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Parents offered advice and counselling to cope with stressed children
Parents are so anxious about their children's exams that they are being offered counselling, according to the Guardian.
Lin Griffiths, a counsellor at Relate for Parents, explained that parents become anxious during exam time because "exams are the one thing you can't do for them.''
Relate suggests that parents learn to tolerate bad behaviour during the exam period. Griffiths said: "They may storm out, slam doors and be disagreeable. Normally you would have a go at them. But at that time, maybe back off. When they shout, try to imagine it is not them but the stress talking."
Parents are being warned to be mindful about how this bad behaviour will impact younger siblings. Griffiths said: "If they see their eldest brother or sister getting away with murder when they can't, then that can create a ripple effect. The younger child might give you a really bad time."
The charity, which offers advice from those trained on specialist counselling courses is telling parents to think "it's the stress that's talking.'' They advised against offering extravagant gifts of big amounts of money for exam stress because "it can be an incentive, but it may also become an extra pressure.''
According to Roy Shuttleworth, a clinical psychologist, people have become "exam obsessed". He said: "When I think back to my own childhood, we were under far less stress and expectation than children are today. They start much earlier, with lots going to extra study classes."
