Dr. David Coleman

Good morning to you, David.

I'd say that probably counts for half the parents of leaving and juniors or students in the country.

It is one of those things that, you know, funny, I put up an Instagram reel about this relatively recently.

I mean, I think you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

And so I think all you can do as a parent is try to set the right conditions for your child to be able to study.

And so some of that is about

your whole attitude towards education and that they see the value you place in education.

But also then that, you know, as a parent, you're trying to make sure that they've got a quiet space that they can study, that it's well lit, that they, you know, it's free from as many distractions as possible.

And that might mean you negotiating with them about, you know, removing their phone for periods of time while they're studying and so on.

But then in terms of what they actually do during that time and in that location, you can't dictate it.

And so

I think in many ways, you know, you're better off having a child who is not super stressed about the Leaving Cert or the Junior Cert and that you kind of let them at it.

And certainly with the Junior Cert, I think it is a good experience for young people to go through that so that then when it comes to the Leaving Cert, which maybe has a little bit more pressure attached to it, they'll have some sense of what the whole thing was like.

you will also have some sense about it but you can help them reflect afterwards when they get their results come september whenever those results will come out you can sit down and go look you know what went well what didn't go well if you were to do it differently the next time what would you change um or it may be that you're saying look that that all worked really well but it's that reflective process after the event that i think allows you as a parent to help them prepare for you know the future in terms of you know other exams and so on so

I mean, you know, it probably will feel a lot more pressured if it is the leaving cert, but I guess certainly for the junior cert with a 16-year-old, I'd be very tempted to leave them at it, certainly in a situation like that where they understand that the junior cert is happening, but they're just not that fussed about it themselves.

And, you know, and so see see what the outcome is after and then you can really sit down with them and go, OK, look, you know, we need to really think about this for the next time.

um well it's not necessarily a sign of stress um and so i mean ticks are things that children can develop and um you know stress i think will exacerbate it it's not certainly necessarily caused by stress um that said i think you know the best way to approach it usually is to just draw their attention to it not in a blaming way or in a critical way but just to let them know that you see this is happening are they aware of it because in many situations

children aren't even aware of these behavioural tics.

And so if it's the case that the tic is very obvious to other people, perhaps in school and so on, and it's causing problems in that other people are commenting on it or teasing him or mocking him,

then certainly it's something worth addressing.