High self-esteem is key to examination success
End of term exams are around the corner. Usually, school sickbays fill up towards exams. What causes sickness during exams?
End of term exams are around the corner. Usually, school sickbays fill up towards exams. What causes sickness during exams?
Whereas exams can be a potential stressor, there is more to it than meets the eye. Your child’s perception of the examinations, coupled with the standards you have set, are some of the major contributing factors.
Self-esteem is a key personality element that plays a leading role in making your child fail or succeed.
Did you know that your brain has a unique mechanism of appraising your ability to handle tasks at hand? When you are faced with a challenging task, you psychologically appraise yourself to see whether you have the resources and ability to handle it.
If your mind convinces you that you are not competent to handle the task, the information stains your brain, gives you a negative attitude and lowers your performance level. This appraisal depends on your self-esteem.
Research shows that high self-esteem is an essential component of excellence and you must help your child to nurture it. To many parents, it is high marks that matter above all and failure to perform is a disaster.
Parents’ threats cause extreme anxiety and fear that in turn has a negative impact on performance. When pressure intensifies, children often use ‘sickness’ to send a message that they cannot contain it any longer.
A girl recently revealed to me that she ‘felt sick’ during exams as a way of evading the parents’ wrath. Any mark below 50% would earn her strokes of the cane. Since she feared the canes, she resorted to ‘falling sick’ to enable her miss papers she wasn’t sure of passing. For three consecutive terms, her report card had blank spaces in subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Literature and Chemistry as a strategy of escaping the canes. You might be using threats with an intention of making your child improve, but even well intentioned acts can be counterproductive.
To a child who is an underachiever, examination is an ‘evil’ that can only be tolerated. This is because failure is associated with shame, punishment and condemnation from parents.
The fear of examination is often a symptom of a deeper problem. It is an indicator of fear for failure that brings shame and punishment from unsympathetic parents.
Where you have gone wrong. Have you set too high standards? Do you focus on the weaknesses and fail to compliment the child for improvements? Do you attach a high value to marks? Ideal education is more than high marks or clean grades on a report card. Scoring a low mark might not mean the child hasn’t learnt or that the child is failure.
Bear in mind that self-esteem is the foundation of your child’s future success. Do not sacrifice it at the altar of marks.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug
077-631032
Whereas exams can be a potential stressor, there is more to it than meets the eye. Your child’s perception of the examinations, coupled with the standards you have set, are some of the major contributing factors.
Self-esteem is a key personality element that plays a leading role in making your child fail or succeed.
Did you know that your brain has a unique mechanism of appraising your ability to handle tasks at hand? When you are faced with a challenging task, you psychologically appraise yourself to see whether you have the resources and ability to handle it.
If your mind convinces you that you are not competent to handle the task, the information stains your brain, gives you a negative attitude and lowers your performance level. This appraisal depends on your self-esteem.
Research shows that high self-esteem is an essential component of excellence and you must help your child to nurture it. To many parents, it is high marks that matter above all and failure to perform is a disaster.
Parents’ threats cause extreme anxiety and fear that in turn has a negative impact on performance. When pressure intensifies, children often use ‘sickness’ to send a message that they cannot contain it any longer.
A girl recently revealed to me that she ‘felt sick’ during exams as a way of evading the parents’ wrath. Any mark below 50% would earn her strokes of the cane. Since she feared the canes, she resorted to ‘falling sick’ to enable her miss papers she wasn’t sure of passing. For three consecutive terms, her report card had blank spaces in subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Literature and Chemistry as a strategy of escaping the canes. You might be using threats with an intention of making your child improve, but even well intentioned acts can be counterproductive.
To a child who is an underachiever, examination is an ‘evil’ that can only be tolerated. This is because failure is associated with shame, punishment and condemnation from parents.
The fear of examination is often a symptom of a deeper problem. It is an indicator of fear for failure that brings shame and punishment from unsympathetic parents.
Where you have gone wrong. Have you set too high standards? Do you focus on the weaknesses and fail to compliment the child for improvements? Do you attach a high value to marks? Ideal education is more than high marks or clean grades on a report card. Scoring a low mark might not mean the child hasn’t learnt or that the child is failure.
Bear in mind that self-esteem is the foundation of your child’s future success. Do not sacrifice it at the altar of marks.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug
077-631032