Direction and disappointment

Dr Asha Pemberton

teenhealth.tt@gmail.com

WHILE MANY of our children and teens are eagerly completing the current academic year, a cohort of tweens or early adolescents will spend days and weeks coming to terms with their results of the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination.

Entrenched in our educational culture is this high-stakes examination, which is still used as a benchmark of success, future attainment and self-worth. These are misplaced ideals.

While it is simply one step in the journey of life-long learning, growth and development, we must still recognise the emotional toil associated with the exam itself and the aftermath of its results.

Some young people and their parents will be jubilant and others, disappointed. This parallels every pivot point in life. We will change direction, deal with disappointment and hopefully regroup toward an even better future.

Emotional awareness and adjustments to the internal narrative are essential when dealing with disappointing moments. Instinctively, many young people will feel big emotions and often be unable to process or manage them.

The ways in which parents support (or aggravate) these emotions directly influence the healing process. One singular outcome does not define the worth of anyone, and certainly in the case of a one-day academic assessment, this simply cannot be the case.

Support those tweens in distress by asking them to clarify their thoughts and then help them reframe negative and defeating thoughts to more positive ones. While they must accept the outcome set before them, they can equally focus on optimising the things that they can control.

The very practice of acceptance takes practice. In times of despair, many young people and their parents will feel intense disbelief and automatically insist that there must be an error or foul play. The process takes time.

When outcomes are not those that were expected, parents should anticipate irritability, anger, tearfulness or even reclusiveness. There is no one classic response in these moments and open-minded support is required.

It is also useful to expose young people to the stories of adults who faced very similar circumstances and took the opportunities that they had to create lives of happiness and well-being. These narratives are all around us.

This is also a moment for parents to reassess and reflect upon their own emotions, disappointment and how they perceive the outcomes of their tweens' performance.

Many parents, when honest, admit their belief that the achievements of their children directly reflect their parenting abilities. In times of calm, we can clearly see that this is absolutely untrue. In the throes of emotion, it can absolutely feel that way.

Parents are encouraged to seek support if they are struggling. Emotionally drained parents are more likely to lash out, harm or maltreat their tweens. These are all preventable through appropriate interventions.

The direction of a young person’s life will shift many times along their journey. The outcomes of choices, opportunities, changes in interest and identity development will all shape the course.

While in the very moment it is near-impossible for younger adolescents to see the bigger picture, parents should share their wisdom to help young people accept that much more lies ahead.

Most stories of lifelong success have roots in disappointment and struggle, and through channelling renewed focus and resilience, disappointments can lead to very bright future directions.