SSC Results: Parents, here is how you can respond and not react

Congratulations in advanced to the parents whose children will be outperforming in today’s Secondary School Certificate Exam (SSC) result.

Hardwork always pays. Every coin has the other side and if you are the parent whose child did not get good marks or has not secured enough to pass, it must be seeming tough. But then, it is totally up to you as to how you would want to handle this situation.
It’s very easy to lose control and start shouting and labelling your child with insensitive words such as ‘looser, idiot, duffer’, ‘you will never pass in life’, ‘you should stop wasting money’.
You might show immaturity by not talking to your child or stopping his TV time, friends or pocket money. But these actions will only result in alienating your child from you. Such strict actions may lead to depression which later forces a child to take drastic steps like leaving the house or worse, committing suicide.
Dear parents, you must keep your own mind cool and only then you will be able to help your child face this tough time. Promise yourself to not use any words that will hurt your child’s ego and damage the self-respect.
On the contrary, you should spend more time by taking off from the work. Talk to your child about your own failures and how you have learnt lessons from your unsuccessful times to become what you are today. Give motivating examples of all the people who never gave up becoming the leaders in their fields.
There are several people,who were not good in studies but they had done wonders and impressed the world with their creativity and inner talents.
Though your child has not performed well in certain subjects, but check the subjects in which he had scored well and try to guess the aptitude of your child and encourage him to pursue his interest in that.
So parents, choose your own reactions and shape the future life of your child. After all, you are a mature, sensitive, caring and experienced adult, who has also failed sometime in the past.
The writer is a city-based education counsellor. She helps parents in selecting right schools for their children.