How to React to Board Results Without Becoming the Reason for Your Child's Anxiety

Board results day in India is one of the most nerve-wracking mornings in a parent's calendar. The notification pops in - CBSE, ICSE, State Board, and in the second or so between you opening the link and seeing the number, you and your kid both hold your breath.

Whatever happens in the next few minutes or hours will be etched in your child's memory for the years to come, not the number but your reaction.

A 2015 study published in the International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences revealed that academic stress among Indian high schoolers was directly and significantly linked to the parental pressure.

The marks don't matter all that much. It's the reaction that leaves a permanent imprint, for good or for bad.

The Main Issue: Parents' Reaction Versus Response

A reaction is immediate. Raw. Unfiltered. 'Only 72%? What happened?' 'Your cousin scored 91, how is this even possible?' 'Do you know what this means for your future?'

A response is considered and well-meaning. It puts aside the parent's feelings and focuses on the child's needs, separating their emotions from the situation and opting to connect to the child, rather than come down on them.

Most Indian parents are genuinely fond of their children. But on board results day, that fondness often transforms into disappointment and what the teenager in the situation often registers is not the parent's affection but their frustration - a feeling of failure.

Dr. Ashok Chacko of the Delhi Mental Health Helpline has observed that most parents these days expect their children to be in the '90% category' and that when the reality fails to meet their expectations, the pressure they exert on the child can often lead to severely distraught teenagers. India's board result season is statistically one of the most perilous time for adolescents.

What to Say - and What Not to

The 24-hour Rule

Clinical psychologists recommend something increasingly referred to as the '24-hour rule' currently: no consequential decisions - about stream, tuition, college, career - should be made in the first 24 hours after results.

In the first 24 hours, there are only three things to do:

• Acknowledge the child's feelings, whatever they are - relief, disappointment, confusion, numbness
• Convey unconditional love, irrespective of the number glaring on the screen
• Give them space, time, and avoid interrogation and comparisons

The planning, the strategizing about 'what to do next' will always come later. Your child's psychological well-being in the first 24 hours after results is of infinitely greater importance.

When Your Child Has Truly Done Poorly

There sometimes are objectively disappointing results: a child needed 60% to get admitted to a particular course and they have only gotten 52%. Now here, the honest appraisal is required, the situation is genuinely worrying.

Even so, even then, it's important to remember that such a conversation can happen only after the first 24 hours, after the immediate shock has worn off. Because while the child is in acute stress, their body is incapable of processing practical information - their prefrontal cortex, the seat of decision-making, is effectively shut down. You can't have a strategy conversation with them. It's like asking someone to navigate a conversation in an earthquake.

What Good Parenting Looks Like on Results Day

Dr. Uma Hirisave of NIMHANS recommends asking yourself what your child's memories of their result days would be. Years down the line, long after their academic life is over, they are unlikely to remember the marks. What they might remember is if they felt safe in those 24 hours, if they felt loved.

One parent, now in their fifties, recounts their Class 10 board exams in vivid detail. Not the marks, not any specific one, but that they had an overwhelming sense of relief wash over them because their mother, sitting right next to them, hadn't said anything cruel or judgemental throughout the day. The memory of that day has stayed with them, informs how they interact with their own children, even today. You have that opportunity too.

If you feel disappointed, it is understandable, you are allowed to, but try to process it somewhere else with your partner or friends, not in front of your child. They do not need to deal with your feelings on top of processing their own feelings about the results.

Your board results are a reflection of one day, a specific set of questions, and nothing more.

They do not define your child's future, success, or self-worth. They are just ink on paper

What matter is how you choose to react to ink on paper and what example you set for your child.

What is one thing your parents said to you about your board results that you still remember to this day?