In these stressful days, counsellors tell parents to keep calm and show support

PUNE: Teachers and school counsellors have insisted that students must not taken on new topics to study now. They must sleep well and avoid junk food and the heat. Half an hour of exercise every day will help them, they advised.
Students appearing for the standard X board examinations in the state will take the examination from Thursday.

While the students will be jittery, parents need to stay calm, educationists and counsellors said. “Students are already anxious and on exam days, the anxiety levels go up. Parents must act as buffers, infuse positive reinforcement, provide moral support and be an emotional anchor for the students,” Amruta Prabhu, principal of The HDFC School, said.

Prabhu said parents who have taken leave from office to be around the children for the board exam must be of help rather than hover around the students constantly asking them questions, giving instructions or watching them study.

“It is one of the exams in life. They will face more exams and more pressure. If parents are composed, it will help the students stay calm. Don’t compare your student with any other child, don’t ask how he or she wrote the exam, don’t lecture them about the repercussions of a bad result. Give them healthy food, help them sleep well and focus on their studies,” she added.

Raji Nair, parent of an SSC student, said WhatsApp groups keep everybody connected and the subsequent pressure is tremendous. “The moment your child is in standard X, everybody expresses their concern about the exam. More parents in the group is like a battlefield where the highest scorer supposedly wins,” she added.

Nair said the pressure is intense but this anxiety must not be passed on to children. “There always was and will be pressure for the board exams. The best way is to ensure that our edginess does not upset the child during the exam and we don’t pass on our stress to them,” she added.