Exam season parenting: What helps kids (and what backfires)

Exam season has a sound. Pages flipping at midnight. The hum of ceiling fans. Parents whispering over the phone like the house is under surveillance. Between revising schedules and pressure cookers, the whole house silently transforms its personality.

Examinations are not mere academic occurrences to children

They are effective weather systems. Moods swing. Confidence wobbles. Fear presents himself in bizarre disguises - annoyance, absence of reply, tears over trivial things. And between all this, parents do their best to help... and sometimes unintentionally cause it even to be worse.

How often do you ask: "Have you studied?"

The best things to do during exam season are not motivational talks. It's normalcy. A family, which continues to laugh, continue to eat together, continue to discuss other things other than marks give one strong message: you are bigger than this exam.

Children who are emotionally stable study better than emotionally hunted children.Faith without continual observation is another silent helper. A distinction exists between being available and being watchful. "Have you studied?" asked ten times a day does not stimulate effort, it produces weariness and obstinacy. The children perform better when confidence is relative, not conditional.One way to assist is to allow uneven days. All productive study days are not that productive.

Some days go flat. There are chapters which are uncooperative. Panic rises suddenly. When these moments are treated as failure by parents the fear is internalised by the children. Children are taught resilience when they are considered to be part of the process.Now what boomerangs-- often with the best intentions.Comparisons. "When I was your age..." Your cousin has done this already... These don't motivate. They isolate.

They make learning a race which the child has never wanted to be a part of.Then there is high drama about low moments. The fact that a child scores marginally lower in a mock test does not augur well for their future. However, when reactions are strongly felt; scolding, panic, lectures, children will no longer view exams as a challenge, but a menace to belonging.Another unspoken sabotage is transforming every discussion into “exam talk.”

Marks at breakfast. Syllabus at lunch. Careers at dinner. Children must have mental escapes, not emotional fences. The brains work better when they get to rest without the feeling of guilt.And the greatest backlash of them all, maybe, is to mix up pressure with care. Children are not fooled by the fact that worry is a product of love - they can also tell when this worry is transformed into a fear of failure in the sight of their loved ones.

That is a lot more weight than a textbook.The real coaches that come to assist in exams are the parents who are not loud. They form the emotional anchors. Those who make children remember to drink water, go outside, sleep anyway, laugh between, and breathe when everything feels urgent. Because exams are a measure of preparation. But parenting during exams measures something far subtler. It is whether a child feels supported, or evaluated, when it matters most.