To help your child become an autonomous and resilient learner:
Teach her a few tried-and-tested tricks for managing pressure.
It’s normal for your child to feel pressure when she sits down to write and exam. The important thing is not to buckle under that pressure. In their book Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most, Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry explain that handling pressure is skill and that it can be learned. Here are just a few of the tried-and tested tips they provide for managing pressure, which you may wish to share with your child:
- Try re-framing pressure as a challenge instead of a threat: “This is a battle I can definitely win!”
- Think only about the task, not the outcome: “I will concentrate on the present moment and take this one step at a time.”
- Focus only on the factors over which you have control: “I am not going to waste my energy thinking about what ‘might’ happen.”
- Remember past successes to give yourself a boost of self-confidence: “I have done this before, so I can do this again!”
- Believe in your power to succeed: “This is going to work out and I am going to succeed.”