3 ways to help your teen keep perspective during their exams
If you are a parent of a teen who is starting their exams this week, I’m with you. Whilst I have helped hundreds of teens through their exams over the years, this is the first time I am experiencing it as a parent.
The single most important thing we can do for our teens over the next 6 weeks is to help them to maintain a sense of perspective.
If your teen is feeling overwhelmed, it is hardly surprising.
Your teen will have been told over and over again how important these exams are for their future.
They may have been led to believe by some that this is their one single shot at getting a “good job” (don’t even get me started on this… that’s a whole other blog post for another day).
It’s our job as parents to show our teens the bigger picture, to let them know that they are so much more than their exam results and to highlight where they have (and always will have) choices.
Here are a few ways in which you can do this.
Make sure that you ask your teen first though and check that it is what they really want – some teens will want to hold on to stress as a motivator and that’s ok. It must be their choice.
The following suggestions are for teens who are finding the pressure they are feeling less than useful.
1. Help them see an objective view of the situation
Imagine this for a moment. You think that it might be nice to go on holiday to Italy in the summer. You google “holidays in Italy”. You are presented with a list of links to explore. Then similar links begin to pop up on your social media feed. Before long, everywhere you look you see adverts for holidays to Italy. This is due to algorithms. We are fed more of what we are searching or filtering for.
Our minds also filter in the same way as these algorithms. This is because our conscious minds can only hold 5-7 pieces of information at any one time, so we focus on something and then (unconsciously) delete, generalise and distort other information that does not fit with this focus.
So, you can see how your teen may have created a kind of reality “tunnel” around exam stress and that the exams might seem like the be-all and end-all right now:
- Their teachers are talking about the importance of exams.
- Their friends are talking about exam stress.
- They are spending hours and hours thinking about and revising for exams to the exclusion of all else.
Their brains are filtering for “exams” and all they can think about is how stressed they are.
But there is a very simple way that you can help them take a more objective view.
Make them aware that if they are feeling “stressed” now, there must have been a time when they were “not stressed” in order to know what feeling “stressed” feels like. This alone can create a shift.
Now ask them to describe 3 scenarios when they are “not stressed”.
What do they see?
What do they hear?
What do they feel?
Encourage them to talk about these scenarios in detail. You will notice their state change from “stressed” to a far more positive state. This will be obvious in their facial expressions, their body language and the tone of their voice.
Super simple, but super effective.
2. Help them to focus on their long-term goal
Ask your teen to fast forward to 10 years from now.
What do they want their life to look like then? They might talk about a particular job, a particular lifestyle, particular people, a particular place.
Help them to see how many different ways that they could achieve this outcome.
This will put the exams firmly back into perspective for them and will show them that they have options and choices.
3. Help them to see that this period of time (and the feelings associated with it) will pass
Ask your teen to imagine their life as a timeline. Get them to imagine themselves floating above this timeline to one minute past the end of the final exam and get them to imagine dropping down into that moment.
Fear and anxiety do not exist outside of time and so when you ask your teen, “where is the anxiety now?” it is quite likely that they can no longer feel it.
For more tips to help your teen stay calm, see my earlier blog www.charlottenooncoaching.co.uk/blog/5-things-you-can-do-to-keep-your-teen-positive-during-exam-season
Wishing you and your teen a smooth and successful journey through the next 6 weeks.
