Mid-year exams are upon us and it's not just children who risk cracking under the pressure. Exams can be nerve-racking for mothers, too. So how do you keep your cool and help your child sail through the next few weeks? Tessa Cunningham asked 'exams doctor' George Turnbull for advice.
Don't nag
If you're worried that you're the only one worrying, it's time to calm down. Take a deep breath and repeat: "Parents should be seen and not heard." Hopefully you will have helped your child to develop a good work ethic so have faith that it's paying off now.
Nagging this late in the day is likely to do more harm than good. At best, you risk denting their confidence. At worst, you may spark a heated argument which will send everyone's stress levels soaring. Instead of criticism, offer cups of tea and lashings of sympathy and support.
Time management
Check that your child is actually using time wisely and not getting bogged down by trying to do too much. It's all too common for students to disappear to their rooms for hours at a stretch, but only actually work for a few minutes. Some even end up tidying their rooms.
Suggest that your child works for 10 minutes and then relaxes for 10 minutes. Increase the study time gradually until they reach 40 minutes before taking time out.
Getting up 30 minutes earlier and cutting lunch breaks by 30 minutes gives an extra seven hours' studying time a week. However, two to three hours is the maximum time that most people can study before they stop absorbing things.
Peace and quiet
Ensure your child has a calm environment to study in. If necessary, bribe the rest of the family to keep noise down and distractions to a minimum. Get siblings to turn the music down. If your children want to listen to their own choice of music while they revise, that's fine.
University of California psychologists have found that listening to all forms of music can actually improve academic performances. In IQ tests, students scored higher marks after listening to a Mozart piano sonata than they did when they were tested after sitting in silence.
Treats and rewards
You may have spent the past 15 years policing the biscuit barrel, but it's time to loosen up. Even if it's between gritted teeth, stock up on chocolate, crisps and cola. Have a ready supply of your child's favourite comfort foods to break up the monotony of revision.
Ensure you build in treats over the next few weeks. Go out for a meal, a trip to the cinema, or a family night in with a DVD and popcorn. These breaks will help reduce stress and keep your child motivated.
But think carefully before offering bribes. Promising your child cash, a new bike or even a car if they do well can work, but it can also pile on the pressure. And are you still going to be offering rewards when your child's at university? It really might be time to let your children realise they need to do well for their own sakes.
The night before
Discourage your child from staying up late to cram. It really is too late for any new information to stick and it's much better to get a good night's sleep. Unwinding in front of the TV is fine, but computer games before bedtime can send the brain into overdrive. Make sure your child has a good breakfast the day of the exam. Foods high in complex carbohydrates, such as porridge, are great as they release energy slowly.
With tensions running high, it's easy to forget the most obvious things. If you're driving your child to school, ensure there is enough petrol in the car's tank. Make sure your cellphone is switched on so that you can be reached if there's a last-minute crisis.
Take a deep breath
Teaching your child a few relaxation techniques to stay calm in the exam room could make all the difference. Half of all undergraduates would improve their performance if they could control their anxiety.
Before beginning each exam, your child should close his eyes and reflect. Then he should breathe in slowly and exhale to relax the body and refocus any negative energy.
Walking to school can also be a good way to focus in peace and get exercise.
You may be desperate to hear every last detail about the exam, but bite your tongue and encourage your child to move on, unless he really is on cloud nine. Negative feelings will only damage his confidence.
Keep a clear head
Talking to other students in the hours before the exam can be disastrous. Nerves are at breaking point and students are liable to confuse themselves and each other.
You can help your child keep a clear head by advising him not to discuss the upcoming paper. There is always a handful of students who rush to start each paper - but students who rush rarely do as well as careful planners. Advise your child to read the paper through carefully and make rough notes, such as which formula to apply or arguments to use.
Not the end of the world
When you're in danger of losing your cool, try to remember that exams aren't the be-all and end-all. Many people, such as Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein, have done abysmally in exams and come out on top.
We naturally want our children to be the best, but learning how to cope with failure can actually be an important lesson for life.
- George Turnbull is the "exams doctor" for Ofqual - the website run by the exams ombudsbody.
Home-schooling now an option for many
Leendert van Oostrum of the Association for Home Schooling in South Africa says he has not heard of parents who home-school having to stop home schooling because of retrenchment.
But several fathers who lost their jobs are doing home-schooling while the mothers go off to work, he says.
Home-schooling, says Van Oostrum, works out cheaper and the cost depends on the products you buy. You can put together a home-schooling kit for as little as R600 a year per child, or you can buy a pre-packaged programme for anything from R3 000 to R20 000 per child. Research shows that children on the expensive packages do not necessarily perform better than those on the cheaper ones, however.
Van Oostrum says there are an estimated 120 000 families in South Africa who are home-schooling their children.
"Inquiries have increased this year as parents become concerned about the quality of education being offered by schools. Many people of all faiths want to school their children in an environment conducive to their own faith and philosophy. They are also concerned about the safety of their children on the way to and from school."
A lack of social contact with other children is a concern raised by many, but Van Oostrum says that research conducted in South Africa and in the US, where two million children are home schooled, has shown that home-schooled children are as well socialised as those who go to school. This is because they take part in as many extra-curricular activities as those who go to school.
Van Oostrum says none of his three children, aged 11, 15 and 20, has ever been to school.
For more information on home schooling in South Africa, see Home schoolingor phone Van Oostrum at 012 330 1337. - Lindsay Ord
Home-schooling gets a boost from hard times
When hard times reached the Schneider household in central Oregon, the longtime stay-at-home mom took action, getting a job at a sandwich shop to offset a drop in her husband's earnings. What she didn't do was also notable: she didn't stop home-schooling her three teenage children.
Colleen Schneider works evenings so she's home for her favoured morning teaching hours. The family scrimps and eats out less. But an inflexible 9-to-5 job that would force her to quit home-schooling was not an option.
"I would fight tooth and nail to home-school," said Schneider, 47, a devout Roman Catholic who wants to convey her values to her children. "I'm making it work because it's my absolute priority."
Other families across the country are making similar decisions: college-age children chipping in with their earnings, laid-off fathers sharing teaching duties, mothers taking part-time jobs - with the goal of continuing to home-school in the face of economic setbacks.
Before the recession, the ranks of home-school students had been growing by an estimated 8 percent annually; about 1,5-million.
While some families are giving up because of a stay-at-home parent's need to get a job, the recession overall will likely be a further boost to home-schooling, according to parents and educators interviewed.
"We're going to see continued growth," said Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Oregon. "The reasons parents home-educate are not passing, faddish things."
Christopher Klicka of Warrenton, Virginia, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defence Association and co-teacher along with his wife of seven homeschooled children, says hard times enhance home-schooling's appeal as private school tuition becomes unaffordable and some public schools contemplate cutbacks.
Bonds
"People are looking to home-schooling as an alternative more now in light of economic circumstances," he said, citing its low cost and potential for strengthening family bonds.
At Allendale Academy in Clearwater, Florida, which provides resources for home-schoolers, enrolment has risen 50% over the past two years to about 900 students as families desert private schools, says academy director Patricia Carter.
"Often one parent has been laid off," she said. "That makes private school tuition impossible, and they don't want to send their kids back to public school."
Her academy charges $65 per year to support students through 8th grade, $95 for high school students, compared to private school tuitions often running into many thousands of dollars per year.
For frugal families, home-schooling can be a good fit. Used academic material is available at low cost; free research resources are on tap on the Internet and at libraries.
"Home-schoolers are pretty self-reliant," said Judy Aron of West Hartford, Connecticut, who has home-schooled three children. "They'd rather cut back on other things ."
Michael Marcucci, of Middlebury, Connecticut, is president of the Connecticut home-school Network, which has about 1 500 member families.
"During difficult times, people tend to go back to basics," Marcucci said. "I know a family with five children - the father's been out of work 18 months and they're still home-schooling."
His own family, with three home-schooled children, got a taste of that challenge last year when Marcucci, a banker, was out of work for six months. His wife continued home-schooling, rather than seek a job, and he supplemented his job-hunting with teaching stints of his own.
"It was a chance to reconnect with family, to get to know your children in a different way," he said. "I was excited about the opportunity to teach Greek history, to help out with algebra."
Andrea Farrier, a mother of three girls from Kalona, Iowa, does double-duty - home-schooling her daughters and working part-time for her school district as a supervisory teacher for 23 other home-school families. - Sapa-AP