How to help your kid prepare for exams?

One of the stressful times is when your kids approach the end of their school year and need to prepare for their exams.

When parenting, I often prefer to incorporate the empowerment idea. When you, as a parent, do everything for your child like following up step by step and being there available each time your child needs you would affect their independency and self resilient skills.

So how do you help your child prepare for exams while also empowering them to take the lead and responsibility towards their school work? First assist your child with creating a study schedule. It can be very frustrating to reach one day before the exam and you and your child are panicking about the number of lessons to study in a very short period of time. Normally the study schedule can be customized according to your child’s capacity level and the number of lessons/chapters that can be covered in a day.

Second, your role in this process is a facilitator and coach role. Be aware when you catch yourself trying to do the studying for your child. Give the space and chance to your child to do the studying and understanding. When you find your kid is lost, confused or taking extra time to complete studying, then you may check what he or she is doing and how you can best help.

Third, with parenting, there comes the role of narrowing the focus and bringing back the attention. From personal experience with the many distractions we have, you find your child gets distracted easily either digitally (TVs, phones, tablets, laptops) or home distractions (food, chatting with siblings, doing their hair and nails or playing with other kids when we have visitors at home). In such a context, remember to put firm boundaries like no screens during studying, no kids/visitors and no regular breaks.

Keep away all the distractions like snacks, toys, comic books, phones and any other things you think can distract your child.

Fourth, use the reward system to encourage your child to complete the targeted studying for that particular day. You don’t need to spend lots of money to reward your child. Simple things like going out for a walk to the nearby playground, allowing some screentime or going out for a ride and have ice creams can be motivating acts that positively uplift and impact your child during the studying period.

At the end, with all the hacks and tips, still this time of the year can be very stressful for both the parents and kids. But remember it is the journey and experience rather than the outcome. When you focus only on the outcome, you become extra stressful, cautious, nervous and worried. But when you consider the process, the journey and experience of studying, you find it includes moments of laughter, humour, frustration and most of up and down feelings and memories. Hold those moments. Treasure and value them because when your child grows and leaves you, those are the memories that would remain in your heart and mind.