Colman Noctor: Focus on the child, not on the exam result
What can grown-ups do to help young people to manage the stress that exam time inevitably brings?Picture: iStock
Exam stress often kicks in immediately after the Easter break.
Previously it was largely the Leaving Certificate cohort who were likely to express severe exam anxiety. But I am seeing a growing number of students as young as first-year who say they are stressed about their performance in school summer tests.
Leaving Cert stress is not new. My mother is in her 70s, and she still talks about having the classic Leaving Cert nightmare. This is perhaps inevitable when the system is designed so that your whole 15-year educational journey essentially comes down to one exam. But even though the curriculum has changed, with students allowed to submit projects as part of their final exam in some subjects, there does not seem to be any let-up in the collective experience of exam stress.
This is not surprising, given the hysteria often accompanying the exam period. Advertisements for revision courses and the publication of Leaving Cert points league tables all feed into the swell of anxiety around the examination. Also, it is difficult to escape the pervasive narrative that the outcome of your Leaving Certificate will indelibly impact your future. All this is a considerable stress to place on the shoulders of a teenager.
Often the finger of blame is pointed at the parents, but this is not always the case. Some young people are internally driven, and despite multiple reassurances from parents, they continue to pressure themselves to achieve and excel academically. Also, schools with a strong academic focus can create a culture of pressure and expectation. But for many young people who experience exam stress, it is not a result of having a laser-like focus on a particular point’s target - it merely comes from a perceived need to keep up with their high-achieving peers.
The main sources of motivation are desire and fear. While the desire to do well in an academic endeavour is not a bad thing, high levels of stress due to fear of failure can damage our emotional wellbeing.
So, what can grown-ups do to help young people to manage the stress that exam time inevitably brings?
Communicating with a teenager who is anxious about exams can be difficult. If you say, “We don’t care what results you get”, they may think you don’t believe in them. And if you say, “We know you will do great”, you can be accused of putting pressure on them. It can be difficult to know what to do or say.
When people are anxious, they tend to do two things: overestimate the challenge and underestimate their ability. Therefore, the role of the adult supporter is to help the teenager put the challenge in perspective and remind them of their competence.
We might think it is a good idea to list out all of the people who ended up being successful, though they did not complete or failed their Leaving Certificate. However, this tactic provides little solace to the teenager going through the process. Or if we repeatedly say the Leaving Cert is ‘not a big deal’, this is also ineffective because it is a big deal to the student.
A better perspective can be achieved by encouraging the young person to see ‘success’ and ‘failure’ as fluid terms. We experience degrees of success and failure in life, which all have different consequences. Young people need to have a range of possible outcomes and an action plan for each eventuality. For example, if a young person feels they need a certain amount of points to get their ideal course, they should also have a menu of options they can pursue if the optimal outcome does not transpire. This spectrum of possible outcomes means that all eventualities are considered. Such an approach helps to manage their stress because it removes the focus on an outcome representing success and all other outcomes indicating failure. It takes the pressure off by allowing them to see a series of options open to them, whatever the final results are.
Perhaps the reason why exam stress is becoming more problematic is not that the subjects are any more difficult than in times gone by, but instead, high expectations are creating anxiety and stress.
The CAO introduced the existing common points system in 1992, and the figures show a steady increase in the proportion of pupils getting better results. For instance, when the standard system was introduced, one in every 25 candidates got 450-490 points. By 2005, nearly three times as many students got at least 450 points compared to the early 1990s. For example, in 1992, 6.2% of students reached 450 points, but by 2005 this had risen to 17% of candidates, and by 2022 this rose to almost 39%.
This rise in points is symptomatic of the rising tide of expectation and directly related to what young people consider ‘enough’. Our concept of 'success' has evolved and grown, creating more potential for young people to end up in the ‘non-successful’ or ‘failure’ category. This fear is an unhelpful motivator and undoubtedly places more pressure on students facing exam season.
Attending a third-level academic institution is assumed a given if you want to be considered ‘successful’. The rising number of young people progressing to third-level education has to be lauded, especially for those from more disadvantaged backgrounds who previously could not have dreamed of pursuing a third-level education. But the downside of the trend is it does not embrace the variety of ways in which young people learn and probably has resulted in a narrowed focus on what type of learning is rewarded.
An overly anxious student believes that the hours they put into exam preparation are helping them to control the variables. It’s similar to the ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ philosophy. But many young people do not realise that the brain, like a muscle, needs downtime to regenerate and replenish. Recent research supports the implementation of movement breaks etc, to enhance neurological performance. So rather than demand that a child ‘do less’, which can increase their anxiety, pitch the idea of ‘less is more’ when studying. Like physical fitness, marathon runners don’t run a marathon a day in the week of a big race. Instead, they carefully manage their training load to peak at the right time.
As parents and supportive adults, the best approach is to remind the anxious and exam-stressed young person of context, perspective and a menu of options. While acknowledging the intense pressure, point out this is a ‘moment in time’ and will not last forever. Allow the young person to gain a perspective around their study habits and try to sell the idea of tailored study times where downtime and rest days are as important as the hours spent rote learning and note taking.
And encourage them to identify a menu of options depending on the outcome, with different results having different potential routes. This contingency planning will help the young person see that the stakes are not that high and that they are not putting all their chips on black in the Leaving Cert roulette.
In reality, all young people do what they can, and the results will look after themselves. Concentrate on valuing their efforts instead of outcome and assure them if they ‘trust their process’, all will come good.
- Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist
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