Family Health
I found that my wife has been troubled by our children’s academic performance recently. She can’t eat well and loses interest in other things. Do you have any suggestions to improve the situation?
Faced with the increasingly fierce competition in society, parents often have higher academic expectations for their children, which creates pressure for both parties. Such pressure not only impacts the children but also negatively affects the emotional well-being of other family members and your wife's mental and physical health. The family is emotionally interconnected, when a parent feels anxious, tense, irritable, or angry due to their child's academic performance, these emotions can easily spread to other family members. This may strain familial relationships and disrupt domestic harmony. Thus, we recommend the following approaches to help your wife improve her emotional well-being.
1. Enhance communication with your wife
You can communicate with your wife regularly and take care to comprehend her concerns and sources of stress. Let her know that you also care about your children's academic performance and express your willingness to shoulder the responsibility. Additionally, ask her how you can help and take on some tasks to reduce her stress and improve her emotional well-being. Your involvement can make her feel your support.
2. Adjust expectation
High expectations for children can cause anxiety within the family, leading to despondency among children. In contrast, reasonable expectations help maintain a positive attitude among family members. To help your wife relieve parental stress and improve her emotional well-being, we recommend discussing academic goals for your children together and establishing a sensible range of expectations. Make appropriate adjustments as needed based on their developmental progress.
3. Create 'quality family time'
Quality family time can strengthen the emotional connections between family members. We recommend that your wife schedules time to talk with your children, listening to their concerns about academic performance and life. This helps them feel understood and supported while allowing you to comprehend their actual needs and challenges, enabling you to provide appropriate assistance. Additionally, you and your wife can help your children develop their other talents to foster their overall development. Understanding that academic achievement is not the sole determinant of success can also alleviate her worries and improve her emotional well-being.
4. Cultivate a habit of exercise
Exercise can help release stress, increase happiness, and maintain emotional stability. We recommend that your wife engages in light exercise such as walking, yoga, or jogging on a daily basis. This can aid in relieving stress and improving emotional well-being.
5. Seek professional help
If your wife's emotional state continues to be low, we highly recommend that she seek guidance and support from professional resources, such as psychological counselling, parental lectures, training workshops, parent-child counselling groups, and counselling services. These resources can help alleviate her pressure and improve her emotional well-being.
Improving one's emotional state requires sustained effort and perseverance. We encourage you to consider the above recommendations to assist your wife in enhancing her emotional well-being and cultivating a more positive mood.
Recommended activities/services：
- Mindfulness Workshop for parents (Family resource centre)
- Parent-child activities for low-income/new arrival single-parent /divorced families (Family resource centre)
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