of acceptance, perseverance and reflection will take our children on a path they are meant to be. The illusion that we parents are making things happen for our children – needs to be looked into. Dr Montessori says that we can only help the divine work in progress, the unfolding is happening in its own unique way. Go along with the natural unfolding rather that going against the tide and forcing unfolding to happen our way. Parents being on their own path of evolution is a prerequisite to show up in ways that nurture their children and help connect them with who they truly are. Get on the conscious path of awareness- inquiry – discovery and acting anew. Awaken to your own thoughts, behaviours and actions. See clearly – so that you can guide your children clearly.
Here are few messages we need to pass on to our children through our interactions with them.
- Failing an exam is not the end of the world
- A grade does not determine the worth of a child
- Not getting into a particular college does not reduce the worth of the child,
- Recognizing the child’s worth no matter what, is of utmost priority.
Be there with your children through thick and thin. Celebrate their wins and support their losses. Don’t give an exam the power, to take away your beautiful connection with, who your child truly is.
Exam time is not just a time when your child’s knowledge is tested , it’s also a time to test the parental evolution.
