HEALTH PLUS:Meeting the conflicting needs of your child sitting the Leaving Certificate is a delicate balancing act, writes MARIE MURRAY
PARENTS CAN be uncertain about how much or how little study pressure to exert when their children are in the final months before their Leaving Certificate. They want to be kind, supportive, respectful, facilitative and encouraging of their children.
They want to be realistic about their strengths, abilities, academic needs and potential.
They don’t want to pressurise beyond the student’s apparent intellectual capacity or psychological strength. But they are equally fearful of leaving students to their own devices to the extent that if the exams go wrong they may be blamed and asked later: “Why didn’t you make me study?”
In the delicate balances between pressure, neglect and support, many parents say that they are unsure of what to do to be helpful, when such help is needed, how to intervene effectively, when not to interfere in case this undermines the student’s confidence and just how long they should leave students without intervening if no apparent study is taking place?
Often parents don’t know if the positive assurances made by their offspring to their queries are genuine or simply made to pacify them that all is under control.
They are unsure how to judge expression of great optimism or pessimism. Nor do they know if angry retorts are made to their questions, if that is because the student is coping well and resents the question or that the student is not managing at all and parents’ questions are uncovering that?
That is a real worry for parents who are aware that anxiety and depression can express themselves in irritability, anger and withdrawal from help.
And while there are many families who seem to get through the exam process with ease, there are many parents who fear raising the topic of study and many students who are equally ambivalent about whether they want their parents’ involvement or whether they want to be left alone.
Interviews with a number of Leaving Cert students about what they want from their parents reveal interesting results.
They want the respect and responsibility of managing their own study, for structuring, time managing and keeping a balance between work and social life. They want to succeed by their own efforts.
They want the dignity of decision-making. But they also say that they want help if needed, on their terms, when they request it, although they would also like parents to intuit when they are in difficulty!
Such a conflicting dual request for autonomy and dependence is almost impossible for parents to negotiate so how can parents respond appropriately?
In this complex communication issue there are some principles that seem to work for parents and students. The first is that questions asked of students should be answerable. There is no real answer to, “How’s the study going?” but students can usually say if there are specific subjects they feel okay about and certain subjects that are worrying them and offers of a grind for those they are worried about are usually appreciated.
With regard to parental expectations, students say that high parental expectations are almost as stressful as low expectations. Most students are anxious about disappointing their parents.
They also agree that their expressions of anger, of irritability or of complete nonchalance about study can be ways of hiding their distress.
But all students welcome expressions of sympathy and support from parents and say that they love practical interventions in the form of nice meals, a range of snacks when they take a break, acknowledgement that they must be tired or fed-up, the occasional generous financial offering and hassle and noise levels by younger siblings being kept down at home.
Finally, students do not want false reassurances from parents. This upsets them most. For example, if they tell their parents that they are worried about the Leaving Cert they feel cut off, silenced and dismissed if parents say: “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Instead they say that they need their parents to listen to them, to ask them why they are worried, how long they have been worried, if there are specific aspects of the exam that are of concern, what their biggest fear is, who or what could help and how parents could support them.
It is supportive if parents listen, acknowledge and discuss the issues with them.
mmurray@irishtimes.com
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of student counselling services in UCD and author of Surviving the Leaving Cert: Points for Parents published by Veritas