Bhopal: Board exam stress grips parents, teachers, counsellors

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A 56-year-old man is down with anxiety, because his daughter is taking board examinations. The girl lost her mother. So her father has to wake up at night to take care of her and to check whether she studies or not. Even when he was on an official tour for a week he would call her up to know about her welfare as well as how her studies were going on.

Similar is the case with a 40-year-old woman. So stressed the woman is that she has taken leave from office for a month to prepare her son for the examinations.

Nevertheless, the story does not end there. Examination angst has also run through the teachers and counsellors. A teacher of a coaching institute has begun to chew tobacco to burn off anxiety. Counsellors are no exception. Fed up with receiving calls from morning until sunset, one of them burst into tears before a psychiatrist, seeking her help. To get rid of fretfulness, many of them have consulted psychiatrists and clinical psychologists.

Psychiatric Ruma Bhattacharya told Free Press that she had received cases of anxiety and sleeplessness among parents, teachers and counsellors due to exam stress of their wards and students. Such cases are mostly found among those parents who have single child. ‘I took a session of counsellors who are fed up with receiving calls from students and parents. The number of calls shot up suddenly due to board exams.’

According to her, they are getting more board exam stress cases this time because of online classes during the Covid period. ‘Students passed without taking any exam from the last two years due to pandemic. And also they became fully dependent on online classes,’ the mind doctor added.

It is true that parents are very worried about the well-being of their wards especially during board examinations, psychiatrist Dr Vaibhav Dubey said, adding “ I have advised them to maintain a structured environment at their homes.’

Similarly, clinical psychologist Dr Rahul Sharma said that exam stress of children affects the psyche and mental health of parents too. ‘We take parental counselling as well as suggest them to do relaxation techniques and breathing exercises to keep stress at bay,’ he added.