For 40 hours a week, my day job involves dealing with undergraduate students and having now entered the first phase of assessment for the semester the cracks are starting to reveal themselves.
For the other 24 hours a day I am the mother of a Year 11 student about to sit the first senior exams. That is also not pretty. And let me tell you, when one member of the household is suffering from exam stress, the whole family is.
As one of four siblings I have a lot of personal experience in the different ways of coping with senior school. I was the goody two shoes, who studied every hour God sent, had no social life and was totally driven to get good results. It nearly killed me so I find it laughable when The Teen says I expect him to be like me. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
My older sister got by on brains alone. My younger sister was a bit of a social butterfly for much of the term but totally committed when assessment was due. My brother's strategy was to ignore it in the hope that it would go away. Pretending stress isn't there and refusing to actually take steps to deal with the cause is rarely a good idea. I was too busy worrying about myself to think about my poor parents and living in the house with four teenagers. What a cat fight. This pussy I saw this afternoon pretty much tells the whole story. This is not an animal you want to mess with. It might be a purr-fect pet much of the year but right now don't come within spitting distance. And even that isn't a whisker of what a cat fight it is here right now ...
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