It’s 11 p.m. The kitchen is still warm from dinner. Your daughter is slumped over a chemistry textbook, late into the night, studying for her upcoming exams.
You sit beside her and make tea. You offer your help and advice. You sit in silence with her.
It’s natural for parents to want to help their teens during exam time, but in reality, it’s easy to add to their stress instead of relieving it.
Most parents avoid anything that could increase their child’s stress, but many of the things they do to help actually have the opposite effect.
Jump to:
- Start By Understanding What Your Teen Is Facing
- Build The Environment, Not The Plan
- Food, Sleep, And Movement Matter More Than Another Hour Of Revision
- Watch For The Signs Of Overload
- Help With The Work Without Doing The Work
- Be Careful With Your Own Words
- Plan A Reward That Isn't About Results
- What Good Support Actually Feels Like
Start By Understanding What Your Teen Is Facing
A teenager’s school life is not just about learning to read and write six subjects.
It is also about a part-time job to earn some pocket money and time to spend with friends and do things they are interested in.
Be honest and ask your teenager what their studies look like over the next two weeks or so. Don’t ask if they’re studying enough.
This will ensure that they can tell you where they’re going to be under pressure and help you to understand where they’re going to feel under pressure.
Build The Environment, Not The Plan
Don’t create a study schedule for your teenager. Parents often try to set up a study timetable for their teens. It rarely works.
Your job is the environment. Setting the stage for your teenager.
Beyond the other factors that support learning, research shows that students' attentional capacity is significantly affected by smartphone use.
Research from the American Psychological Association found that even when phones are set to silent mode, they still draw attention.
So, create a well-lit study space and keep your phone in another room. Make studying at the library or at a friend’s house possible, even preferable.
Studies prove that some students work better with background noise than with silence, even if it is of poor quality. Don’t mistake this for laziness.
Food, Sleep, And Movement Matter More Than Another Hour Of Revision
Supporting a teen to study well often comes down to understanding that, beyond another hour of revision, they need food, rest, and exercise to perform at their best.
The National Institutes of Health states that the average adolescent needs around 8-10 hours of sleep each night, yet they often get much less during exam times.
Their memory is consolidated during sleep, so often an all-nighter actually serves to cancel out all of their prior hard work.
We cannot stop your teen from staying up all night to study. We can help create an environment where they are more likely to get enough sleep. Stay calm past 10pm.
Try to avoid scheduling activities that require your teen to be awake early the next morning after a late study night. Offer healthy food. Provide protein for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and water at his or her desk.
A short 20 minute walk can do a lot of good to a teenager studying for exams. Physical activity can help to decrease stress hormones and increase focus.
Taking a walk with your teenager and discussing other ways to reduce their stress could be very beneficial.
Watch For The Signs Of Overload
Teenagers express stress in different ways, including withdrawal from activities and friends that used to bring pleasure, restlessness, irritability, an increase in physical complaints, including headaches and stomach problems, as well as decreased appetite.
Pay attention to these signals:
- Sleeping far too little or far too much
- Skipping meals or eating compulsively
- Withdrawing from friends and hobbies they usually enjoy
- Frequent headaches or stomach discomfort which cannot be explained by illness.
- Say's he/she will fail regardless.
Even a single late night is not a disaster. However, if it happens frequently over the course of weeks, it is worth discussing with your child and possibly contacting the school counselor or even your child’s family doctor.
Anxiety in adolescents is increasingly recognized as a serious health issue by the World Health Organization, and early intervention can have a big impact.
Help With The Work Without Doing The Work
Of course there are occasions when your child will need help with homework and study.
If, for example, you can test your child on their vocabulary or listen to them explain a concept such as photosynthesis and then help them to organize an argument for their coursework, that is fine.
Model study for your child, help them with work but don’t do it for them. Give your child the skills to complete work, not the work itself.
You can model heavy work, like planning an essay or revising their work to make sure it’s perfect for a deadline, but you can't complete it on their behalf.
This means that rather than them getting a completely finished essay, they get to read an example of good writing organized in a particular way and then receive feedback on their own attempts at the task.
This helps them to learn skills rather than having work done for them.
Purdue OWL is another resource that can be helpful to a teenager. Many universities use Purdue OWL for information on writing and the different uses of the OWL such as the thesis statement, citations, and revising.
The information is given in an easy-to-follow format on their website, WritePaperFor.Me is another resource that can help a teenager write.
Be Careful With Your Own Words
The parent of a teenaged child would do well to note how their words are perceived. The word “best” is not generally considered positive.
So, “I just want you to do your best” sounds supportive but could be perceived by an anxious teen as a threat. Best compared to what? Best according to whom?
This will mean that you are proud of their hard work, that they have worked their hardest, and that an exam is only one of many ways to measure a student.
Then later you can ask them what they learned from the test, and what they did wrong instead of just focusing on the grade.
Do not compare your child to others (including their aunts/uncles, etc.) who have done well in school.
Plan A Reward That Isn't About Results
A night off of studying in exchange for great study time (like reviewing notes) would be awesome.
A trip or a fun day off would be great to look forward to in return for good study time too. A day of nothing but relaxing would be awesome too.
What Good Support Actually Feels Like
So, what does good support look like? Well, good support is often unseen: the quiet kitchen, a full cupboard of food, and an unhurried question at the right time. Support of this kind enables teenagers to carry their loads, but to do so, not alone.
It won’t be any thanks to you during exam time but you will be remembered many years later for being calm and supportive.
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