The only thing worse than an unstudious child . . .

I met a woman last week who is the mother of three. She herself is preparing for first-year arts exams. Her eldest son faces his finals in DCU, her daughter is also looking at first-year UCD exams and the third is doing the Leaving Cert. I was horror-struck, but she said it worked very well. The whole family were totally focused on their own study and there were no distractions in the house like the TV or the radio. I haven't done an exam for over 30 years, but after listening to her I am seriously thinking of taking up something in the autumn so that I can maybe get it right for my own third offspring. Certainly my previous attempts at creating an atmosphere of study in my own home were thwarted at every turn.

"The only thing worse than to lose your heart's desire is to gain it," quipped my eldest son, quoting Oscar Wilde. "What is he on about?" asked the next fellow down.

"I think I'll abstain from the Leaving Cert," he elaborated. This was my first Leaving Cert year, and my son was about to start the three weeks of exams. I had gone to a meeting in his school at the beginning of the academic year and had been given loads of useful tips and information on how he should organise himself. I bought books on how he could develop his memory, and Study Skills for Second Level Students was my bible.

I encouraged him to play sport, because the school said it helped him to switch off - if I had only known at that stage that his problem was getting switched on.

I got him to make lists and happily watched as he crossed off things done, or so I thought. If he had a previous exam paper for homework, I suggested he do it under exam conditions. We got a stopwatch out and he had sweets to suck. The whole family was honed in and interested and anxious. Maybe we were too interested and too anxious, for it became apparent that he was quite uninterested.

He was bright and lazy with it, expecting his natural intelligence to carry him through. Now it was late May and he was thinking of ways of getting out of having to sit the exams at all. The next three weeks were hell. I kept my cool and cajoled and coaxed. I drove him to school each day, because I really did think he would go off and lie in the sun for, as is always the case, the weather was beautiful that year.

Son Number Two sat the Leaving Cert two years later. Exuberant, loud and quite unacademic, he found study difficult. So once again I put into play all the information I had gleaned. "You can't have the stereo on, it interferes with memory," I lectured. "I can't stay in this room without music," was the reply. The music stayed on.

Establish a routine and take breaks, I told him. The routine never happened and the breaks were prioritised. He sat the exams; on most days he left the centre before the allotted time and flatly refused to discuss any of the papers.

So two down, one to go. My daughter will sit the Leaving Cert next year. I told her I was thinking of taking a few subjects with her. She was very encouraging. She started talking about us managing our time, setting goals and sharing our enthusiasm. As she spoke I could feel a rising panic. The son's quote came back at me: "The only thing worse than to lose your heart's desire is to gain it."