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If your child is feeling anxious about their performance in something, talking about the equation
Happiness = Expectations – Reality
together might help them to see that their expectations can be very different to what reality brings them. Many things are simply not within our control, so helping anxious kids to see that can be really helpful.
You could also give them an example of a difficulty you encountered as a young person and what that was like for you. Normalising their struggles makes them feel less alone.
Disappointment and not getting what we want are part and parcel of being human, and children need practice in how to manage their hurt feelings, with us standing by their side. We are all human at the end of the day, and resilience comes from facing threats and being able to bounce back with the support of a loved one.
A case in point: Mary
A teenage client, Mary, was taking some important exams. Her father asked me whether he should be urging her to revise at every opportunity. I knew his daughter was quite stressed already and would almost certainly do herself justice in her exams. I was also aware that her school had a huge focus on achieving high marks. So this is what I said to him:
‘I think Mary is under a huge amount of pressure already. She really wants to do well in her exams and is doing the best that she can. Every time she goes into school, all she hears is “Exams, exams, exams,” and “You’ll never get another chance.”
‘What you can do at home to most nurture Mary is to feed her good brain food and to make sure she gets enough rest and takes breaks between periods of studying. You can also encourage her to do something she enjoys. Help her to get some exercise to refresh her brain, and agree on how much screen time she’s getting. Ask her if there’s anything more you can do to support her. Be there for her, but try not to add more pressure. Try just to get back to the basics of parenting: love, food, sleep, play.’
Mary’s father was relieved by my advice that he didn’t have to push his daughter along and that he could focus more on her practical and emotional needs. I also asked him to monitor whether she was experiencing a ‘normal’ amount of stress or whether her revision seemed to be tipping over into overload, in which case she had the option to come back to see me or for me to visit her at home for a cuppa.
You might be thinking this is all well and good if a child like Mary is focused enough to study, but it’s useful to consider what if a child was not so motivated to study, or if something else was going on? In such situations, what is a parent’s added pressure going to achieve? Young people have so much going on inside their heads already (e.g. ‘Will I get a job?’; ‘Will I manage on my own?’; ‘Will I make them proud?’) that going home should be their respite away from all the noise.
Mary ended up doing well enough in her exams that she could move on to the next level, but most importantly she maintained her mental health as she navigated this life challenge. This also provided another perfect ‘survive-and-thrive’ moment for her father, who gauged the difficulty, sought help and supported Mary with love and solidarity.
Exams don’t measure your true intelligence, creativity and future success, and are not a measure of you as a human being. They are part of the ‘game’ of life that you have to get through, and then you have your whole life to figure out what your passion is and to carve out your own path.43
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