Leaving Certificate Cancelled due to Covid 19: A Mental Health Perspective

Hearts will soar and others will drop at the news that the Irish Leaving Certificate examinations have been cancelled. This momentous occasion that young people have been striving towards for years has now come to a crashing halt and this anti-climax can be very difficult for adolescents and therefore parents to deal with in an honourable and respectful way.

The enormous responsibility of studying and performing well on the day has been lifted from the shoulders of this younger generation and replaced with a different kind of uncertainty and doubt around how well they have performed when they thought nobody was looking or how their dodgy relationship with their geography teacher will impact their grade. So how can we support these teenagers to navigate the seas of this troubling time?

Perspective! It’s a matter of stepping into the other's shoes for a moment to give ourselves a better chance at empathising with these Leaving Cert students. Imagine that you have worked on a project for 14 years and the deadline is now in sight. You have made many good friends along the way and are also looking forward to seeing the back of other personalities. As the project nears to an end, something unimaginable happens resulting in the project coming to a standstill. Initially, you are quite glad of the break albeit underlying anxieties begin to stir about the deadline and the quality of your work with this loss of focus. This pause lasts week after week until your motivation and hope dwindle and your mind becomes a breeding ground for anxiety, negativity and procrastination.

This period finally crescendos with a later date to resume the project only to fall flat on its face days later when it is decided that it is safer for everyone to abandon the project this year. This roller-coaster no doubt would leave people feeling dizzy and ‘up in the air’. Now try to deal with this without your prefrontal cortex (the area of the brain involved in decision making, problem-solving and predicting consequences) which is underdeveloped in teens or your life experience which knows ‘this too shall pass’, another luxury teenagers do not yet possess.

An important thing to be aware of when trying to support a teen through this transition is that with each change there is loss and with loss comes grief. Be ready and understanding for the 6 stages of grief to appear; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These are not sequential stages and it is very normal to jump from one to the other and back again sometimes even in the same conversation.

Try to refrain from the cliché phrases of “It could be worse” or “Aren’t you lucky” as in my experience as a Bereavement Counsellor, these accentuate the pain and offer a good target for the anger. Instead, ask how they are feeling and be prepared to listen with understanding and patience rather than advice. If practical solutions are your thing then perhaps suggest that the young person writes a list of all the things they have ‘backburnered’ over the past year for when the exams were over. They may not feel like doing any of it right now but it is surprising how effective this exercise may be in moving their focus from fears of predictive marking to something a little more positive and exciting.

Although the focus in the media and in the community appears to be primarily on exams and college applications, it should be highlighted that these young people have also been denied an important ritual relating to the potentially biggest transition of their lives; finishing school and moving out of their family of origin. Over the years, they witnessed older siblings, neighbours, school comrades progress through the well-worn, predictable path to independence. They envisioned themselves numerous times paving the same path from studying hard to last day of school to the exam hall to graduation to college acceptance and the much longed for and feared ‘moving out’. Little did they anticipate that this path would be impassable when their long-awaited turn arrived.

We don’t speak much of rituals these days but their importance has not diminished and what we have learnt in the loss of religious practice in this country where religious ceremonies i.e. rituals were once prominent is that when we deprive young people of a coming of age rituals, they supplement and initiate themselves in a sometimes less than safe or appropriate way. The importance of the community organising and being present for these events is crucial. Imagination is necessary in this challenging time of social distancing and cocooning but it is really important that some form of ritual or celebration is conducted so as to provide these young people an opportunity to say goodbye to their past existence and welcome the next exciting chapters in their lives.

As humans, we all differ in our ability to cope with change. As earlier stated, some hearts may sore with the Minister’s decision and there may well be and I am certain that there are, adolescents out there who are thrilled with this ‘get out of jail card’ and can’t believe their luck. Such is their experience and they have the right to enjoy it. The hope is that we can enable the other group to also experience this mix of joy and relief and look forward with hope to the future while feeling that they have gained some degree of closure from this experience.

Andrea Best is an accredited Psychotherapist who also holds a Masters Degree in Psychology and a BA Degree in Early Childhood Studies. Andrea has worked as a Psychotherapist for the HSE Traumatic Bereavement Service and the Sligo Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre. Andrea is also the National Program Coordinator for Grow, Ireland’s largest community mental health organisation which runs over 100 weekly support groups for people with mental health issues nationwide.