Help your child beat exam stress
Child getting stressed on exams
Parent Question and Answer
It feels as if we are all treading on eggshells this past month as my teen prepares for her GSCE assessments/ tests…..help! I need quick tips to keep her calm.
Help her by supporting her to plan a mix of revision time and leisure time. It's vital to have some 'down-time' to look forward to and to not feel guilty about it. Work out a timetable of revision, in a quiet space and ensure plenty of breaks, healthy snacks and use descriptive praise to motivate your child: Here's how:
Start preparations early as early as you can. Make the start of revision fun by organising new pens, highlighter pens and folders.
Have a space dedicated to exam revision which is quiet and distractions minimised, i.e. uncluttered and somewhere where she won’t be interrupted. Ideally this should not be at the table where you eat. Try and make home life as calm as possible and if you can help by keeping younger children entertained elsewhere for a few hours that can help.
Break tasks and study sessions down into smaller components – work for no more than 30 minutes and then take a 5 minute walking around break. If revising AS/A levels we recommend no more than 5 hours of revision a day and no more than 2 hours at one time. Avoid using electronics in the break as this will interfere with their ability to focus on their work. Make sure their snacks are not sugar-laden. Encourage your child to join family meals – the break and change of scene will do them good.
Support her emotionally by empathising if they’re finding it difficult. If she's realised she should have started preparations earlier, resist the temptation to say I told you so, and hope that she is learning something for herself. Instead say something like “It sounds like you wish you’d got going sooner and now you’re feeling mad at yourself/foolish. Don’t let that feeling get in the way now you’re ready to work.”
Don't nag her if she's not getting down to work as early or as often as you’d like. Instead agree with her rules for study periods away from the study time. Descriptively praise her when she heads for the books/when she's focused.
Don't bribe her with sweets or money. This negative pattern implies you don't trust her hard work and will affect her self-worth She needs to learn to try her best regardless and will over time learn to feel proud of her work and achievements.
Pop in every now and then to descriptively praise her efforts or any good learning strategies she's employing, such as using a mind map or cue cards or notes in different colours.
Don't stress. This is easy to say but hard to do especially as children approach the end of their school lives. It is essential that younger children facing exams don’t lose their natural love of learning because of pressures to do well in exams. Parents need to expect children to do their best, but if they have put in the effort that is what counts more than the result. This means there should be less attention paid to the result than the child’s preparations.
If your daughter does do well in the test do not praise her for the result itself and do not tell her how clever they are. Instead say “this good mark is the result of all your effort. You spent a lot of time learning these tables/French verbs/preparing for this test/working throughout the year. I really respect how hard you worked. You can feel proud of yourself.”
Remember your biggest priority just now is to keep stress levels down, as if her brain is flooded with cortisol, this will interfere with the higher functioning of the brain and she will not be able to absorb her work.
Don't compare her with anyone else ( especially not a sibling)
Ensure every day she should have a range of leisure/down time activities planned – whether going to driving range to hit a few balls; meeting friends for a coffee; going to the cinema one afternoon or evening; going for a bike ride or to the gym. As we come out of lock down there may be more choice of activities. There is time to have this “guilt-free” leisure as long as she plans for it. If not planned then she may feel guilty and spend her leisure time worrying she should be revising and it is a viscous circle.
Ensure good bedtime habits – so she wakes up each morning refreshed and ready to go. No caffeine late at night; no electronics in the bedroom not even charging her mobile phone by the bed. Those electromagnetic waves will interfere with sleep patterns!
My last tip is help her to chunk everything down and break it into those munchable chunks.
Take care of yourself as well and ensure you fill up your own emotional bank account, so you can replenish the resource you are for your family.
To learn more about how to ensure your children are confident and contented, take a look at our 30 DAYS TO POSITIVE PARENTING course -achievable yet effective, this course is for busy parents who want to change their parenting style with bitesize exercises that are simple yet impactful.