How to help someone manage disappointment after getting Leaving Cert results
If your young person is disappointed with their Leaving Certificate results, here's how you can help. Picture: Howard Crowdy
When it comes to Leaving Cert results, we need to be careful about rushing to minimise the impact of exams. So often, we will hear immediately about how exam results don't decide outcomes (true) and that many highly successful people didn't do well in exams (also true). But our Leaving Cert graduates have been educated in a system that is a big lead up to this exam and these results. The time for these other reflections will come, but it is not results day.
If results day goes well for your young person, wonderful, congratulations to them. Ensure that you celebrate their efforts and join them in their joy. If, however, results day is a disappointment, there are a few key considerations to support them (and you).Â
Don't draw comparisons with others, be that siblings, relatives or friends — the only results and feelings that matter right now are this young person's.
Ahead of and after the results, check in honestly with your feelings because sometimes the disappointment is ours, not theirs, and we need to own that. Ensure you have a support plan and a friend or relative on standby who you can call and/or meet with to express your feelings.
Don't rush to dismiss or minimise their feelings — the temptation to rush in to rescue our children from big and difficult emotions is a parental instinct but it does young people no favours. Approach them with acceptance and empathy. Accept that they are deeply disappointed and empathise with their feelings. Talk to them about how results do not define them before the results come out rather than when they do.
Have some stock phrases ready to avoid saying the wrong thing in the heat of the moment. Try, "I am here for you if you need anything" or "I am here for you to listen or even sit with you while you cry, you are not alone in this".
Provide comfort and support. Have a comfort box ready to go, just in case. The contents will depend on your young person but think of sensory items (comfy socks, chocolate, bath bomb, tissues, chewy sweets, fidget toys). Ensure you have time, space and capacity to be physically and emotionally available to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie together or to be available to provide support. Â
Your kindness and understanding are precisely how they will develop their next steps plan.
Don't rush to solutions or lessons to be learned from this — give it the weekend, at least, and get out for a walk or drive together and wonder what they would like to do as a next step. Perhaps they want to repeat the exam year, work for a year or explore community college options. Let them lead this and support their plan by breaking it down into steps and achievable goals. They need time to make a new and alternative plan now.
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