When My Son Felt Exam Stress, This Is How I Talked Him Through It

This period, final exams and proficiency exams came one after another. Before the exams my son felt a bit of pressure and came to me on his own to talk. He said he had progressed quickly in his studies over the year, and his classmates now generally assumed he would do very well on the final; he was worried he might do poorly on the finals and proficiency exam and lose face, affecting how others saw him.

This was the first time since he entered secondary school that he had taken the initiative to come talk to me—few adolescent boys are willing to have this kind of in-depth exchange with their father. He hoped to get some help from me. I told him that doing poorly is perfectly normal; no one is an ever-victorious general; his parents had not demanded that he get good grades, and he need not be anxious about his classmates' opinions.

Taking the opportunity, I talked with him at length. I told him that over the three years of high school, the biggest gain is not the final college-entrance score but learning over those three years how to accomplish a life goal; so I hoped he would focus on raising his overall ability rather than obsessing over exam scores. Over three years of high school he needs to face and solve many problems on his own—for example, relieving the current pre-exam pressure, restraining his own laziness and bad habits, learning to scientifically coordinate his time and energy, and maximizing study efficiency and exam results. These matter far more than exam scores alone. A person grows in the process of solving problems; he needs to solve these problems himself, and only when his problem-solving ability is trained can he better accomplish other life goals in future.

My son has strong logical thinking and excellent science grades, but he is weaker in the humanities. He looks at problems in an overly rational way, yet does not know that reason itself has flaws; problems in the real world cannot be solved by pure rational thinking alone. He cannot yet fully understand some things about the world; he does not quite understand why problems that could obviously be solved simply always turn out unsolvable in the real world.

I told him that, in Dr. Jung's view, there are four major psychological functions: thinking, sensation, intuition, and feeling. Relying only on rational thinking gives incomplete results; if he wants to understand the world and the people in it more deeply, he also needs to read more works of literature, history, and philosophy and accumulate richer life experience, diversifying his tools of thought. I used, as an example, world politics and the varied reactions of ordinary people since the outbreak of COVID-19 to analyze the complexity of the world and of human nature.

Late adolescence is a critical period for mental growth. I have always hoped my son would be as lucky as I was to meet, during high school, a clear-sighted teacher who could point the way; such a teacher can guide him to think deeply about life. Only someone who has thought deeply has fewer confusions, is not lost amid the storms of life, and is not easily swayed by popular opinion.

I was very glad my son could talk with me in depth about these issues, and that he could sit still and listen to me at length. We chatted for over an hour, and as we talked, his psychological pressure evaporated. It was only when I felt it was getting late and he should rest, and urged him to go to sleep, that he reluctantly went back to his room.

For children of this age, lectures from parents and teachers do not help much, but their own initiative to communicate is very meaningful. Since he entered junior high, I have rarely lectured at him; I know his sense of autonomy is strong, and lecturing only backfires. Better to respect his autonomy, accept the parts of him that are not yet perfect in our eyes, and wait patiently for him to grow.

In addition, as a parent, raising one's own cultural refinement is also important. My son once quizzed me with his biology and geography questions, and I did not get a single one wrong, which made him exclaim just how much his old man's brain holds. Today, before his history proficiency exam, at breakfast I ranged with him over ancient and modern history, touching on many topics—the Upheaval of the Five Barbarians, the Reigns of Wen and Jing, the Kaiyuan Golden Age, and the An Lushan Rebellion. I asked him what characterized the rule of Emperor Renzong of Song, and which historical period was missing from the dynastic list "Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing." After the exam, he came back excited, saying that I had guessed two questions at the breakfast table; because of my explanations over the meal, he wrote out the answers without even thinking, and I had earned him a few points on his history proficiency exam. This year's Beijing high-school history proficiency exam had two questions, one related to the Kaiyuan Golden Age and one to Emperor Renzong's reign.

Perhaps it is precisely because I myself still have this little stock of knowledge that my son, when confused, is willing to talk with me, his father. If parents themselves do not love learning, it is hard to subtly influence a child into becoming someone who loves learning and strives upward.