Reflect

For some families, the 11+ is only weeks away; for others, GCSE and A level mocks beckon after half-term or early in the New Year. So how are your children feeling about them?

Exam worry is far from rare. Between April 2025 and March 2026, Childline delivered 1,679 counselling sessions mentioning exam or revision stress, 11% of them with children aged 11 and under. In a study of more than 2,400 students in English secondary schools, David Putwain and Anthony Daly found that 16.4% were highly test anxious, around five in a typical class of 30. Anxiety also gets in the way of performance: one study estimated that highly anxious students achieved around a grade lower per GCSE, because worry crowds out the working memory needed to recall facts and solve problems.

What young people tell Childline is revealing: they feel hopeless about the future if they don’t do well, guilty about taking breaks and afraid of letting people down. The fear isn’t only of a grade, but of what it might mean to the people they love. The 11+ brings its own pressures, with younger children and an outcome often felt as a simple pass or fail. Research by Yvonne Skipper at Keele University found a negative impact on children who did not pass, although other research, using Millennium Cohort Study data, found little difference in wellbeing between selective and non-selective areas. Either way, a ten-year-old takes their cue about how much this matters from us.

Some of that pressure, often without our realising it, comes from home. Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill found that young people’s perceptions of their parents’ expectations have risen by around 40% since 1989, alongside perceived criticism, and both are linked to rising perfectionism. Few of us set out to pressure our children. Usually, we are just anxious for them, and children soak that up.

Picture a Year 11 coming home with a disappointing practice paper. Before their coat is off, the questions start: what went wrong, how much revision did you do, what did everyone else get? Each question comes from love, but what they hear is that the grade matters most, and they go upstairs and close the door.

Motivate

Before we think about what to do, it is worth pausing on how we feel. Ask yourself honestly: how much do these exams matter to you? Are they bound up with your own hopes, your own school days, or a picture of the future you have quietly held for your child? None of that is wrong, but children pick up on what we don’t say as much as what we do.

Then think about how exams are framed and talked about at home. Does your child see this test, or these mocks, as the be-all and end-all? Is there talk around the kitchen table, perhaps meant as encouragement, about what might happen if they don’t get into a particular school or university? We might see it as planning ahead, but a ten-year-old or an anxious sixteen-year-old can hear it as a threat, and some children find it really frightening. Listen to the words used in your house, including conversations between adults that children overhear, and ask whether the message they take away is “This matters, and you’ll be fine whatever happens” or “Everything depends on this”.

David Putwain’s research on ‘fear appeals’ (warnings such as “If you don’t revise, you’ll fail”) found that when students feel threatened by these messages, they tend to have higher anxiety, lower motivation and lower grades. As one article in The Psychologist puts it, in a student’s words: “We should just be told to try our best”. Instead, we can help children reframe their nerves. Jeremy Jamieson and colleagues found that students taught that a racing heart is the body getting ready to perform reported less anxiety and did better. It is early evidence from older students, but an easy message to pass on: “Those butterflies mean you care, and your body is getting ready to help you”.

Children who feel their worth may depend on a grade or mark approach exams as a threat to be survived; children who feel accepted whatever happens are freer to treat them as a challenge. How we engage matters: studies suggest that when parents are autonomy-supportive, offering choice and encouragement rather than control, children experience less test anxiety, while controlling parenting is linked to lower achievement. A curious home, with rich dinner-time conversations, good questions and a voice in family life, also builds the confidence children carry into the exam hall.

Self-compassion helps as well. Kristin Neff and colleagues found that students who treat themselves kindly are less afraid of failure, more likely to learn for understanding rather than to prove themselves, and better at facing disappointment. This isn’t about lowering expectations. Children who can be kind to themselves find it easier to pick themselves up after a bad mock and have another go. And it is something we can actively teach. Children learn to speak to themselves the way they hear us speak to them, so when a test, assessment or mock goes badly, our first words matter. Rather than asking what went wrong, we might say: “I can see you’re disappointed, and that’s understandable, because you care.” “One result doesn’t change how proud I am of you.” “Everyone has papers that don’t go to plan; it doesn’t mean you can’t do this.” “What would you say to a friend who got this mark?” And, once a little time has passed: “Shall we look together at what this tells us, and what to try next time?” With time, children start to say these things to themselves, and that kinder inner voice helps them bounce back rather than feel defined by a bad result.

No single test defines our child. Mocks are a practice run: their job is to show what has been learned, what still needs work and what an exam hall feels like, long before the results really count. If a mock goes badly, it is far better to find out now than in the summer. And for children facing the 11+, it is worth saying out loud that whichever school they go to, they will still be the same wonderful, individual and precious child.

Small gestures matter and can help children feel loved and supported. A favourite meal before a paper, a note in a pencil case or sitting with them while they revise all tell them we are on their side, and noticing what gives them joy beyond schoolwork builds the self-esteem that shapes how they cope with tests and mistakes. Calm can be modelled, too. When we say, “That was a tough day, but I got through it”, children learn that struggling is not failing, and hearing, “I’m proud of how hard you’re trying, whatever happens” can make a real difference.

Support

Plan half-term together. For a Year 11 or Year 13, it is tempting to fill every day with revision; for an 11+ child, every spare hour with practice papers. But tired brains don’t learn well. A good week keeps family life calm and consistent and mixes focused work with proper rest, time outdoors and time with friends: perhaps revision in the mornings, afternoons off and one completely free day. Agreeing the plan together takes the arguments out of it.

For children preparing for the 11+, keep it in proportion. Short, regular practice beats long, late sessions, and play, clubs and friends are worth protecting. Talk about the test as one way of choosing a school, not a measure of how clever or how good your child is, and talk through both outcomes beforehand so they know you will be just as proud either way.

For teenagers facing mocks, it helps to be their ‘coach’ rather than a teacher. Make sure they have what they need (pens, a whiteboard, sticky notes) and let them choose the revision aids that suit them. Help with structure if they want it: breaking subjects into chunks, pinning up a task list and setting small, achievable goals that focus on the difficult bits rather than what they already know. Encourage them to pace themselves like an athlete rather than cramming; if getting started feels like climbing into a ring with a wild horse, the answer is to get stuck in, and they usually find they know more than they thought. Remind them that they have performed under pressure before, in sport, music or timed classwork. And nudge, don’t push: ask “How can I help?” rather than “Have you done enough?”

Not all revision is equal. Highlighting everything, re-reading the same text and cramming all feel productive, but they create familiarity rather than lasting learning. What works is making the brain retrieve information: reading something, then hiding the page and quizzing yourself; learning a method, then trying a practice question; or learning some facts and testing yourself a day or two later. A major review of learning techniques by John Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and spaced revision as the most useful strategies and highlighting and re-reading among the least. Variety and diversity within revision practice can really help too: children can test themselves while walking round the garden, make a family quiz, or teach you what they have learned, which quickly reveals any gaps.

Help them treat mistakes and feedback as information. Dust off the last school report or teacher feedback together and praise your child when they admit something is difficult; once they have spotted these ‘knots’ in their learning, you can help to unravel them. Don’t tell them off for mistakes or expect perfection; share your own and model learning from them. Listen out, too, for ‘gremlin thoughts’ such as, “I’m rubbish at this” or, “Everyone else is better than me”. Rather than dismissing them, gently challenge them: “Is that really true, or does it just feel true right now?” “Where is the evidence for that?”

Think about how we praise, reward and compare. Praise effort and strategy rather than results, asking “How did you manage that?” or “What made the difference?”, and point out how far they have come. Remember that rewards for grades tend not to motivate and can distract younger children and comparison is really the thief of joy: help them focus on their own progress, rather than on how others in their class or friendship group are doing.

Sleep may be the most underrated revision tool of all. Teenagers need around 8 to 10 hours a night, yet most get far less, and younger children need even more. Sleep is when the brain consolidates learning, so late-night cramming is a poor trade. Parents’ rules around bedtime remain one of the most powerful protections for children’s sleep, even into the teenage years, so keep routines regular and phones out of bedrooms at night. Exercise matters too: it boosts mood and brain function, and even a brisk ten-minute walk will help reduce stress, improve memorisation and learning.

Pay attention to their nutrition during exam season. Nutritionists suggest that high-sugar snacks and cereals give a quick high followed by a crash, while slow-release carbohydrates such as oats, brown rice and wholemeal bread or chapattis can keep energy steady. Regular meals with starchy carbohydrates, protein and vegetables or fruit help concentration, and protein supplies the building blocks of mood-related brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. Porridge with nuts and banana, eggs or beans on wholemeal toast make good breakfasts; grain salads with chicken, fish or chickpeas, dal and rice, or wholemeal wraps work well for lunch; and nuts, seeds, berries and yoghurt make good snacks. Batch-made flapjacks or a vegetable frittata save time in busy exam weeks!

Tiredness drives cravings for sugary and salty foods, and energy drinks are best entirely avoided: their effect is short-lived, they can cause energy dips, and, in some people, they raise the stress hormone cortisol. Stress can also push children towards comfort food and upset their digestion, so a balanced diet with plenty of fibre, and omega-3 fats from oily fish and nuts, helps their bodies cope. Even mild dehydration can reduce focus, so encourage six to eight glasses of fluid a day and a water bottle in every exam.

Supporting children with ADHD. Short rest breaks of five to ten minutes help children with ADHD manage the fatigue, restlessness and drifting attention that can come with differences in executive functioning, and research suggests short movement breaks can improve attention and working memory. In the UK, supervised rest breaks are a recognised exam access arrangement, so speak to the school’s SENCo well before the exams if you think your child would benefit.

At home, present breaks as “charging the brain battery” rather than failure. Support your child to work in consistent chunks, often 20 to 30 minutes, with a visual timer, and model breaks yourself, perhaps with a family routine of 25 minutes’ work and five minutes’ movement. Rehearse breaks during past papers so they feel natural in the exam hall: pen down, three deep breaths, a stretch, a sip of water, then restart at the next question. Agree a short ‘break menu’ of calming activities, such as shoulder rolls, a few steps or square breathing, and steer clear of phones and long breaks, which make it hard to restart. Help your child notice early signs of drifting, such as re-reading the same line, and respond with “My brain needs a reset”; in exams, a small star in the margin can act as a mental bookmark.

Spot signs of distress. Most exam nerves are normal and fade once the exams are over, and it can help to brainstorm together what helps your child feel calm, such as a pet, a friend, a walk or breathing exercises. But watch for persistent trouble sleeping or eating, frequent headaches or stomach aches, withdrawal, tearfulness, irritability that won’t lift, or talk of feeling hopeless; younger children often show worry through their bodies or behaviour. If you notice these signs, speak to your child’s teacher, head of year, pastoral team or GP; schools would far rather hear from you early. If your child has special educational needs or a medical condition, ask about access arrangements in good time.

On exam day, keep things normal. Avoid revision the night before and make sure a good breakfast awaits. Keep the journey light-hearted and the goodbye matter-of-fact: “Try your best and I’ll see you later.” Afterwards, resist the urge to cross-examine; “I’m sure you did your best” is enough.

And please look after yourselves too, parents! Parental anxiety is closely linked with children’s stress levels, so notice your own worries and share them with someone other than your child. Your child doesn’t need a perfect parent; they need a steady one. And if you catch yourself reliving your own exam fears (or your own 11+), it is worth pausing to ask whose anxiety you are carrying.

Exams clearly matter, but they are not the measure of a child. Grades open some doors and close others, and very few of those doors stay shut for ever. What our children carry out of exam season, long after the results are forgotten, is how they learned to handle pressure, and how the adults around them responded when things went well and when they didn’t.

So this week, before the exams rather than after them, find a quiet moment to tell them: you’ve worked hard, the result won’t change how we see you, and whatever happens, we’ll work out the next step together.