Education 04-Sep-2011
Childhood today rockets along ah la presto. What our children will remember of it remains to be seen, but many children are increasingly struggling with the stresses of life. There are very few statistics on rates of stress in children and although the source of their worries might not include gruelling commutes, unsympathetic bosses and unquenchable streams of bills, they are just as real.
What has lasting impact on our kids is how we prepare them for every kind of stress, and how we model coping-mechanisms to them.
Stress and Anxiety in our Children
“Young children can feel stressed and it can start at any age” says one Sydney-based psychologist and family therapist, “however, children may not recognise what they’re feeling as being stress, or have the vocabulary to express it. They just know it feels bad”. Children may become withdrawn or clingy. They might misbehave at school, or neglect their homework. Some high-schoolers turn to illegal substances. If stress goes unchecked, children may start to show signs of chronic anxiety and depression.
While some children simply grow out of their fears, many continue to worry right through adolescence and into their adult life. In both the short term and the long term, anxiety can limit opportunities, cause poor performance at school, make friendships difficult and lead to more serious problems.
But what about the sources of stress are coming from school itself?
Exam and educational stress has been a hot topic the world over, with increasing pressure on a younger age group for academic achievement.
One recent UK study by Cambridge University claimed that Government-imposed exams taken at the age of seven and eleven had caused anxiety among children and distorted the curriculum. In the US, standardised tests are being used for purposes their creators never intended due to dwindling funds for public schools and anxiety about decline in students’ basic skills. In Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, limited places in English-speaking schools and international schools, as well as large populations help to create a high-stakes culture of intense pressure on young children to learn faster, get ahead, and secure themselves an educated future.
And that is without looking at the social and emotional stress of making friends and mixing with other children at school.
This all sounds like a very dark stage upon which to play out a modern childhood; but does it have to be?
Before you whisk your children out of school and start researching home-schooling (see KOTC March/ April edition), consider the quest of Po, Kung-Fu master of Kung-Fu Panda fame. He must find the state of ‘Inner Peace’ if he is to unlock the final mysteries of his art. Like the unfit and clumsy hero, even the most unlikely of our children can master the art of managing stress and anxiety, and turning it into their own secret weapon. Whether you consider yourself anything like Master Shi Fu or not (Po’s teacher) you are well-able to help equip your child for positive experiences in the educational setting. As stress is a fairly normal experience, guiding your child through their experience of stress at school is invaluable preparation for the future.
The large body of research that has emerged over the last fifty years from an evidence-based approach to psychology show us that stress is an unavoidable consequence of life, and that it comes in many forms. Transient feelings of stress and anxiety are part of life for everyone, and in the course of normal development, they are important experiences of which coping is usually mastered by children and adolescents. In fact, a mild degree of stress may be stimulating and motivating, but a high degree of stress may be disruptive. Getting on top of stress in its various forms is a key life-lesson well worth investing time and effort in mastering.
Exams in Aussie Schools
The Australian Federal Government has recently ushered in an unprecedented level of transparency via the My School website, which has made information about individual schools available to every Australian. This information lifts the lid on school finances, enrolment and staffing, as well as the comparison of National Program Assessment, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results.
Many Aussie parents hold concerns about the way this website impacts the educational experience of their children, ranging from a perceived over-emphasis in the classroom on test preparation, to schools ‘cherry picking’ students.
Maralyn Parker is an expert educational writer, having recently published My School, a guide for parents on NAPLAN, the My School website, and other advice to maximise the education of children. Although she concedes that the My School website gives too much emphasis to NAPLAN results she says, “Testing is part of being educated. Teachers need to test to get feedback on how successfully a student has learned something and how well the student might be progressing. This informs their teaching.”
She also asserts that a test every two years for literacy and numeracy is not a particularly onerous regime, allowing national standards to be measured and tracked, and diagnostic feedback provided to teachers and schools. For children who have been taught solid math and literary skills, the process of NAPLAN should not be overly stressful.
Considering the number of exams our children sit during the course of their school years, Maralyn reflects, “I would like to see less formal testing and more informal assessment, but generally I think we have a reasonable balance of national testing, state and territory testing and school-based assessment”.
“National tests are necessary to keep tabs on standards being reached and to make useful comparisons. In NSW we use state exit exams to give half the marks for the HSC (the other half is school-based assessment). Queensland manages to give a final result for their senior students without them having to sit any exit exams. But there are critics of that system also.”
Maralyn is also quick to point out that if tests such as NAPLAN become stressful for children, there is something wrong. “Children should not be stressed, and will not be unless parents and teachers make a fuss”. Parents can point out to their children that NAPLAN is not a test of how smart they are, but rather it is a test to see what they might need to be taught, aiding their teacher to plan and round out their knowledge to a level that is consistent with what other children are being taught at the same age. It means they are not missing out on learning opportunities that other children are being afforded.
“As far as senior exit exams go, the best approach a parent can take is to provide a quiet space for them to study, listen when they want to complain, offer a few special snacks or outings and generally sympathise during the exam weeks” Maralyn says.
The idea is to function with a level of stress that is life-enhancing, not overly frightening.
Practical measures parents can take are many and varied, but should include looking at lifestyle and sources of stress in the family. Acknowledging that stress is inevitable, but pinpointing and addressing the causal factors is better than blaming oneself for an inability to cope. Sometimes, some more radical ‘landscaping’ of everyday life will need to take place, in order for families to flourish. Implement relaxation techniques with your children, such as ‘quiet-time’ (a sanity-saver in some homes) with soft music and quiet reading or drawing. Consciously create calm at home to allow imaginations to thrive, and the quiet enjoyment of one’s own company to develop. And importantly, avoid habits that build stress, keep the diet healthy, and allow plenty of sleep for the whole family
Building Resilience
One of the key characteristics or traits of resilient children is the ability to recover from negative emotional states. In fact most of us swing between negative, neutral and positive states throughout the day. How children respond to positive and negative events, how easily they are pushed into positive and negative states by events, and what mental strategies they use to cope with and create negative and positive states are the factors that strongly influence how resilient children are. The important thing is to realise that all of these areas can be improved upon, with practice.
With love and support, children can be encouraged out of their comfort zones to take on activities or roles that stretch their abilities and even make them uncertain about their abilities. This approach is definitely not to be confused with allowing children to fend for themselves, or deliberately exposing them to highly stressful situations. Rather, building resilience provides our children with the opportunity to develop new skills and confidence, deal with stress, and deal with success and failure. This process, repeated over and over as they grow and develop, is much like inoculation for the stress of the future, as long as they are not pushed too far. We can help them deal with the challenge of facing fears and developing a helpful attitude to learning, memory and exams.
Parents also need to watch how they deal with stress in their own lives. If you sigh with exasperation and launch into fits foot stamping and eyeball-rolling, then guess what? The small people in your world will follow-suit. If parents show children how to deal with stress in a healthy manner, their children will learn from them. Subverting your own inadequacies and purposefully fostering positive thoughts about yourself is an attractive quality that your children will ‘catch’, and very soon emulate.
The Must-Do’s for Parents
- Children can fail to perform to their full potential if they fail to cope with stress. Help your child to plan, organise and practise
- Provide high levels of motivation and an environment conducive to learning
- Help your child develop self-discipline, self-confidence and a sense of achievement
Help your child to maintain confidence especially when they are discouraged. Don’t transfer your own anxiety
Set goals realistically according to your child’s capabilities
Encourage your child’s performance with positive praise, such as “well done” and “your efforts had paid off”
Don’t only ever engage with children around academics
Don’t harp on previous failures or results
Humour relieves tension; be light and humorous with your child
Try to gain your child’s confidence and discuss their anxieties with them. Try to help them to challenge any thoughts that say they are a failure and that they can’t succeed. Remind them that they are on a learning process, and exams will become more manageable, over time
Remember that there is more to life and your child, than exams.
Support Services
Kid’s Helpline: www.kidshelp.com.au/grownups/news-research/hot-topics/exam-stress.php
Reachout: http://au.reachout.com/find/articles/exam-time-hints-for-managing-stress
