If you are an adult and you have ever sat the HSC or something like it, you know our local year 12 students are in for it. Though from our lofty years of experience, we understand these exams are no literal litmus for life. We know that. They cannot.
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After the coming holiday, it is time for the secondary students to prep, study for, gee themselves up, panic over, sweat, cry about and generally stress with exams.
Part of it is pressure parents and carers put on their children because we want the best for them. In such a competitive world, it is not hard to set up expectations on the basis of the results and whether they are high enough to allow for entry into the next stage of education and life.
But in this world, with kids cognizant of how hard it is to get a job, or what to do with their life, the pressure they put on themselves is more than enough. With pressure, comes emotional impacts.
Some local year 12 students gathered recently to discuss depression, and how the pressure of school can wreak havoc in the minds of teens.
The students agreed in the benefit of sharing their feelings, especially when they are pricked with the stirrings of depression over expectations.
They all agreed that pressure about school was a real concern for students at the pointy end of their secondary education.
“People expect you to do good, and then you expect yourself to do good,” one student said. “I think if they know if it’s not just themselves and a lot of people are also experience in it, they’ll feel more comfortable about talking about it.”
His classmate chipped in, “And it’s harder to do it on your own, and you need people around you who love you and support you.”
There is no way for adults to convey the comfort that a lower than anticipated HSC or ATAR score will not end their world; that life holds not one track, but many chapters, because their fears are real, and it is only time that can teach those lessons.
Just as we would like our spouses, partners, friends and family to acknowledge our worries, so should her respect the maturing concerns of our adolescents. Their feelings are just as viable.
So while they crack open the laptops and books this holiday to get a jump on what will be several weeks of worry, extend an unexpected gesture of care to your teen, a hug and reassure them with love.
It goes a long way.
Michèle Jedlicka
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