How To Help Your Child Relax Before An Exam

 

Exams are stressful. But there are a few things you can do to help your child feel that little bit more relaxed and rejuvenated over study leave, even when the going gets tough. 

1. Find something productive to do that isn’t revision

Watching TV, scrolling through Instagram or playing a video game might be great, but they don’t keep your brain switched on. Try and encourage them to find an activity that takes your child away from revision but is still engaging and productive, so that even on their down time they feel as though they're achieving something. This should make them more relaxed about taking breaks, as they’re still working towards a goal. A few things we recommend: 

• Sudokus 
• Crosswords 
• Yoga
• Running
• Reading 
• A jigsaw puzzle 
• Baking 
• A game of solitaire 
• Painting, drawing or colouring in

2. Maintain perspective

During the exam period, exams and revision can naturally become your child's entire life. This often means that when something doesn’t go to plan, it is easy to start to panic about failing. When these feelings hit it’s important to motivate your child to look at the bigger picture; because realistically, even if they don’t do as well as they’d hoped, the world isn’t going to end. The worst case scenario is that they rethink what they do next, or re-take an exam and try and do better the next time - neither of which are catastrophic scenarios. 

Panicking only wastes time and energy - so if a bout of worrying hits, encourage them to take a deep breath, try and get some perspective, and wait for it to pass. 

3. Don’t stew over past exams 

It’s so tempting to come out of an exam and have a full, answer-by-answer debrief with friends; and sometimes this can be reassuring if you confirm each others answers. But it can also have the opposite effect if you put something different, or don’t feel confident about how well you’ve done. Therefore, try and encourage them to forget it as soon as they’re out of the exam room by talking about something different, because stewing over it will only distract them from the next one. 

As soon as they step out of an exam, whether they think they smashed it or not, help them just forget about it and move on. Tell them that there’s nothing they can do to impact their result once they’re out, so there’s no point over-analysing how it went.

4. Have a bath 

Everyone loves a bath; and if you think you don’t, you probably just don’t have the right kind of bubble bath. But in all seriousness, if they're feeling a little overwhelmed, run your child a nice warm bath with lots of bubbles and candles in the evening, and encourage them to enjoy 15 minutes of TLC. 

5. Make post-exam plans to look forward to 

There’s nothing like something fun to look forward to to keep you going. So plan a little treat for after exams - be it a trip, a day out, dinner plans or a picnic. Start getting excited for this occasion in front of them! It will feel amazing when they finally get there and are able to relax and enjoy themselves with friends and family - they really will deserve it.