Everyone wants the best for their children. There is no doubt about that. Unfortunately, pushing your child towards success can often be counterproductive. In other words, it is quite possible to overdo it when it comes to “encouraging” your child to perform well on their final exams. In such a case, the encouragement quickly turns into pressure, which students fear and resent.
An excess amount of parental pressure can cause students to experience negative consequences, such as crippling fear of exams, inability to concentrate, and low self-esteem. While this pressure is well-intentioned, it can cause more harm than good.
This is why it is important for parents to understand how to effectively motivate their child, without becoming overbearing. In addition, it is important to understand how excessive pressure can affect a child’s ability to grow and perform well academically.
Here are just some negative consequences that unintentional parental pressure can cause to your child:
While it may seem like you push your child to study harder in order to overcome these problems, it can actually be adding more fuel to the fire. These symptoms can not only affect their performance on the final exams but can have long-term physical and mental health consequences that will hinder their abilities to work hard and be successful in the future.
As a parent, it is your responsibility to understand how your child is feeling and motivate them accordingly. It is also important to be able to identify when you are pushing too hard and when you should take a step back. Here are signs that you are unintentionally putting pressure on your child:
If you find yourself criticizing your child more than you praise, it is a red flag that you may be placing too much pressure on them. Constructive criticism is a great thing – it helps students understand their weaknesses and work towards overcoming them. But when the criticisms step away from being constructive, and instead become demeaning or belittling, it can create excessive pressure. At the same time, praise is necessary for motivating your child, so if you find that you are stingy with your praise, then it is a sign that your child is under pressure and at risk of developing low self-esteem.
If you are constantly comparing your child to other students, it is a strong indicator that you are placing unintentional excessive pressure. Frequent comparisons can make your child feel inadequate, leading to low self-esteem. It can also put a mental strain on them, which hinders them from being able to study and undergo exam preparation calmly and effectively. This is because they will constantly feel stressed out about “not being good enough”.
A strong focus on outcomes rather than efforts is a red flag that you are putting too much pressure on your child. This is because a lack of focus on their efforts towards their exam preparation will make them feel as if their hard work and efforts go to waste. In turn, they will reduce their efforts, thereby reducing the outcomes even further. A better tactic is to appreciate their hard work, and encourage them to continue on with their exam preparation, rather than belittling the efforts that they make.
While making final exams seem like the “end all, be all” for your child might seem like a good idea to really make them focus, it can do the exact opposite. It is a form of catastrophizing when you make the situation appear more deadly than it really is; that if your child does not perform well on the final exams, then the future will be over. This places an unhealthy amount of pressure on students, and make them develop extreme exam stress and fear of final exams.
If you can identify these signs in your own interaction with your child, then they are likely experiencing pressure that you unintentionally placed on them. As a parent, it is your responsibility to ensure that they have a healthy environment to thrive in and achieve not only academic success, but also mental and physical health, and good self-esteem.
So, find a balance between encouraging them to study well and achieve academic success, while also reminding them of the importance of other things in life, such as mental health, good character, and strong morals.
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