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Suffering from pressure to perform
Written by Silke Rehman
Wow. The German school system is so different to the UK one, that we have been facing an entirely new challenge.

In Germany, children change from primary school to one of 3 further systems at the age of 10 or after grade 4. The school recommends which system to go on to depending on the child's grades. Only one of the 3 systems leads straight to a graduation that enables a child to go to university. A child needs to achieve a certain grade mark average to get the recommendation to go this system.

After a fantastic academic start in the first half of the school year, I suddenly saw Chiara struggling, mainly with math, but she seemed to be less in control in general.

Luckily, parent-teacher meetings were coming up and I asked the teacher about it. She told me that Chiara is putting herself under immense stress wanting to obtain good grades for the school's recommendation (see above). She had obviously become aware of what was required by the system. The teacher had observed that Chiara felt so pressured to achieve good grades, that she could hardly think anymore during her exams.

I must say, I felt terrible for Chiara being under such performance pressure at such a young age. My husband and I had a look at our own behaviour to see whether we had a part to play in causing it all. We did find a few areas that definitely needed improving, such as reacting overly happy/proud only with good grades.

We also decided to talk to her to let her know that we'd love her regardless of her grades and that all we wanted was for her to do her best (this wasn't a new message). We repeated that message regularly and also tried to strengthen her belief in herself.

Finally, we tried to put an extra effort into being more relaxed about our own life, taking whatever comes and dealing with it at the time - having more fun, taking life noticeably lighter.

I can't say which part worked best but Chiara seems definitely more relaxed now. She handles her exams with more self-confidence and brings home better marks.

From this experience, I advise you to pro-actively work towards providing a safe and non-demanding attitude at home before any performance pressures arise - particularly if your child is very sensitive like ours.

I wish your children the best !

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