All about Exam / Test Anxiety

[sharonkhoo]

Just wondering - what is the "environment" surrounding results in the home and school? Is the child often hearing that results are very important, and that he will be "dead" if he doesn’t get certain scores or similar remarks? Some sensitive kids may take such remarks too seriously and this can cause undue stress.

[zbear]

slmkhoo:

Just wondering - what is the \"environment\" surrounding results in the home and school? Is the child often hearing that results are very important, and that he will be \"dead\" if he doesn't get certain scores or similar remarks? Some sensitive kids may take such remarks too seriously and this can cause undue stress.

What if the environment is not home but class especially when all yr classmates are so competitive?

How do u cope n manage the stress of excellence n mental block?

[Lenny08]

slmkhoo:

Just wondering - what is the \"environment\" surrounding results in the home and school? Is the child often hearing that results are very important, and that he will be \"dead\" if he doesn't get certain scores or similar remarks? Some sensitive kids may take such remarks too seriously and this can cause undue stress.

The school itself is of high stressed and the child is a perfectionist by nature.

[sharonkhoo]

zbear:

slmkhoo:

Just wondering - what is the \"environment\" surrounding results in the home and school? Is the child often hearing that results are very important, and that he will be \"dead\" if he doesn't get certain scores or similar remarks? Some sensitive kids may take such remarks too seriously and this can cause undue stress.

What if the environment is not home but class especially when all yr classmates are so competitive?

How do u cope n manage the stress of excellence n mental block?

I believe that the home environment can damp down the stresses faced in school. To most kids, whether they admit it or not, parental support and approval means more than school or peers. However, it may be that parents have to start early, before peer pressure becomes too major a factor. Also, parents have to be convicted in what they say. If we say \"just do your best, we'll accept whatever results you get\" with our mouths, but our actions show differently, our kids will not believe our words.

[sharonkhoo]

Lenny08:

slmkhoo:

Just wondering - what is the \"environment\" surrounding results in the home and school? Is the child often hearing that results are very important, and that he will be \"dead\" if he doesn't get certain scores or similar remarks? Some sensitive kids may take such remarks too seriously and this can cause undue stress.

The school itself is of high stressed and the child is a perfectionist by nature.

You probably need to convince your child that his best is all that is expected, and that whatever results he gets is good enough. Perfectionist kids need to be told that even more than other kids. He has probably been praised a lot for good work; maybe you can switch to praising for effort rather than whether the work is done well or not.

[Mdm Koh]

Revise consistently. Don’t cram too much the day before the exams. Set achieveable short-term goals. Try taking timed mock exams at home or with friends. Some students go into panic mode during exams as they are not used to completing work within a limited time.

[janet88]

home and exam environment is a totally different feel.

the kids may be well prepared for any exam…but he/she can have a mental block in the examination hall.
I usually advise my son not to look around him but just focus on his paper…ignore any classmate who raises hand to ask for more paper.
start timing mock papers at home several times. lastly, remember to breathe slowly.

[zbear]

janet88:

the kids may be well prepared for any exam...but he/she can have a mental block in the examination hall.
I usually advise my son not to look around him but just focus on his paper...ignore any classmate who raises hand to ask for more paper.
.

I agree. I remembered being very panicky when I saw my classmates writing away furiously n asking for more paper.

[Mathwiz]

Lenny08,


I don’t have such experience with my children but my 1st son had a stage fright last year and we managed to overcome it. What I did with him is to have more performances, both informal and formal. I sent him to speech and drama class and asked him to perform first to me, then to the family. He was not comfortable at beginning but later he enjoyed it as he saw his own improvement. I signed him up to a number of formal performances, in kindergarten, piano school and outside. He got almost 2 or 3 performances and rehearsals each month end of last year. At the end of all, he was immune to performance. He read his book and when it was his turn, he just went up and play. I never set any expectation on how well he should perform. But I told him: the more you perform, the less scared or anxious you are. So that’s the only expectation in fact and what I would remind him: you are less scared after this performance right? I used a percentage and let him describe.

If my son has exam anxiety, I guess I will do the similar thing. I believe, the more you scared of doing something, the more you should do it. But don’t give them pressure on the results yet, just focusing on getting used to the exam first.

Forgot something. I gave my son incentives for each performance. He liked to play iPad games, so I set the incentive to be a new game installed after each formal performance.

By the way, I applied the similar method with my son this year when he had a phobia of playing chess games: The fear of losing. So again incentives, more points if he lost the game gracefully. He started with GO elementary class then jumped to intermediate class. I made him play online games 5 games a day. Recently, to my surprise, all the coaches commented that my son was very clam in games. The only worry I have now is that he is winning too many games with his classmates…