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Helping Parents Help their Teens during exam time


 Some helpful advice

during exam time

We will be posting

some helpful hints and tips

to get you as parents and your teens

through the stress of exam time.
   
 
 Marie O'Halloran of the Irish Times (5th June 2012) writes...

HeadsUp, Rehab’s mental health project, has developed an exam survival guide for students, available at headsup.ie. Project manager Collette Ryan offers the following tips:
  • Eat well: Try to have three healthy meals a day and the occasional treat
  • Sleep well : Get a good night’s sleep to recharge your brain. Keep the area where you work separate from where you sleep
  • Relax: Take a break between revision sessions and make time to relax, do some exercise or listen to some music
  • Recognise stress: If things are getting on top of you, try leaving the room and doing something else for a while.
  • Be organised : Ensure you have everything you need for the exams – pens, pencils, calculator
  • After the exam: Recap but don’t torture yourself by going through each question with your friends
   
The Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute offers these nutrition tips for exam students
  • Don't skip meals, especially breakfast
  • At breakfast ensure you choose foods that are high in fibre and give your body a slow steady release of glucose - for example wholemeal bread of porridge
  • Avoid any kinds of weight-loss diets during this time as many of these are lacking in essential nutrients and can hit concentration
  • Take a healthy snack with you to eat either during or gefore the exam
  • Try to eat a good lunch, and avoid the local chipper. Fatty foods will leave you feeling full and sluggish
  • Don't overdo it on caffeine, but do have other drinks such as fruit juice, herbal tea and water.

 Here's some of the tips from Kim Bielenberg of the Irish Independent (16 May 2012)

"Be Patient and Tolerant"
During a time of stress, it is inevitable that at some point the student might blow a fuse. If they bite your head off, it may be a good idea to take a couple of deep breaths and tolerate some erratic behaviour. Emotions can easily be heightened, according to Andree Harpur (a Dublin based guidance counsellor), "At a time like this it is perhaps best not to react." It is a time to be forbearing.
 
Keep Secret Supplies

Pupils can become flustered by minor details and caught out by practicalities, such as a calcularotr not working. You can buy  equipement, so that if they say they haven't got something you can quickly come up with it.
 
Our friends at Care for the Family in the UK share this one...

The most important A is emotional health
Children are under immense pressure to achieve at school. On top of that they may be facing peer pressure, issues surrounding identity and self-worth and added pressures outside of school. Your support and acceptance of them is critical. Rob Parsons writes 'They can take an A-level in Geography when they are thirty, but when some boy breaks their heart at seventeen, or the panic attacks are getting worse, a cup of coffee with the mother or father they still have a relationship with, can't be postponed'.
 
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