Kids at the age of seven appear to be doing their exams at
the moment.
It appears that they are being put under lots of pressure.
Parents are reporting to me that their kids are experiencing tantrums,
sleepless nights, crying...in other words negative emotions and the behavioural
results of these, all resulting from the pressure the kids are being put under.
Negative emotions in this instance will include fear (caused
by the unknown - the emotion behind the moods of anxiety and panic, and the
fatigue of the mind and body we call stress), and anger (caused by personal
rules being broken - the emotion behind the moods of frustration, temper and
rage). These are two of the seven base emotions. (All other emotions are a
'blend' of these seven).
These negative basic emotions have the physiological
reactions of tensing our bodies up, making them work harder (increasing the
metabolic rate), and they focus the attention on the source of threat. If
attention is focused on the source of threat, it is very hard to divert that
attention elsewhere.
As such, if your child is experiencing these emotions they
will not be performing well in exams. They won’t be able to pay attention to
recalling the information required, nor to carry out any mental processes in
order to pass the exams.
Positive emotions have the physiological effect of relaxing
the body and allowing focus to be directed where wanted. Positive emotions are
behind the state of ‘flow’ (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) which is the best
friend of top performance.
My advice, as a gross generalisation, is to help your child
out. Make the thought of taking exams fun. Don’t place even any mention on
failure. Keep everything in the positive. Give them the ‘future memory’ of
easily effortlessly being able to do everything they need to do in the exam and
it ‘going well’ for them.
Should they have any negative thoughts a classical technique
to use is to get them to imagine tying that negative thought to a helium
balloon, letting it go, and watching as it drifts up to the left and behind
them further and further until it is completely gone. That’s a great technique
even for adults!
When the exam results come through just ‘roll with it’ and
keep it in the positive. Try not to place importance upon it. Sure, if they
haven’t done well, ask them what they could have done better, so they can ‘correct
their mistakes’ giving them a better reference experience for the future.
Concentrate on getting it better in the future. If they’ve done well congratulate
them yet not too much, and again work with them to make it better still in the
future. Try and make it fun though!
It is worth remembering that everything in life is learning.
Your child’s experiences will provide them with reference experiences, which
will guide them for how to act in the future. If you want them to do well in
exams, and be happy doing them, then hopefully the advice in this post will
help.
Please let me know what you think!
Here's a picture of little Joe, a client (and friend) of mine from a couple of years ago. Here he is learning how to stand on a Swiss ball. Physically he is learning proprioception, balance, muscle control, strength and more. Psychologically he is learning how to develop a skill. I utilised a sense of 'fun' during the process. He quickly learnt to stand on the ball, and even to walk around on it like he was something out of Cirque de Soleil. Top lad! ;)
