One boy says he will never forget his father's help during his Leaving Cert: he would turn on the immersion heater a few hours early, so that his son could walk straight into a hot shower after returning from an exam, before settling down for a cup of tea and a chat.
A girl says that the best thing her parents did was to book telephone alarm calls on the days of the exams - because she was so worried that the family's alarms wouldn't work.
The level of tension in homes where children are sitting Junior or Leaving Cert exams is certain to rise over the next week, to a degree that's hard to anticipate if this is your family's first experience of State exams. And like childbirth, it's hard to remember the pain vividly, even a year later.
You may know instinctively that, by now, it's too late and counterproductive to nag a child about studying, that your best role is to provide plenty of TLC. But before you frighten the family by turning overnight from harassed mother working outside the home into perfect Irish mammy; from the father who never gives lifts into student chauffeur, check out some of senior psychologist Marie Murray's suggestions on the most practical ways you can help your student.
"In the middle of all the advice on how to study and prepare before the exams, I think the practical things parents can do while the exams are going on isn't talked about enough," she says. "For example, what's the best thing to say when they come home after an exam and say `I failed, it was dreadful'?" Or if they decide to watch two hours of TV the night before a critical exam? Should you take time off work so that you can drive your child to and from exams and be on hand to prepare nourishing food - or would your constant, hovering presence send them over the edge?
The answer to "time off work", says Murray, is probably yes - you should try to take time out if possible, and at the very least, try to arrange it so that you aren't undertaking any major stressful projects during exam weeks.
Your job as parent is to provide practical support - breakfast, cups of tea, a sympathetic ear - and it's hard to do this at long distance. It's also your job to stay calm, not to get caught up in the hysteria that exams generate in many students. Be prepared for excess irritability, outbursts of temper, sleeplessness, weeping fits. Theirs, as well as yours.
Children doing exams need a lot of support, says Murray, "especially when the exams are stretched out over a few weeks: they're staying up late to study, eating in a hurry, doing post mortems on each exam. That's a lot of physical and psychological stress."
Her advice on practical ways parents can help their exam students falls broadly into two categories - physical and psychological. But she advises using the list as a starting point for discussing the matter with your children; ask them what sort of real practical help they want from you before you go into super-parent mode.
The other key to reducing stress is to "let it go" - in other words, to encourage students to put each exam behind them when it's over, so that they can tackle the next free of anxiety and guilt. Obviously, parents who grill students in detail about each exam aren't helping them to do this.
1. Relax house rules; don't take them to task for untidiness. Tidy their room yourself without disturbing their books, make the bed, make it a pleasant place to come back to. Relieve them of all other household duties.
2. Don't comment on behaviour like staying up late to study, not showering as much - let it slide. Give them cups of tea and sympathy instead. Quietly produce cups of herbal tea as an alternative to tea or coffee, to help reduce stress.
3. Do things for students who normally take care of themselves. Get up a little earlier, make them breakfast, make their school lunch. Provide clean clothes, fresh shirts, anything that makes their life a little easier.
4. Make no apologies to siblings for treating the exam student with extra care: loud TV, music, noise levels generally must be reduced.
5. Get up and drive them to school in plenty of time, so they won't have the anxiety of wondering if their bus/train will come on time. Collect them if you can, unless you both agree the walk home will help them unwind.
6. In advance, buy supplies they might need - extra pens, index cards, whatever. If they're amenable, help them sort notes into colour-coded folders, which helps to reduce pre-exam chaos a little. Each subject's notes are clearly visible - and when the exam is over, you could offer to take that subject out of the clutter. This will also help to stop them wasting time doing post mortems.
7. On the same point - when they come home from an exam, ask "how are you?", not: "how did you do?". Some children will want to give you a boring blow-by-blow account, in which case, listen; others will say "no comment". Let them dictate how much they want to discuss.
8. Don't get angry if they tell you "I only answered two of four questions", although if that's true, they may well fail that exam. If it's the Junior, even the Leaving Cert, say something along the lines of "oh well, I guess you'll look more carefully at the questions in the next exam". Says Murray - why add to their anxiety?
9. Before the exams start, give them a card in which you can express the feeling that what's important is not how well they do in the exams, but that you appreciate that they are doing their best
10. Be sympathetic. If they feel they've done badly in a subject they expected to do well in, acknowledge that it's very disappointing. Remind them each day to let go of the last exam.
11. If your student looks like he or she is throwing it away, don't tackle them now. Ask them if you can do anything to help them, then back off. The time to discuss the problem seriously will be when the results come out.
12. How to handle their stress. If they come home saying "I blew it", and you know that may or may not be so, don't enter into their despair. If you know from past experience that they'll stress out, devise ways of minimising it - bring them for a swim, a walk (Marie Murray's number one therapy for most things), doing yoga with them, getting relaxation tapes. (Although don't, as one mother did, dig out your old childbirth relaxation tapes by mistake)
13. Your stress. If you know from past experience that you and/or your partner will stress out, devise ways of countering it - yes, walks, going out to dinner, aromatherapy, whatever. Discuss all the above with your fellow parent so that you have a common approach to your exam child.
14. And finally . . . remember, says Murray, that nowadays everything does not hinge on the Leaving Cert. There are many opportunities and paths to advancement, skills that can be learnt, lots of options. Keeping this in mind will put the exams into some kind of perspective.
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