If you’re feeling concerned about your teenage student’s levels of anxiety for their exams this summer, rest assured that you’re not alone.
In 2022, school leaders’ union ASCL reported that more than 80 per cent of headteachers had found stress and anxiety among students taking exams to be higher than in pre-pandemic years.
With statistics such as these causing alarm among both parents and educators, the key question is:
How can we help our students feel calm, confident and able to cope well with the challenges of exams?
While schools will certainly focus on exam content and revision techniques – as well as, ideally, relaxation techniques too – the scope of teaching varies hugely from school to school. So as parents, you have a key role to play in supporting your teenage students in the lead-up to exams, and there are plenty of ways you can help.
Here are 10 top tips to help you support your teens during this time:
Adopt a coaching approach (ask, don’t tell)
To avoid conflict and to give your teen an element of control over certain aspects of their lives, aim to adopt a coaching approach and ask (rather than tell them) what might help.
When coaching, three steps to bear in mind for a meaningful discussion are:
a) Ask open questions. These encourage communication and avoid one-word answers, eg, ‘What might make you feel anxious about exams?’
b) Be an active listener. Demonstrate with your body language, eye contact and manner that you are fully engaged in the conversation and are present, leaving time for your teen to pause and reflect before they answer the question posed.
c) Avoid ‘why’. You will no doubt know from experience that if you ask a teenager why they have done something, the answer is often ‘I don’t know’ as this word can feel accusatory and often leads to a defensive answer. Instead, you could use ‘what’ and ‘how’ as these lead to more open and neutral questions.
Our main aim with students is to let them know that we are there to support them, and by asking certain encouraging questions, we can ascertain what they feel would be most helpful to them – and that knowledge is worth its weight in gold.
Create a calm environment
Having asked your teenager what might help them, it is important to respond to this and also to instil a sense of calm at home – both in their workplace and at mealtimes. For example, this might mean ensuring younger siblings give them space, and everyone avoiding the topic of exams and work at meals, so your teens know they can work and relax in an environment that encourages learning and promotes good wellbeing.
Establish good routines
Notice what is helping and what is hindering them in their daily routines, particularly with regards to bedtime, work and exams. Factors that will play into this are, of course, their phones/devices and other people, and how your teen is coping with these distractions. You can help them by talking about the need for boundaries and working out what motivates them – a focus on long-term goals is essential here to overcome short-term ‘pain’ factors.
Facilitate healthy nutrition
One of the biggest factors affecting stress and energy levels is the consumption of energy drinks, sugar and caffeine. It’s all too easy to graze, binge and self-soothe with unhealthy snacks and drinks during times of stress, so ask yourself what you can to do make good habits easy and bad habits hard, such as filling the fridge with healthy snacks and water, and encouraging more fast-food type snacks at weekends or after an exam.
Encourage purposeful work and social times
If your teen is turning inward and isolating themselves from their social network, do what you can to encourage purposeful time for work and for socialising. Some overzealous students come to regard socialising as a waste of valuable revision time. However, viewing social events as a positive healthy habit that encourages their brains to process information while they relax and feel connected to others is, in fact, a huge bonus and strength.
Reassure
One of the biggest causes of teen anxiety is worry about the ‘what if’ questions. These tend to be focused on not achieving the grades they are hoping for and, as a consequence, not being accepted onto their desired option for higher education or career path. Since a root cause of anxiety is often linked to the desire to please, don’t underestimate the value in explicitly letting them know that you will still love and support them, whatever the outcome.
You can also share your own experiences of when you had to choose Plan B – by doing so, you reassure your teens that the worst case scenario in their minds may well not happen, and even if it does, they are capable of handling it as there are always equally good and sometimes better options that open up in life.
Anticipate problems
Think through the timetable of exams with a logistics brain and plan ahead for all events that might go wrong, from the minutiae of your teen not having the right equipment or running out of ink during an exam, to more day-to-day factors such as transport and ensuring a back-up lift in case of problems.
If you have a teen who struggles with organisation, ensure they have packed their bag with all essentials the night before and that clothes are ready and laid out for the morning. You could also encourage them to take water and snacks and double-check that alarms are working (and have two if needed!).
Champion and build confidence
In any household with a teen, there will be moments of crisis when they are hit by a lack of self-belief and feel overwhelmed. When this happens, you may be the closest person both physically and emotionally, so you may be on the receiving end of some strong language and/or behaviour. The key here is NOT to react in the same way!
Breathe, walk away or do whatever you need to do to give yourself space, and let them know you’ll come back to talk when things are a bit calmer.
Once this moment arises, acknowledge their feelings of frustration and ask what they need to feel better, and also how you can help so they are able to cope well with this situation the next time it arises.
Remember too that their inner critic is bound to be a loud voice in their heads at this time, so encourage them to think what advice they would give to a best friend in their situation, and to accept kind words from their own inner champion – ones that both boost their morale and encourage them to overcome challenges.
Educate
You will no doubt be aware of many resources that might help, from relaxation techniques and forms of mindfulness and meditation to apps and quick tools they can use in exams. It’s useful to have these resources in mind and ready for the moment when your teen asks for help or is suddenly in panic mode.
It is often a case of the simpler the better with techniques. One of the most popular breathing exercises is Square Breathing: ask your teen to imagine four sides of a square and then breathe in for a count of four seconds, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold again for four, and continue until they feel calmer and more relaxed.
Role-model
We all know that it’s not our words but our actions that carry the most currency, so asking yourself how you manage certain scenarios – from working at home and learning new skills to taking time out to relax – will all give you a key indicator as to where your teen student might be picking up certain habits and beliefs.
There is also great value in having open and honest conversations with teenage students about how you may have struggled at school or with later situations, so they know they’re not alone and that stress is a constant throughout our lives. With the right approach, we teach our teens that while we cannot control external events, we can control how we respond to them. And therein lies our greatest power.
Wishing you and your teenage students a very healthy and happy exam season.
Kate Boyd-Williams is an expert education and wellbeing coach with a wealth of experience at helping teens to handle exam anxiety and supporting parents and educators to make this experience a positive one for all.
If you would like 1:1 coaching for your teen, or have any questions, you can email her at: kate@kateboydwilliams.com. For information on training for educators in coaching and wellbeing skills, go to kateboydwilliams.com