My eldest daughter is preparing for her grade 12 exams starting Thursday this week. Last night she was having some trouble, at the time I was not sure what it was but she was beside herself and practically in tears. Then it hit me as I noticed a familiar pattern.
I used to have trouble with having feelings of being overwhelmed by various tasks, projects and responsibilities, sometimes to the point where I would be on the edge of tears. Most times at least to the point of inaction... I just could not fathom what I had to do next as everything was seemingly as important or urgent as the next thing. The result was an emotional paralysis of sorts. It was not until fairly recently that I have managed to get over this tendency, after all it took many years to hone that skill of paralysis, it would take more than reading a book or doing an exercise to get over it.
Basically, I recognized her state and knew what she had to do to overcome her current state and move on. I often get told to not try to fix everything (apparently it's a guy thing) but this needed some action steps to get her through the ordeal.
I sat with her and had her list all of the projects, assign an approximate time to complete each and decide when each is going to be due. There was studying, labs, essays and a couple of other things. Once she had a concrete handle on everything and the scope of each on paper in front of her, it was easy to decide which to do first, second, etc. Her real trouble was trying to consciously juggle every project at once.
Ah, that brought back some old feelings of futility of my own.
Tonight she brought her English exam guide home to show me. That was the first subject requiring targeting, the exam essay questions. She may still have feelings of being overwhelmed but she has a plan now and is working towards her goal piece meal.
There is nothing quite like offering help to my kids and having it accepted and see it help them. Imagine that with a 17 year old.
Jeff.
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