Dear Secondary Parents,

Welcome to October!

Hopefully your child is through the adjustment of starting school and comfortably into the flow of the day-to-day student expectations. As we finish up our first quarter of school at MEF IS, all of our thoughts now turn to our upcoming Exam Week (26 Oct - 1 Nov). I know many of you are caught in a genuine parenting dilemma - “How do I help my child do well on exams without putting added pressure on them?” Caught between wanting your child to do well on exams and wanting to limit the amount of stress they feel, what can you do? Here are a couple of ideas:

Help with Studying

• Limit electronics – Studies show that the use of electronic devices for game playing or social networking while studying has a substantial negative effect on exam performance. Encourage healthier study breaks such as a few minutes of exercise or time for a healthy snack.
• Help them create and monitor a plan – Help them create a study schedule that outlines what they will be studying and what materials they will need to study each subject. Ask them what exams they are most concerned about and which exams will come first. Help them use the answers to create a study schedule. Eventually, they will be able to set this up and maintain it on their own.
• Provide structure – Provide a Where, When and How structure for your child to be able to study. It’s important that everyone in the family respects and encourages the following of the plan. You can also assure that the needed resources and materials are available in the right areas so they don’t lose time searching for pencils, books and highlighters or arguing over whose turn it is on the computer.

The Internet is full of YouTube videos and articles on this subject. I picked this one to share because it is fairly straightforward and short, and I recognize your time is precious also.

https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/study-skills-for-middle-school-and-beyond/

Help with Stress

• Stress your child’s intrinsic importance – Exams scores and grades are no doubt important in our society but sometimes we put too much emphasis on these scores and forget why we thought they were important in the first place. Ultimately we want our children to be happy and we see academic success as a means to that end. Remind them of this and celebrate who they are outside of academics. Talk about their natural strengths and abilities. Ask them about their interests and encourage them to share their knowledge of these interests.
• Encourage healthy stress relief – Whether your child is a “fight” “flight” or “freeze” person, there are healthy ways to reduce the negative impact stress has on them. Physical exercise is always a good way to help manage a “flight or fight” response but so is meditation. Having a plan to hold on to when in “freeze” mode can help someone progress forward. If the task seems too daunting altogether, break it down to smaller and smaller bits (ex: “I will pick up the pencil and write 1 sentence.” “I will do 1 math problem.”). And as always, make sure you are exhibiting healthy habits in managing your own stress. Take care of yourself!

Here are a couple articles to look over regarding ways to help your child reduce their stress.

http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/stress-coping.html

http://www.parenttoolkit.com/health-and-wellness/news/stress/6-ways-you-can-reduce-your-middle-schooler-s-stress

Last but not least, here is a TED Talk about the importance of how we perceive stress in our lives. Well worth a look!

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend

Best Wishes,

Kristi