Sometimes, even if we study hard and think that we prepared well, the result didn’t go as well as we hoped. Anyone who went through this would be disappointed and need a lot of support and parents are the ones who can support our teens most. However, during their down time, how to support them is a big question. Here, we share 5 ways that you may feel you can use.
- Accept their emotions.
Teens have different ways to handle their not good exam results. Some may express their disappointment directly, like they don’t want to talk with anyone, or are quite sensitive when hearing any word connected with school or exams. Some may pretend to be positive and even become more talkative than usual. What should we do? Tell them ‘it’s okay when they’re crying’? Tell them ‘I know you feel sad inside’? No, No, No. We only need to accept their emotions. During this period, parents can “passively” follow our teens. If they want to talk, then let’s have some fun topics; If they want to hang out alone, don’t need to chase or follow them, just ask when they will come back home as usual as before; If they want to stay alone in their own room and don’t want any interaction between you, then don’t knock that door. They’ll come around eventually, and when they do, we can tell some bit of our exams.
- Take your teens for a break
Before we have any serious conversation about this exam, don’t forget it’s the end of a term or phase. Good or not? Both deserve to have a small celebration and take a break. Then there are lots of ways to take a break. You can go on a holiday to other countries like Spain, Greece, Japan or wherever your family is all interested to visit, or you can just go for a movie or a big dinner in a nice restaurant you always go to. Just remember, your teens already revise for a long time, going to bed early–doing all the right things to prepare.
- Praise for their efforts
Okay, now when we reach a time that our teens are willing to talk about this exam with us. Let’s start with parsing their efforts. Our teens may worry that not-well exam results showed that they didn’t make an effort and sometimes parents may also think this as well. And then they may express this feeling to their children during conversation which is super bad. We all know things not always go where we want and we need to be the mature one in this family. We need to highlight that we saw their effort and we really appreciate that effort they made. Before we go to next step, let them clearly know that we already know what they did!
- Build their confidence
Teens know that they already study hard but no good result. Then sitting an exam that doesn’t go well can really knock back their confidence. While they’re down, avoid comparing them to their friends or siblings. They may ask you why I can’t do well even though I already revise a lot? What’s wrong with myself? That’s a tricky question, and we need to find what they did well during this exam. You definitely can find out their strength, and you can also catch this time to find out which part may go wrong.
- Ask them whether they need support
Ater all of these steps, we can say, ‘Hey, Dear, do you need any support? Please let us know what you want us to do.’ Perhaps they have a learning gap in a subject and need extra help from a teacher or specialist tutor. Or, it could be a case of honing their exam skills. Open to your children and make sure that they know that they can rely on you when they indeed need support and whatever support would be.
Children always have unlimited possibilities, and our duties are helping them to achieve.