EVERYONE KNOWS it will be tough. But somehow, you hadn't expected everything to heat up quite so fast. But the Higher Options conference, followed by the arrival of CAO/CAS and UCAS forms, concentrates the minds of parent and child alike on the harsh realities that lie ahead.

For parents, it seems simple: all their student has to do is draw up a study schedule and stick to it.

For students, it's a little tougher. They have to cope with homework as well as finding time for extra study; cope with teachers, all of whom are piling on pressure; and cope with you, hyperventilating every time you see them wander from desk to kitchen or TV.

The first time one of your children does the Leaving, you really don't know what to expect: what minimum number of hours work a night should he or she be doing by November? Should you wait until after the Christmas exams to panic? Should you consider grinds seriously now, or only in the final stretch, or at all?

If your child is over zealous and wants you to put the house in exam mode already (muzzle the dog and children under 12), is it the least you can do? Should you agree to let them keep a weekend job, or enjoy all their leisure activities until Christmas? Easter? At all?

And most basically, if you have the kind of child who isn't motivated, is there anything really that you can do?

Father John Duane, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, describes the Leaving Cert year in terms of "waves" and "peaks and troughs", a description that will ring familiar to anyone going through it. "The teachers and kids start off with great gusto at the very beginning of the year, with teachers saying `right lads, this is my plan for the year'," he says. "They're all happy for a week or so, and then the kids find, with all their teachers getting at them, they face a huge stone wall, and they get demotivated."

As final year students face into the second week after the mid term break, they're going through a similar experience, as teachers slip back into overdrive again. According to John Dunne, "It'll be `now lads, let's get at it and fill in the CAO before Christmas' and, of course, they won't." Indeed, as he says, part of the immediate tension now comes from the focus on filling in those forms.

So what is a parent to do? "Parents need to do some hand holding, to point out children's past successes, to persuade them to take everything step by step, to point out that they can tackle this huge stone wall brick by brick, to reassure them they can do it."

NAGGING IS, of course, counter productive. "Girls and boys know what they should be doing, Dunne says. "And extra study schedules should be built up slowly. "Number one, of course, is that they must do their homework. After that, they should start by sticking on, say, 10 minutes of extra study time for a number of subjects. If you say you'll do an extra half hour of French every night and only do 20 minutes, you've failed. If a student just commits him or herself to 10 extra minutes and does it, he or she has succeeded."

He is reluctant to be specific about how much time it is reasonable to expect a Leaving student to be spending on school work at this time of year but says "if they haven't been doing at least an hour's work a night, including homework, up to now, they're really not going to cover enough. If students are is doing three hours a night already, they're on track - but that is the exception."

Students will need to build up to doing three to three and a half hours' work a night by January or February, he warns.

And what of relaxation? What, for example, if your student has squandered mid term break doing damn all? John Duane laughs. "That would be fine if the student really relaxed."

The problem is that students may take time off to party, watch Tv or "veg" - while worrying about the work they haven't done; thus they lose both ways. Duane says he would encourage as much recreational activity "as they can manage". That would mean cutting down to two nights of a week, plus taking one full day to unwind properly.

"Students should be able to sit down and watch Tv without feeling `I should be doing my maths' - or a parent saying `aren't you supposed to be studying?'"

The key to this, he says, is for a student to plan leisure as well as study.

He recommends that parents sit down with their students to help them get the work they have to do into perspective, and to sort out issues like noise in the house. (Students shouldn't be indulged in prima donna demands, he says.) Students should deal with CAO/CAS pressure by giving the matter 10 minutes of quality time three times a week, so that around Christmas, they can prioritise their choices.

Parents should be slow to pay for grinds, he says, and advises parents and pupils to discuss problem subjects with teachers before doing so.

And a final good tip. Parents will know that teachers are under fierce pressure too, and so should be able to advise their child if a teacher is sending out negative, unhelpful messages (e.g., "you're all going to fail"). "By sixth year, students need to cut the umbilical cord with teachers to concentrate on what they need to do. They need to use teachers as a resource, but not to be over dependent on them."