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Are adolescents psychologically (or your children) ready facing the challenge of yearly national exam?

2018-10-13

As national exam is approaching so as the increase of excitement and at the same time anxiety among children facing the gate to their future life goal and career challenge. This is the important period that parents need to relax and let their children face this challenge calmly and with best of their attention, memory and concentration. 

Among many factors, which I have come across living in china for many years, is the stress of facing national exam for all adolescents. Days and nights of sleeplessness, stress, anxiety, worry about the outcome of exam, worry about giving face to their family, challenging other classmates in this mission, being accepted in certain university, facing leaving parents to other cities in future to attend university, and so many more… 

As I have mentioned in my writings before its quite important that overall and specially during this period parents remind their children that no matter the outcome of this exam they are loved, accepted unconditionally and you are proud of their effort.


Now lets talk a little about how children can get prepared for this exam. Generally is the best practice for any exam is that student should have planned way before how to have an effective and consistent habit of studying to prepare for exam. One of the effective way is to spend period of time a day to study not only what learned today at school but also one or two lessons ahead for next two lessons. In this case students are always ahead at least two lessons and have time to review and digest what they have learned earlier. This habit will allow enough time for student before exam to review, memorize more effectively and not having sleepless night and anxiety just 

More effective tips for children and their parents getting ready for national exam :


-Have a regular plan for study and often review the material studied earlier
-Take break on regular basis (we have two kinds of memory, short term and long term.  When we study any material in order to be remembered later, need time for material just read which is placed in short term memory to be saved in our old term memory. For this to happen we need to rest for sometimes so after reading material to get chance these information to be transferred to old memory. If there is not enough rest then the material read earlier won’t be saved in older memory and what we read earlier would easily be forgotten.) 
-Review old exam samples and test yourself on the exam items
-As group study or with classmate often exam yourself for what have studied earlier
-get some simple exercise for half an hour to an hour  a day or few times a week (exercise produce endorphin in our brain which is a relaxing agent and in result improve attention/concentration and memory )
-Get enough sleep (good sleep can improve memory, happiness and improve our overall health, i.e. catching less cold )
-Have nutritious food
-Eat less food contain sugar since can make person hyper
-Plan study ahead of time
-Do daily 15 to 20 minutes relaxation training to deal with exam anxiety and improve your memory and concentration (please see below a simple way to relax). It would be better to do it after you wake up and before going to sleep.

Simple relaxation training:
1-	Find your comfortable place in your home then as sitting or lying down do the following relaxation training. Silent your phone or mobile.
2-	If you prefer can put some relaxing music as you are doing the relaxation exercise
3-	Close your eyes gently and listen to your breathing 
4-	Don't let any noise around you distract you
5-	Imagine in your mind to be in your favorite quiet place and allow yourself to see the scenery vividly.
6-	Repeat twice to yourself in your mind (not out loud) the following:
-my mind is quiet, there is lots of time
-my whole body is calm and relaxed

then remain relaxed for period of time as long as you want and continue listening to your breathing and picture your quiet place in your mind.
When ready to open your eyes, first count slowly from 1-10 then open your eyes gently then feel refreshed, calm and relaxed all over 


-Children are already under lot of pressure to succeed and satisfying their parents. All parents need to do is to give them emotional support and gently help as they need for their weakness in certain subject. If needed get them an understanding extra tutor or teacher to help them with their weak subject even at this stage.

-If there is sense of trust between child and parents, then parents do not need to stand behind them and make them even more nervous in finishing their study.


-Do not give impression to child that your love is conditional and depends on the grade he would make at exam. This is very cruel parenting and most result is child’s anxiety, affecting negatively on his concentration/attention, and increase the chance for failure.

-  Do not place your unfinished dreams upon child by pressuring him study the field you like and ignore their will and choice. I have and had many adult patients whom expressed their hate for such selfish parenting expectation.



Finally, not every child has the same learning ability. If child has weakness in several subjects and extra teaching does not help, he might be suffering from learning disability or problem with attention, concentration, memory, anxiety (chronic anxiety or just exam anxiety), sadness, etc. For these problems psychologist can help him by doing full psychological assessment and then help the child increasing his attention, concentration and happiness without using any medicine. If you sense your child can ‘t control his anxiety which affects his study or memory, don’t sleep well or other emotional difficulties, then you need to seek psychological treatment for to help.

If you need my help, you can contact……..

Good luck on national exam with a great result 

Dr.Mike