Many parents struggle to figure out how to restore child’s focus after Chinese New Year, especially when exam season looms. To answer this common question, we spoke to Jolene Ang, the Co-founder and CEO of BlueTree Education and a former PSLE Chief Presiding Examiner, PSLE marker and paper setter.
With extensive experience in both teaching and assessment, she offers a rare examiner’s perspective on student learning, exam stamina, parent-child engagement and the skills children need to thrive in today’s education landscape.
After Chinese New Year, Many Parents Notice Their Child Suddenly Struggling to Focus or Feeling More Tired with Schoolwork. From Your Experience, Why Does CNY So Often Bring These Stamina and Focus Issues to The Surface?
Jolene Ang: After Chinese New Year, it’s actually very common for parents to notice a dip in their child’s focus or stamina — and it’s not because the child has suddenly become “less motivated.”
CNY represents a perfect storm of disruption. Sleep routines shift. Bedtimes get pushed back. There’s increased sugar intake, travel, social stimulation, and screen time. Even for adults, that combination affects energy regulation and concentration. For children — whose executive functioning skills are still developing — the impact is magnified.
But beyond the physical disruption, there’s also an emotional and cognitive factor. The festive period is high-energy and socially intense. Children are navigating large gatherings, expectations to perform socially, comparisons from relatives, and sometimes subtle academic questioning.
When school resumes, their nervous system may still be in “celebration mode,” and switching back into structured, sustained attention requires adjustment.
It’s helpful to reframe this moment. Instead of seeing it as a discipline problem, we can view it as a transition issue. The brain needs rhythm and predictability to function optimally.
When rhythm is disrupted, we simply need to restore it — gradually and intentionally. Even for us, adults, we have to take a while to readjust our mindsets as we return to work. It’s not uncommon to hear adults lament or drag themselves back to the usual work rhythm.
Most children rebound quickly once routine and regulation return. CNY doesn’t cause learning issues; it simply exposes how sensitive children are to changes in rhythm — and that awareness can actually empower parents to support them better.
Chinese New Year Usually Means Late Nights, Visiting Relatives, More Screen Time, and A Break from Routine. When Students Return to Long Exam Papers, Is It Really the Holidays Causing the Problem, or Do Festive Breaks Simply Expose Gaps That Were Already There?
Jolene Ang: I would say the honest answer is: it’s often both.
Festive breaks like Chinese New Year disrupt rhythm — sleep cycles shift, attention becomes more fragmented, and the brain gets used to short bursts of stimulation rather than sustained cognitive effort. So when students return to long exam papers that demand endurance, working memory, and emotional regulation, there is naturally some friction.
However, what the holidays often do is amplify what was already beneath the surface.
If a child already had fragile foundational understanding, weak time-management habits, or limited stamina for sustained thinking, the festive break doesn’t create those gaps — it simply removes the scaffolding of routine that was helping them cope. In that sense, the struggle we see after CNY can act as a diagnostic window.
For parents, this is actually an opportunity rather than a cause for alarm. Especially early in the academic year.
Instead of asking, “Did the holidays cause this?” a more useful question is, “What is this revealing about my child’s learning habits and resilience?”
Long exam papers are not just content tests — they are also stamina tests. They require:
- Cognitive endurance [how deep and wide can your child think ]
- Emotional regulation/ resilience when facing difficult questions
- Time management skill
If a child struggles after a short festive break, it may signal that these skills haven’t been built systematically yet.
At Bluetree, we often remind parents that academic success is not just about content mastery. It’s about training the brain to handle sustained effort. Routine helps — but true readiness means a child can regain focus even after disruption.
So yes, holidays can temporarily affect performance. But more importantly, they give us insight into where to strengthen foundations — and that is valuable data, not failure.
Parents Often Describe Their Child As Careless or Not Trying Hard Enough, Especially After The Festive Period. From An Examiner’s Perspective, How Can Parents Tell the Difference Between Poor Effort and Mental Fatigue?
Jolene Ang: Based on my perspective as a former PSLE examiner,, “careless” and “fatigued” look very different on paper.
Mental fatigue usually shows patterns such as:
- Strong performance in the first half of the paper, followed by a noticeable drop in accuracy.
- Repeated mistakes in otherwise well-mastered concepts.
- Misreading common keywords (“not”, “false”, “based on”).
- Incomplete final questions due to time mismanagement or slower information processing.
These are stamina-related indicators. The child CAN do the work — but sustaining precision over 2 to 2.5 hours becomes difficult.
On the other hand, poor effort tends to show up differently:
- Skipped steps even at the start of the paper.
- Minimal working or thought processes shown.
- Careless errors spread evenly throughout the paper
- Poor translation of concepts into answers
Even then, I would caution parents against labelling quickly. In many cases, what looks like poor effort is actually low cognitive bandwidth. After a festive period like CNY — with late nights, social stimulation, and disrupted routines — children may return to school already mentally taxed. When the brain is depleted, accuracy drops before motivation does.
The goal is not to excuse underperformance — but to diagnose accurately. When we mislabel fatigue as laziness, we risk eroding a child’s confidence. When we ignore genuine effort issues, we miss opportunities to build discipline.
When Parents Get Worried After CNY, Many Respond by Adding More Tuition or Pushing Their Child to Do More Practice Papers. Based on What You’ve Seen, Why Can This Approach Sometimes Increase Stress and Make Focus Worse Instead?
Jolene Ang: Doing more can sometimes backfire, especially after the festive season,where routines are disrupted. Adding more work, may not build capacity and ability.
When children feel behind, and the response is immediate escalation, the message they internalise is: “I am not enough. I need to do more to fix myself.” That pressure can heighten cortisol levels, which directly impacts concentration, memory retrieval, and problem-solving.
If a child is already mentally fatigued and we layer on back-to-back tuition sessions and daily full papers, we often see diminishing returns. Mistakes increase. Frustration rises. Confidence dips. Ironically, the very thing parents are trying to improve — focus — becomes harder to access.
At BlueTree , we love to leverage on the power of YET.
Instead of asking, “How many more papers can we do?” ask:
- “Is my child cognitively ready for the next learning stage?”
- “Are we addressing root causes or just increasing exposure?”
- “Do we need stamina training, skill correction, or emotional regulation support?”
At Bluetree, we often recommend a short reset period post-festive season — rebuild sleep, re-establish structure, then introduce targeted, high-quality practice rather than blanket drilling.
For Parents Who Want to Help Their Child Recover Focus and Confidence After Chinese New Year Without Burning Them Out, What Are Some Realistic and Practical Steps They Can Take at Home?
Jolene Ang: After Chinese New Year, the goal is not to “catch up fast.” The goal is to restore rhythm/consistency and rebuild momentum.
From what we’ve seen at Bluetree, here are practical, sustainable steps parents can take at home:
1. Rebuild Sleep Before Rebuilding Scores
Every parent knows the importance of sleep and how our children recover brain power through it. Sleep is the fastest lever for cognitive recovery.
Bring bedtime forward gradually (15–20 minutes earlier every few nights). Avoid sudden drastic changes. A regulated sleep cycle alone can restore attention span within a week.
2. Do Short, High-Quality Study Blocks
Instead of full exam papers immediately, try:
- 25–30 minute focused sessions
- One targeted section (e.g., only comprehension inference questions, or only word problems) – this allows quality revision – it’s easier to work at one thing at a time, rather than a few things at one go
- Immediate review after completion
This reduces friction towards revision (shorter but frequent study blocks are better-received than a single, lengthy block) and shifts focus on learning gaps.
3. Train Stamina Gradually
If the paper is 1.5 hours, don’t jump straight back to 1.5 hours. Build up:
- Week 1: 40 minutes
- Week 2: 60 minutes
- Week 3: Full duration
Focus is like a muscle — it strengthens progressively, not instantly.
4. Shift the Language at Home
Replace:
- “Why are you so careless?”
With:
- “What can be done better here OR
- “What was happening in your mind here?”
This builds self-awareness instead of shame.
Most importantly, remember that post-CNY dips are usually transitional, not permanent. Children are highly adaptable when supported calmly.
At Bluetree, we often remind parents: recovery is not about intensity — it’s about consistency. When rhythm returns, focus follows.
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