The clueless non-musical mum again: exams?

[musichelpplease]

I posted previously and received so much help and encouragement for helping my children with their instruments 🙏 so thank you!

Now I have a question about the instrument exams. Really just what's the craic? Should they be doing them or not? I've heard different things like they can be detrimental to the love of the instrument. In summary:

DC10 flautist, has made slow and painful progress over the last couple of years, she's essentially just lazy but loves the instrument. Her teacher has now said she should aim for grade 1 and this has spurred on lots of practising and progression and she's very happy with this. But she also has 11+ approaching, does a million over clubs and I'm worried another exam might burn her out.

DC7 has done a term of piano and ABSOLUTE BLOODY LOVES it. Her piano teacher says she's very impressed and has said she can prepare her for grade 1 as quickly as possible. She's also suggested preparing her for the prep test? Because DC10 is aiming for the exam DC7 is just assuming she'll also be doing them - but she's so little I'm worried. She's also a very anxious child, although this doesn't seem to apply to piano where she becomes a different child entirely.

So what should I do/ask/guide the children towards?
MTIA for all the music wisdom here 🙏🙏

You might get more answers in the music thread on extra curricular, it's very friendly.
They don't have to do exams and it can slow progress down to spend so long ' perfecting' a small number of pieces. They miss out on a lot of repertoire if teachers only go from exam to exam. However, some children like something to focus on and the sense of achievement. There is a bit of stress involved but they cope!
A compromise is to do a few but not all of them, and intersperse it with actual performance opportunities like student concerts or music festivals ( you get competition classes and 'recreation' ones often ). For example, my DD has done grade 2 and 4 piano, grade 5 bassoon and now needs to do grade 5 theory before doing more

Thank you @horseymum! I'll pop over to the other thread. I was thinking maybe grade 1 for the experience and achievement and then aim for grade 4. Grade 4 seems to be the next big step?