Does your teen have exam anxiety?

I tend to see teens with exam anxiety around this time of year so i thought I'd write a post to help you support your teen.

1. What are their compelling outcomes?

Get chatting about their ambitions, what would they like to do?

What are their dreams, however mad and wild?!

What are these exams the next step to.

Dreaming big

In the anxious state, kids tend to focus on their fears of

• letting their parents and teachers down

• getting a panic attack in the exam

• being too anxious to answer the questions

• feeling sick

It can help overcome these fears when they focus instead on the 'bigger picture'. In NLP we call this global or 'big chunk' thinking. Here they can see beyond the exams and put the immediate worries to one side in able to see ahead to what it's all for.

2. What grades do they want to get in each subject?

Now we are going 'small chunk ' or detail. they've shared their dream but let's get down to the basics, what grades are they aiming for. It's not enough to just want to 'do well'. Let's get specific.

• for each subject get them to specify what grade they want to see on their results sheet?

• I ask them to close their eyes and see what number they want on the sheet

• they could even imagine drawing that number themselves

Now let's look at the shift that's going to be needed

• what grade do they currently expect, so what is the shift they need to make?

Time for some hard thinking. For each shift per subject or per topic in the paper, what precisely do they need to do. This is where detailed thinking comes in. Help them make a 'to do' list for each with as much detail as possible. So this could be per book in English Lit, by topic in History etc

3. How will they do this?

Most of us tend to have preferred learning or processing styles.

• visual - where we prefer to look at or read, watch videos, films etc

• auditory - we prefer to listen to podcasts, videos, films etc

• kinaesthetic - actually doing papers, practising or working with revision buddies

Using a combination of these can ring the changes, help them see the topic from another angle or help them process the topic more deeply with more understanding and more options in the exam itself to answer the question.

Looking at previous tests and analysing where they fell short will help them.

• Time

• Understanding what's needed from the question

• Missing key parts of the answer required

• Not using PEEL paragraphs

• Not enough revision!

Use AI! Chat GPT is a great revision tool. Use it to ask for other ways to explain a maths problem, key points to cover on a topic, input an exam answer to look for a better way to answer it. AI is here to stay and will always be a part of their education and the jobs they will go into so not using it is missing a key revision resource. Instead of spending 10 minutes looking at something and believing they can't do it, instead take a photo of the question, post it to Chat GPT and ask it to explain it another way. This avoids wasting important revision time as they can now get on with it and also enables them to approach it with a 'can do' attitude.

4. What emotional aspects could get in the way?

• Low expectations - setting low goals, feeling even before the exams that they won't do well. This will engender a 'can't be arsed' attitude which is a sort of heavy lethargic energy which doesn't get the brain thinking very efficiently or effectively.

  
  

  Instead, help them to believe in themselves, set ambitious goals, remind them what they're doing this for, that they can do it and will be glad they did. It's ok to feel disheartened from time to time but not to let that be the feeling every day. If you believe you CAN do it, the brain can make that happen.

Feeling positive

• Anxiety, panic attacks and sick feelings can make it hard to focus in the exam and can get in the way of making effective use of revision time. EFT tapping is a great way to calm exam nerves. us the finger tapping points or just the gamut point to discreetly tap away anxiety.

Here are the tapping points.

Tapping diagram

Tapping with fingers of one hand work round the tapping points in any order squeezing gently either side of each finger, or just tap gently on the gamut point or side of the hand (karate chop point). Each time you tap think about an aspect of the thing that's blocking you, for example.

• I can't do it

• It's too hard

• I feel sick

• I'll fail

• I'll get a bad grade

If your teen talks about 'my anxiety' they are owning it, taking it inside themselves as an internal representation about their identity. Instead, invite them to 'take out' their anxiety, look at it and chunk it down to what exactly it is that they are worried about. Write each thought or feeling down and use these words for their tapping.

I hope this has been helpful. If you think your teen would benefit from a session with me, just get in touch. I charge £125 for a 90 minute session that should be enough to tackle those fears and anxieties as well as getting them feeling motivated and giving them some great exam tools. Book here.

Revision focus