Dealing with School Pressure: Which School of Thought do you belong to?

As a parent of a school-going 7-year-old in the pressure-cooker environment that is the Singapore education system, as well as a family life educator, I've discovered that there are different schools of thought, when it comes to dealing with school pressure.

'Swim' school

Parents who belong here believe truly that 'Life is tough' and hence, school is the the induction into life. How does the learner deal with pressure? The simple message is 'Hard luck, kiddo. deal with it, because I dealt with it'.

'Live-the-moment' school

If life gives you lemons, parents who belong here are likely to say 'Make lemonade'. They accept that schooling is tough and competitive, but they emphasise to their learners to look beyond the negative and enjoy the ride.

'Cram' school

Given the exam-centric nature of the system, parents over here tell the learners to 'Forget about the Fun, and Focus on the Facts'. Learners are seen to have coped with the pressure by getting extra doses of brain work at tuition centres and other enrichment courses.

'The-road-less-travelled' school

How to cope with pressure? Parents in this school of thought believe that there IS an out-of-the-box way: be it homeschooling, boarding school overseas including the option of emigration. 'Pressure? What, pressure? (..when you have an alternative, that is)'

Simplistic, though, these labels may be, they are useful for helping us see the messages that we transmit, consciously or otherwise, to our children when they face pressure from school. They also bring out the underlying assumptions about pressure and schooling experiences as well as their respective educational outcomes.

Is there one best approach? I doubt it; the effectiveness of any approach will rest greatly on the child, how well his parents understand him and their relationship together.

Noel Tan

(*All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers)

Getting Your Teenager to Sleep

One of the questions I get asked with regularity at parenting talks is "How to get my teenager to sleep?". Living in an age of ever-increasing connectivity, it's not just adults who aren't getting enough sleep. Teens may be in their bedrooms early, but are in fact falling asleep only past midnight, and parents know that can't be right.

That is a view which is backed up by sleep researchers. Teens require about 9 hours of sleep every night, but most are in fact getting by with only 6 hours or in extreme cases 5 or less. In my conversations with parents, anecdotal evidence suggests that US research figures do parallel the Singapore situation.

The situation is not really helped given the truckload of homework given by school, and the fact that today's teens have the world in their bedrooms through TV, the computer and the telephone. The net effect is that our teens are too stimulated to get to sleep early. Entry into puberty also causes our teens' body clocks to shift to a later sleep-time.

So what do researchers say are the benefits of a healthy night's rest?

• higher immunity levels and better general health


• better concentration in school


• cognitive operations are better - improved recall


• pleasant dispositions


• lowered risk of accidents

Parents can try a few ideas to help their teens sleep earlier:

• move the TV, computer etc out of the bedroom


• guide development of time management skills in our teens


• fix dinner and sleep times - late dinners keep teens awake, while having a clear sleep time is better than having none at all


• late afternoon naps


• lobby the school's parents support group to organise 'Sleep Awareness' days - sometimes, teens just need to hear the message from other people, apart from their parents


• get the same group to lobby the school to review the amount of homework given, after all, the MOE has reduced content already some years back

Because it's such a fundamental part of being human, we often take for granted the importance of a good sleep. Often too, we do not role model the right behaviours ourselves - I remember reading about how parents lug sleepy kids through Mustafa Shopping Centre in the early morning hours, just because the adults could not sleep - so how do we expect our teens to follow? It's time we did, for our sleepy teens' sake.

Noel Tan

(*All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

Parents and 'Personal Bests' - Motivating for student achievement

It is well-documented that a supportive home environment is essential for student achievement. However, parents need to go beyond asking their children how school was or if they had finished their homework to fully flesh out such an environment. Specific behavioural actions and interventions are more effective in helping raise their child's achievement level in school.

One useful way that parents can spur their child's achievement is through the use of 'personal bests' or 'pb's'. A borrowed term from the world of sport, 'pb's' are targets that are incremental in nature, building on the student's current performance level, while taking into account his potential.

4 Ways to use PBs

Building Shared Perspectives between Parent and Child
Instead of setting unrealistic targets that do not take into account the child's abilities, parent and child can benefit from the shared perspectives that take place through the negotiation of attainable scores in school.

Building Goal-setting skills in the Child

Furthermore, the parent can use 'pb's' to help build goal-setting skills in the child, in helping the latter understand how the future is affected by present actions.

PBs as the basis of rewards and incentives

Achievement can happen only through a blend of parental support and accountability. Through the use of 'pb's', the child's performance can also be linked to rewards and incentives. Where these rewards are yet to be made systematic, parents can use the child's 'pb's' as a start-point for this process.

Motivation for achievement

As the child attains appropriate scores, his progress is thus supported through extrinsic forms of motivations, while the parent should continue to guide him to see that the achievement of his goals and 'personal bests' is the best form of satisfaction in the long run.

Personal Experience

Ethan was in the top 30% of his whole cohort in Primary One this year, but Brenda and I have seen that introducing the concept of pb's to him takes the discussion of his performance to a different level altogether. The discourse is certainly more constructive as it does not focus on the rat-race aspects such as the competition with his classmates.

Noel Tan

(* All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

First Post

Arising from feedback from parents and teachers on our newsletter subscribers' list, we have started http://thinking-learning-teaching.blogspot.com to be the repository for our articles on Thinking, Learning and Teaching for readers in the education sector.

Crossing Frontiers (http://crossingfrontiers.blogspot.com) will continue to host articles on Leadership, Team Excellence and Organisational Learning themes.

Core themes for articles on this blog include:

• Thinking Skills
• Learning Styles
• Brain-based Learning
• Social and Emotional Learning
• Co-operative Learning
• Collaborative Learning
• Character Education
• Outdoor Education

Our readers will benefit from perspectives, research and activities that promote efficacious learning and teaching, and the acquisition of thinking skills. Another blog; another way of serving our friends in the educational community better.

Noel Tan

(*All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)