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How to support your child with exam results anxiety

Supporting your child ahead of exam results can be challenging.

They may be feeling stressed and anxious about what the future holds, or be worried about letting other people down. It's normal for this to be a difficult time.

Award-winning GP and young people's mental health expert Dr Dominique Thompson shares her top tips for how to support your child going through exam results stress.

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Transcript

Is your child worried about exam results?

Supporting a young person around exam time can be very difficult, they can get very stressed about letting people down or that they’re going to be a failure if they don’t do well. They can even start catastophising where everything is the worst case scenario.

So I’m going to to suggest three things you can do for your young person around exam time if they are stressed.

One. Give them space and time to process things

They don’t want to feel crowded and it’s best to take a step back just for a brief amount of time to give them space to sort out their own thought

Two. If they’re viewing things as a failure, try to reframe that failure into new opportunities. Perhaps talk to them about when things didn’t work out for you, or for a famous person which they can connect with and how it actually works out ok

And finally, help them to understand that all of this uncertainty is what’s making them feel anxious, so to feel less anxious they can take positive actions like writing a list of all their options, or at least deciding the things they can decide such as perhaps which city they want to go to if they’re going to study or which curse they want to do, so make sure they feel back in control, it will make them feel better and more positive.

Shout 85258 is a free confidential text messaging support service for anyone in the UK who is struggling to cope. Young people or indeed anyone can text SHOUT to 85258 anytime day or night, who will listen, help them feel calm and safe and work with them to find a positive way forward.