A part of helping your child navigate the challenges of learning is overcoming test anxiety. Whether your child is in kindergarten, elementary school age or gearing up for their final years of high school, anxiety is experienced often by most students. The good news is, test anxiety is being researched more frequently.
If you think your child might be struggling with test anxiety, here are some signs to look out for and some tips that you can use to help them manage and overcome this challenge in their journey.
What is Test Anxiety?
First and foremost it’s crucial to separate facts from myths about test anxiety; it’s not the typical unease you expect to feel prior to or during an exam.
Test anxiety is considered to be a variation of performance anxiety. The American Psychological Association defines test anxiety as “tension or apprehension associated with taking a test which frequently results in a decrease in performance.” It’s normal for your child to feel nervous before a test but not to the extent that it prevents them from doing their best.
Many believe that test anxiety only applies to students in higher grades but test anxiety does not discriminate! It can affect any and all students from kindergarteners doing a spelling test to PhD candidates defending their dissertation. Symptoms manifest differently for each student but there are common signs that you can observe in your child.
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Signs and Symptoms
Symptoms of test anxiety span a broad range of reactions including physical, emotional, behavioural and cognitive.
Physically, your child may experience sweating, rapid heartbeat, nausea or fainting in extreme cases. Emotional symptoms can manifest as depression, lower self-esteem or anger.
Behaviourally and cognitively you may notice your child fidget, engage in negative self-talk or attempt to avoid the situation entirely by skipping class or feigning illness. These symptoms are signs that your child may be struggling with test anxiety. Note that symptoms aren’t limited to the ones listed and severity will vary.
You may also observe an inconsistency in their grades. Students with test anxiety typically excel on projects but do poorly on tests. This demonstrates that they comprehend material taught in class but there is a disconnect between what they know and showing it in a test format.
Often, the overwhelming desire to do well on an exam introduces a level of pressure that a final paper does not. Showing all you know in a short period of time in an all-or-nothing format creates an environment where test anxiety can flourish. Nevertheless, tests are a permanent fixture in the education system so students (myself included) have to find ways to manage our anxiety.
How to Manage Test Anxiety
Now that you know what test anxiety is and how it can manifest, you must be wondering what you can do about it. Whether you believe that your child has mild or severe symptoms, the tips below can help.
1. Relaxation and Breathing Techniques
Breathing exercises can relieve physical symptoms like rapid breathing.
Working with your child to teach them to control their breathing when they feel anxious before or during a test can help them stay present, focused and avoid more severe symptoms like nausea or fainting.
The 5 senses grounding technique is something I have used during exams to ground myself and prevent my mind from racing. It involves naming one thing you can taste, two that you can smell, three that you can hear, four that you can touch and five you can see. It is a quick exercise that can be done mentally with no disruption to other students.
2. Build or Change Study techniques
If your child panics or worries about how much material they’re able to remember prior to testing, motivate your child to start studying single concepts earlier for a longer period of time or help them to regularly review what they learned at the end of each week to avoid last minute cramming.
This will also decrease the likelihood of a “freeze” response where they forget what they studied beforehand. Flashcards, white boards and review quizzes are all great ways to practice active recall and revamp your child’s study habits.
3. Promote Acceptance
A large contributing factor to test anxiety, and its severity, is the possibility that we won’t do well or bomb the test altogether. Beyond needing a certain grade to pass a class, we all have our own standards and expectations that are often exacerbated by real or perceived pressure.
One of the most effective ways to manage test anxiety is to address the root: the fear of not performing as well as a student needs to or wants to.
Students must accept that a grade is not tied to their worth. As their parent, the best thing you can do for them is to emphasize this point, encouraging them to see a lower grade as an opportunity to be better, rather than a personal failing.
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Final Thoughts
Test anxiety can impact any student physically, emotionally, behaviourally and cognitively. However, there are many strategies that students can learn to cope with their test anxiety. As a parent, being understanding, encouraging them to create tools to manage the stress, and allowing them to grow from testing hiccups is a great way to help them navigate this learning challenge.
Khanysha Coppin is a third-year psychology student at Concordia University. Khanysha is studying psychology with the intention of opening a practice to provide affordable therapy for BIPOC adolescents and young adults. In her free time Khanysha enjoys reading, writing poetry and short stories, as well as pursuing content creation.
