Alison Curtis: I want my daughter to know how to manage stress in school

My daughter Joan started fourth class this year and so far has been loving it. She is really enjoying the curriculum and as I mentioned before in this column, she is getting a kick out of teaching me Irish.

There is a definite jump in content between third and fourth class, as you would expect. Along with doing more Irish lovely topics of cooking, science and geography are coming home daily as part of the homework.

The class learned all about how sound travels and how the ear works over the past few weeks and I found it really interesting to relearn these topics.

Joan was really enthusiastic about talking me through the anatomy of the ear and explaining how the ear works. All was going well until last Thursday night when she seemed to have a bit of a wobble at the thought of the test on the ear.

Throughout school, they have always had weekly spelling and maths tests but this obviously resonated differently with her.

It somehow seemed bigger in her mind and something that would be harder to do. She even asked to stay home the next day, which she never does, to avoid the test.

It gave me flashbacks to when I was her age and made me really think about how I approached tests and exams as a kid.

I looked at them as a challenge and something to do well at. I had a nerdy little goal in third class of going the year without making a mistake on my spelling tests, I did quite well until I came across Chrysanthemum (which I will forever know how to spell!) I was admittedly more of a crammer in secondary school and had an ability to retain facts rather than ultimately learn them in most cases.

I also thought about how my parents supported my sister and I when it came to test time. My father did push us to do the best we could, he would make us work hard at it but he did it in such a gentle way we weren’t really even aware that that was what he was doing.

My mom encouraged us just to do our best and whatever the results were we would be fine.

My pressure to get As all the time I think was internal, it came mainly from me. And only when I was talking to Joan did I realise that the reason I could cope with the pressure is that I had the support at home to know that whether I got an A, B,C or D all would be okay.

So I broke it down for Joan in relation to the science test. I asked her the likely questions she would get and told her to give me an answer without thinking too much about it. So she did and she got it all right because she wasn’t overthinking or stressing.

I went on to say that this kind of stress is good, it is a want to do well, which is also good. But it becomes a bad stress when it makes her upset or causes her to be overwhelmed.

What I had to explain was it is okay if she wants to put this pressure on herself to do well, it is something I really understand. But that she has the safety net with my husband and I that we will catch and support her no matter how well she does.

Throughout Joan’s school years, I have wanted her to excel and do well likely because I associated feeling good about it myself when this happened to me as a child. I do want her to put importance on performing well in school for her own self esteem.

I am confident that she is a kind, caring and inclusive child socially at school and that she is very happy there. So for this year my main focus is to support her learning and her coping skills for dealing with the academics. To help her head into tests with confidence and to always tell her that no matter what the result, it is all going to be okay.