The roller coaster of an exam ride

Exams are round the corner. The heat is soaring and it is not just the outside temperature that I am talking about what with no rains! Even inside the house, temperatures are rising with parents getting hyper as the children are getting closer to writing their mid term exams. Lots of tension around. All the parents are going through a tense phase as the exams approach. There are a lot of do's and don'ts that as parents we tend to tell our children. Don't drink cold water; don't eat cold things from the fridge - you might catch a cold; Remember you have exams coming up; stop playing on the computer; study - you should get better grades this time than what you got in your last unit test; you cannot go down to play as your exams are coming up, so on and so forth. The list never seems to end.

But somehow suddenly I find children getting more interested in reading story books which was never touched in all these months. It appears as though they have an exam on that book. My son gets the most interesting story book which he says he was able to lay hands on, only then from the library and so has to complete reading it as he has to return it. They remember something very important that they had to do just when they are asked to sit and finish the exercise that was given to them.

These days the moment the door bell rings they run down to open, which during other times they have to be called several times to go and see who it is before finally I am left to do this chore. But all of a sudden they have all the time in the world to do these tasks. When they are supposed to do their reading I find they are very interested in reading the newspapers and that too during dinner time!

During meal times the norm is for them to come down only after being called minimum ten times, but now the minute they are asked to sit and study they seem to be suddenly very hungry and are at the table even before I am ready with my preparation!! At other times they hardly respond to my call but now even before they are called they always seem to be around me all the time.

So this is what the scene is at home right now and will continue to be so until mid week next month. Till then all we parents must sit tight biting our nails in desperation while our kids gleefully take us on a roller coaster ride. Happy ride till then.