BlogWellbeingHow to Help Your Child Find Perspective During the HSC

How to Help Your Child Find Perspective During the HSC

Do you find your child worried or stressed about doing well in Year 11 and 12? Are you wondering what you can do to help your child find perspective?

We’ll walk you through our tips for managing the stress of the HSC so your child can feel less overwhelmed about achieving a high ATAR or obtaining entry into a highly sought after university course, and see the bigger picture beyond their senior years of schooling. 

Let’s get started!

Factors that Trigger Stress for Year 11 and 12 Students
How to Help Your Child Find Perspective
Other Ways You Can Create Perspective

What are the factors that trigger stress for Year 11 and 12 students?

In a research study conducted by a Year 12 student, as part of their Community and Family Studies major work, they looked at the impact of Year 12 on senior high school students.

Her study revealed that the key factors that trigger stress for students during Year 11 and 12 are personal, social and parental expectations to achieve the ideal ATAR and obtain entry into their desired university course.

Factors that trigger stress include:

Factors that trigger stress - Find Perspective

The study revealed a couple of important things overall:

  1. Stress and anxiety is a pervasive and common challenge that the majority of Year 12 students struggle to deal with
  2. Parental expectations are a often a contributor to the stress and anxiety experienced by students
  3. Parents therefore can play a powerful role in helping their children manage the stress and anxiety that is associated with Year 11 and 12!

Some of the strategies that you can implement to help your child manage their stress include:

    • Creating an environment where your child is responsible to themselves for their success
    • Helping them create a study/life balance that will enable them to stay emotionally, physically and psychologically healthier, allowing them to handle stress more effectively
    • Being encouraging and creating dialogues with them that will help them also stay in a positive mindset and enable them to feel as though they are capable of achieving their goals, reducing their anxiety levels

Learn more about other causes of stress in students here.

How to Help Your Child Find Perspective

So how can you remind your child about what matters? 

By making it clear that their performance in Year 12 won’t determine the pathway that the rest of their life takes. By making it clear that if they want something, there are plenty of ways to get there. By making it clear that it doesn’t matter if they get a high ATAR or not — what matters is that they try their hardest.

As Gaby (94.2 ATAR) explained:

“My parents helped me by explaining that it wasn’t the ‘end of the world’ if I didn’t achieve a high ATAR — one can always get to where they want to be (e.g. a particular degree) by various paths and options.”

Van’s (96 ATAR) comment about how her parents helped reiterated the theme of considering multiple pathways to university:

“My parents constantly reminded me that there were other pathways other than university.”

While reminding your child that there are multiple pathways into university is a great starting point, to truly help your child find perspective, it’s vital you go beyond merely talking about alternate pathways.

Make the Alternate Pathways Concrete

To really help your child create some perspective, actually sit down with them and go a step further by identifying exactly what those alternate pathways and routes are that they can take to get to where they want to go. Make it concrete for them — the more concrete the alternate pathways are, the better perspective they will have on Year 12.

So, for example if your child is set on studying a Bachelor of Commerce at Macquarie University, sit down with them and work out what ATAR is required for this course, and then alternate options to get to this degree, or similar qualifications.

This might look something like:

    • Studying Commerce or Business at another university with a lower ATAR cut-off (e.g. Western Sydney University) and then doing a mid or end of year transfer to Macquarie University
    • Studying another degree at Macquarie University with a lower ATAR cut-off, taking subjects that are also within the Bachelor of Business degree, and then doing a mid or end of year transfer to Bachelor of Business, already having completed some subjects for your degree
    • Enrolling for a Macquarie University Foundation program which after 1 year enables you to enter the 2nd year of university for your course (so it’s like you’ve been studying the degree all along!)
    • Studying at the Sydney Institute of Business and Technology for 1 year, and then entering the 2nd year of university for your course (similar to Foundation program)

It’s worth drilling down deeper into each of the above, identifying alternative courses and ATAR scores required, and enrolment requirements for Foundation/SIBT programs if you were doing this with your child to make each option concrete as possible.

To find alternative pathways for courses at Macquarie University (as an example), head here!

Note, each university typically provides information like this to help you plan (we have just included one as an example), so if your child has their heart set on a different university, check out the specific university website, or give them a call!

Continue to Focus on the Core Goal

There is a caveat with this exercise. Creating concrete alternative pathways are important to providing perspective — BUT they shouldn’t replace a student’s initial goal, because they feel these pathways are ‘easier’.

The focus needs to remain 100% on the core goal which in the example was a Bachelor of Commerce at Macquarie University.

As a result, it’s vital to highlight that while there are other options — they typically are harder, require more work longer term and are less ideal. 

For example, transferring courses at university requires a minimum WAM (Weighted Average Mark), or GPA (Grade Point Average) which are basically complicated ways of stating that you need a minimum average mark across your university subjects that usually is a distinction or 75%+.

With universities marking to a bell curve, this means you need to consistently score in the top 15-20% of your university course. This requires consistent work and isn’t easy!

Therefore, creating perspective by identifying alternative pathways is important, BUT keep the focus on your child’s core academic goal (which they are responsible to themselves for achieving those goals).

What are other ways you can find perspective? 

It’s easy during the year for students to get caught up in small details; to get caught up on a specific poor mark they achieved in an assessment that gets them down, or to get caught up on a ranking they achieved. The result of getting caught up in these small details is that students can lose confidence, and end up getting derailed in their efforts to achieve their goals.

Parents therefore can play a vital role in helping students see the big picture.

As Yee (97.95 ATAR) explained:

“My parents provided me with lots of encouragement and set me back on track, reminding me of the big picture when my vision became too focused on a minute piece of detail.”

So, what can you do to remind your child of the big picture?

Find Perspective - Big Picture

#1: Put their assessments and assignments into context

As highlighted, it’s easy during Year 12 to get caught up on poor exam performance or a ranking. As a result, it’s critical to be able to place each and every assessment into their respective contexts.

How do you do this? 

If you child doesn’t perform as well as they would like — let’s say they get 70% and were really hoping for 80%+, help them get perspective on this by asking the following questions:

    • How did everyone else in their cohort go? Their result could merely be reflective of the fact that the exam was harder for everyone.
    • How did they rank in this assessment? This question will help you and your child determine whether or not it was a harder assessment. Ultimately, marks don’t matter — but rank does, as marks are scaled according to rank!
    • What was the assessment worth? It may only be worth 10-15% and then if so, there is less of a reason to become so caught up on the assessment as there are plenty of available marks left on the table!

Calculate with them the marks they need to achieve in future assessments to still achieve their goals. This way, they have a clear pathway of what they need to do in the coming exams, rather than feeling as though things are out of their control. 

#2: Get them into the outside world

The idea behind this is that with the singular focus that can occur in Year 12 on getting good grades, it can be easy for students to forget that there is life after Year 12, and the HSC isn’t the be all and end all. Getting students into the natural world is a great way to remind them of this and also mix up their environment which is great for reducing stress!

We often associate certain physical places with certain activities and as a result, feelings. Often during Year 11 and 12, your child’s bedroom, or your living area where they conduct their study can take on negative associations, so getting them out of the space for some time can work wonders on refreshing their mindset!

#3: Watch the News

From our research over the last 8 years with top performing students, a number of them explained that they would regularly watch the news as a way to find perspective. Why?

Watching the news can remind them that there are a lot of issues out in the world that are being tackled, that can make you feel like your problems aren’t really as terrible as they may seem.

So, if your child is feeling down — get them to watch the news!

There you have it! 

Finding perspective during Year 11 and 12 is so important — it is the difference between remaining emotionally and mentally healthy, and burning out from the pressure cooker that is the final years of school.

Mapping out alternative pathways with your child, helping them place assessments into context, and encouraging them to always be aware of the wider world and what’s happening are great ways to ensure that they are best positioned to do their best in Year 12!

Are you looking for some extra help for your child during the HSC?

We have an incredible team of HSC tutors and mentors!

We can help your child master their HSC subjects and ace their upcoming HSC assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campus in Hornsby or the Hills!

We’ve supported over 8,000 students over the last 11 years, and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational HSC tutor and mentor, get in touch today or give us a ring on 1300 267 888!

 

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