Are you stifling them, giving them room to develop or just completely ignoring them? Our parenting skills should help you strike the right balance!
As parents it’s sometimes difficult to know where you stand with teenagers. As children they look up to you for everything, now they want you to drop them round the corner, so you won’t embarrass them in front of their friends! But they still need love and support and someone to listen to them.
Teens are under increasing pressure to perform well at examinations. Academic achievement is often a source of anxiety for parents and tension between parents and teens.  The age 16-17 is considered as a watershed. At this point difficulties and problems emerge for teens. At this point of time only, the teens require guidance from their parents and teachers. With the increasing academic competition, youth have been opting for hi-tech courses, which include Information Technology, management courses and medicine. All these course offer high value route for students on the basis of merit. This again requires for a student to prepare for a tough test for
admission into any one of these courses.
Here
surfaces the role of the
parents in motivating and guiding their wards to appear for
entrance tests, be it EAMCET, ICET or Lawcet, etc. The teens preparing to appear for these entrance tests are naturally tensed up. Some teenagers go off specific subjects. If your child is struggle, you will need to know exactly what it is he or she is struggling with.
If the trouble is with specific subject, it may be the teenagers has fallen out with the teacher or is having difficulties with a part of curriculum. It could be that he or she is just feeling “I just cannot do it.”
Psychologists tell you unless you know exactly what the problem is; you won’t know how to deal with it. Your teen may need your help. If you know the subject, that’s great. If you don’t there are lots of books available to help you get up to speed or simply some encouragement.
How to help your teen:
If you get on well with your child, talk a lot and still enjoy each other’s company, most of problems will be relatively easy to overcome
If, on the other hand, you cannot discuss anything contentious without it turning into an argument, you might not be the best person to tackle the problem. Ask for help from someone your child likes and trusts, such as teacher, relative or neighbour.
This is no time for pride, guilt or torture —— the quicker the problem is resolved, the sooner your teenager can get back to her studies and you can stop worrying.
Modern life is stressful:
Do not forget that modern life is stressful. A survey has thrown light on work-related stress that costs 13 million working days years. If all this talk of stress at work makes you recall wistfully “the best days of your life at school” you are mistaken. It could be so when you were in school, but not now.
A lifestyle survey has found that six out of 10 children in the age group 14-16 feel “stressed out.” Even most of the children in the age group of 4-6 — not normally considered a fraught period of one’s life —— say they occasionally feel “stressed.”
Mental resilience:
Encourage your child to have physical exercises even during these testing times. Physical activity like sports invigorates the children to perform better in the examinations.
You have to explain to your child that “we live in a culture that constantly bombards us with the claim that the trials and tribulations of everyday life are leaving emotional scarring.” You have to explain to your child that these statements are intended to encourage us to feel “stressed out” by inflating the threat perception.
Finally you have to talk to your child calmly without showing anxiety in you body language. You first have to assess your child’s aptitude before pushing him into one or other course. This is the first step a parent should take before subjecting your children for entrance test for any course.