Monday, October 17, 2011

Prepare your child to manage his/her stress

The single biggest factor that causes difference between high capability of your child and his lower score, either in exams or test, is stress. However, most of the time, other than frequent pronouncements such as 'Do not take stress' or 'Be calm', we do not actively help our child in managing his stress.

However, if you have read stock and flow model of stress management, you will now be able to do something very specific to help your child reduce his stress. As you would recall, the actions of managing stress have to be three-pronged ( one pronged attack on stress is not effective):

1. Reduce event level stress

a. Subject level stress

For instance, your child is more stressed in English or science, because he finds that subject difficult to understand. Or sometimes, even if she understand mathematics well, she does not understand one chapter well.  Sometimes you will find that your child understands a chapter, say in English, but is unable to 'articulate' it in proper words. I have found some children find it difficult to 'memorise'   incidents such as in History or Geography. In other words, do not generalise a problem. Do not accept blanket statements that 'I do not understand science'. Instead understand the specific cause of failure, be it subject or chapter, and address the specific problem. Take help of coaching class or teacher, if needed.

b. Exam-writing stress

Second major reason of faring poorly in exams is the child's inability to respond appropriately in an exam, despite his knowing the subject well. Simple instructions in the paper are ignored, a key point in a question is overlooked or some silly mistake like wrong numbering is done while answering. If this is happening only in one subject, then the reason is due to first point (subject level stress) , not due to exam writing stress.

However, if your child is faring poorly (than expected) in most of exams, or across subjects, then it is important to understand his 'style' of writing exams. Here you need to understand what your child does during the exam. Take a case of a recent exam and find out his method of 'answering' the exam: how does he decide which question to answer first, how does he verify later, if he takes more than expected time to answer a question what modification does he make in answering the rest of paper. If he is unable to explain, which is often the case, either get his answer paper ( where he has fared poorly than what he expected) from the class teacher, or the coaching class teacher. This 'process of enquiry' is important to help your child appreciate that 'his method' of answering exam has to be 'altered'.

Once your child's specific 'issues' have been understood, then prepare a 'exam-answering' plan that is mutually agreeable to your child. While preparing the plan include appropriate set of generic 'solutions' such as sleep well before the exam, do not study till the last moment, answer easy questions before attempting difficult questions, and so on.

The last, and most important step, is to find if your child can 'execute' the plan as decided. This will require help from teachers, or giving exams at home to see if the child is able to 'follow' the agreed plan. Unless the plan is 'fine tuned', it does not work. Here the practice of giving repeated exams to children is helpful.

2. Increase his assimilation threshold

Athletes, like your child, work throughout the year. To win the gold medal, they have to fare well in those critical 'five minutes' in Olympic games or World championships.  Like your child, outcome of the full year of their effort is 'visible' by the performance in those few critical minutes. How do they deal with this stress?

Sports Psychologists help them 'defocus' from the end result by 'focussing' on the process of reaching the goal. By defocussing the attention from the eventual 'medal', the athlete is able to concentrate on today's effort. And by doing the right things today, he prepares in the best way possible. Even while during the championship, because he is not focused on the result, he paradoxically produces his best performance. Psychologists have discovered that this is the best known way to bring out the best performance in endeavors which are evaluated in such 'short time-windows'.

You have to help your child in the same way. Instead, I have seen parents do the exact opposite. They constantly remind their child about the eventual goal of 90% marks and increase the stress further. I have seen some parents say that if they do not remind their child that they have to get so much marks, they may lose focus. But that is not proved to happen !

There are various ways of practicing this method. You have to find a method that suits your home culture and your child. I have seen a family practice the principles of BhagwadGeeta, which states " Just do your Karma(work)'. Forget the end result, as it is not in your hand.  It really helps your child not just managing his exam stress, but even his stress in the future life. That is a really innovative way of increasing assimilation threshold.

3. Diffuse accumulated stress


Despite all the precautions, because a child's 3-hour performance is going to measure his full year effort, he does accumulate stress in his body. That is inevitable.

Yoga is the best medicine for releasing this stress. A half an hour yoga every day is enough to release the accumulated stress in the body. However, if that is difficult to implement, then undertaking any physical activity like playing a game of cricket is also helpful. If your child has a hobby of music, it is a good solution, but one still need to find a way of 'physical release of stress'.

Believe me, if you can do this for your child, you will have armed your child with a tool of stress management on which he can rely throughout his life.


Wednesday, October 05, 2011

You cannot learn to swim when you are close to drowning

I read this question in the 5 October, Times of India from a student named Nidhi:

" I am in my 4th year doing BTech from Jaipur. I am a bit tensed about my college placement, so i want to do some course which can help me in my recruitment in a good software company. What course can i do?

If you have read my blog of how Vinod Kambli missed the bus because he tried learning something when it was too late, you will understand the meaning of the heading of this blog. As i said in that blog, some skills like coconuts take long time to seed and mature while some like sugarcane take short time to mature. If you do not anticipate like Nidhi, you are too late to do anything. Taking course in the final year helps, but is not enough to help you get through in a software company, because software companies have too many choices. This is the common mistake all individuals with cognitive talent do.

If you read the case of Casy , a CA student, you will see the repeat of same pattern. Despite doing CA, which is one of the toughest course in knowledge work, he was not able to find the job he wanted because he 'woke' up too late. And when you woke up too late, it is double whammy, so to say:

  • On the one hand, as Casy has to learn something in a short time, he is already stressed. And stress is  not good to learn something 'new'.  
  • As Casy did not get selected in the first companies because of his poor preparation, it further demotivated him and increased his stress further. Further, as some of his friends ( who had scored lower than him) got selected, it increased his stress further. 
  • Not able to get through an interview, of a company, say TCS or Infosys, shuts off the window for Casy. Now Casy cannot apply to TCS or Infosys again, at least for the time being. Opportunity window is closed for him. 
 So two things are happening simultaneously: On the one hand, because of inadequate preparation, he is not getting through the interviews. While on the other hand, as his opportunities are slipping, his options are decreasing. This is a vicious cycle at its worst. What do you think happens to such students like Casy?  

You are right. They pick the first available job ( which is perhaps the worst choice!) and move from the 'ditch to fire'. They have just 'postponed' their problem from today to tomorrow. Now they go further in the muck. In other words, because of one mistake, you keep on doing more mistakes and keep on getting in the muck deeper and deeper. 

What is the best way out of this jam? If you understand the Unfolding of cognitive talent, you will realise that this stage of Nidhi is the end of Stage I of Talent exploration:Funneling of the talent zone by choosing the domain and task. At this stage, you have to 'think through' with proper guidance, decide what is best for your current abilities, and then 'plan and prepare' to get it.  Nidhi at least is more lucky. She is sure that she wants to chose the domain of software, Casy did not even know that.  However, i am not sure, if Software is Nidhi's choice or compulsion

Many students today chose software, not because their talent is suitable for it, but because that is the easiest way to get the job today. That is the path of least resistance. I have worked in a software company and have met many students ( not just handful) who rue their decision of choosing 'software' domain and then curse themself for a long time ( and sometimes throughout their life) because they are handcuffed in a golden 'chain'.  They cannot 'leave' software domain because they will never get any other 'domain job' at the same salary. 

For a child who is in SSC or HSC ( 8th to 12th), it is therefore important to take these decisions in a right way. The earlier he understands how his cognitive talent unfolds & what is coming on the next turn, the earlier he can start the 'preparation'. And if he is 'armed with the right knowledge and tools', he navigates through the journey smoothly. Even if he encounters hailstorm or hurricane, he is ready because he is equipped. 

Are you equipping your child appropriately to help him discover his cognitive talent? Or are you just waiting for the right things to happen to your child in some or other way?