Help a child to cope anxiety towards examination (Part 2)

Some children will be constantly worried about the examination. For instance, they tend to be very scared of examination. They may have bad dream, going to toilets very often etc. It may affect their emotion and physical well beings. The parents talk to the children to show love and care to them, understand more about their worry and anxiety, let them talk about their worry. Parents may equip children with distraction skills and breathing exercises as I have mentioned in Part 1. In addition, parents can try the follow ways to help their children:

1) Imaginary games

Most of the children have good imaginary power. They like to imagine themselves as their heroes. The parents may encourage children to capture the quality of bravery of their heroes to face challenges, such as during their examinations so on. The children imagine that their good friends, i.e. their heroes, will support them to go through the challenges. They feel being supported and have confidence to go through the mission and regain confidence for their study. They will learn or model the bravery of their heroes.

A child was very scared of examination in the past. I introduced imagery game to him. Then, he told me that he would think about his hero, Micky Mouse, when he was having an examination. He imagined that his hero was with him going through his mission (i.e. examination). He felt empowered by his hero and have less worry and more confidence to go for his examination.

2) Change the Belief towards examination

Some children may feel pressurized when they emphasize on result rather than the process. Some of them may have fear towards failure to get a good grade. If they can shift their focus to the learning process rather than result focus, it may help them to cope better. If they can perceive examination as challenge rather than difficulties or obstacles, it may shape their beliefs and cope better with examination.

3) Be calm and confident of yourself as parents

Parents’ emotions affect the emotions of their children. If the parents are stressed and highly anxious towards child’s examination, the children will respond by reacting to the emotions of parents. Therefore, it is important for parents to be relaxed and calm towards the examination of the children.

When the parents can be calmed and practised relaxation skills first, the children will learn the coping skills from parents. Coping with difficulties of life is essential life skills for parents to teach their children. If the child is not getting better to cope with anxiety after you have tried the methods, you may need to discuss with teacher and school social worker or counsellor to help the child.