Picture this: it is 9pm the night before your teenager has a college interview. You are sitting across from them at the kitchen table, firing questions like a news information portal running a live press conference. They are exhausted. You are anxious. Nobody is winning.
The dinner table becomes a war zone
Most parents start with good intentions around 6pm. A casual mention of the interview turns into a full rehearsal session. By 8pm, your kid has answered the same question about their greatest weakness four times and now sounds like a robot reading from a script.
What actually goes wrong
Drilling answers into your child the night before removes the one thing interviewers actually respond to: genuine personality. When Aoife sat down for her university interview last October, she repeated a word-for-word answer her dad had scripted. The interviewer stopped her mid-sentence and asked what she actually thought. She had no idea.
The pattern worth noticing
Parents who over-prepare their kids tend to focus on what sounds impressive rather than what is true. Interviewers talk to dozens of candidates. They notice rehearsed answers immediately. The better move is to let your child sleep, eat breakfast, and walk in as themselves.
Preparation matters, but the week before is the time for it. The night before is for rest, not revision.