Surviving the Summer: Nearly a week in? I feel a bit guilty that I'm not even totally certain, but I reckon that by now most of you have done all the big ones - the English, Irish, maths and sciences. Yes, the finishing post must just about be coming into view unless you belong in the "obscure" bracket and have to wait for the likes of German, or music, or, perish the thought, Greek, which I think they really push off into the land of never never, writes Caroline Murphy.

Exams - don't they have the capacity to run a house in a way the most domineering parent never could? And when I say "Just hang in there, you are nearly there", I really mean you parents. Because it's a funny thing, but when one person in the house is doing an exam, well, so is everyone else.

Of course the reason I feel just a bit guilty about even bringing up the subject is because we are not with you this year. No sir. We survived the baby ones last year and the year before (the first two of the crop doing the Junior Cert), and so this summer, for the only time between 2002 and eternity, we are officially exam free.

And yes, I know, we should make the most of it. Because being in the middle of it all is not the easiest thing in the world.

A friend of mine must be worth at least an A1 in Leaving Cert geography. She had been converted to the merits of the memory technique that I came across while we were studying, and so, just last week, she devoted a couple of days to helping her son use it to memorise the entire Leaving Cert geography course. It was very successful apparently, so now she knows pretty well all there is to know about the field trip, France, Spain and anything else likely to crop up in this year's paper! (Fortunately her son learned it as well).

Another friend just did not venture out during her - oh sorry, not her, her daughter's - Leaving Cert. She found the whole thing so stressful last year - her first journey down the State exam road - that she just turned off her phone for the first three days, and tried out some serious deep breathing in darkened rooms.

I think it's just the element of being the helpless bystander that makes the stress so great. You would like to be able to say: "It doesn't matter. Just do your best. Everything will be fine". Trouble is, though, that if by any chance you have a son or daughter who is bent on doing, say, medicine, or physiotherapy, or law and French, then it does matter. And all the pretending that "Just relax and do your best" will carry the day, doesn't cut much ice. When there is a finite number of places and a seemingly infinite number competing for them, as you and they both know perfectly well, just relaxing and doing your best may not be enough.

So what do you do? If you try to deflect all the pressure beforehand by coming up with possible alternatives, then you run the risk of being accused of lacking confidence in your exam student. If you ask him or her to drift in the direction of the dishwasher with even their own dirty dishes, you will be accused of jeopardising their entire future by encroaching on valuable study time. And if you are foolhardy enough to mention that they might like to contribute to decreasing the size of the pile in the ironing basket, or perhaps even get some fresh air by mowing the grass - well sorry, but despite all my recent psychology training, I will not be available for counselling as you try to pick up whatever pieces of yourself you can find after the onslaught.

You know, in the beginning, I seriously did not believe it had to be like this. Years ago, in what now seems like another life altogether, I thought people who were involved with, and knew all about, their children's school lives were, well, almost sad.

I found the late Christina Murphy's articles in The Irish Times interesting, but I really believed that all the information about the ins and outs of exams, points and courses was a bit over the top. Remembering my own schooldays, I wondered what on earth it had to do with the parents? Wasn't it the student's business?

Oh bliss and innocence! That was then, and this is now.

Now, I do know all about exams, points and courses. I don't know too much about homework. I am determined to hang on to some of my principles of detachment, so I will always proclaim homework to be my children's responsibility alone. But like everyone else, I am now fully aware of the bigger picture, the options, the CAO, the points, the pitfalls. I'm just rather glad that, for this year at least, we are not drowning in it.

For those of you who are, cling on. You are nearly there, and our thoughts are with you. Good luck!

Caroline Murphy is a broadcaster and mother of six