Speaker 1They're not thinking, oh, I can really see the connection between my times tables and the fact that I'm going to get a really good job later on. That's just not the case. Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, I'm hoping, has come out at a timely manner because we're talking about how we can help our children manage academic stress and the academic pressure. So, this is really anything to do with, in fact, even not just academics, but how do we help our children manage scenarios that they find themselves in, where they're being assessed, where they're confident and their belief about their capabilities is being tested. So, typically, if we've got a child who's of school age, this typically happens in some form. We have assessment, whether that's an exam or whether that's some specific homework or schoolwork. So, this is where we're really, really focusing in. And I know this is such a massive topic and the reason why we're recording the episode and releasing it at this time of year is that I'm hoping to give you my top tips before it becomes something that has unraveled so much that you feel that you haven't got an inability to sort of reel it back in. And particularly for those of you, who've got young children who might be doing any form of plus exam, 7 plus, 8 plus, 11 plus, as well as those who might be transitioning into new schools and taking exams for those, or those who might be taking GCSEs and A-levels, or whatever those might be. So, I hope this is really, really helpful. And I want to set some context because I know how challenging, when it comes to any form of assessment or our children's academics, it can be such a difficult thing for us to navigate. We might have it all sorted within our family, but then there's all this pressure that happens from outside. And so, we can be very conflicted around how we manage this. And I remember very vividly being very clear about how we were managing it within our home, but then often finding myself going down great big rabbit holes when I would then have conversations with other parents about how they were managing it. So, I know it's a big issue. So, let's start from a context perspective. I want to just do a bit of a summary. I want to do a bit of a context and a what not to do before I move into my five strategies, my five top tips. And I want us to start by reflecting and considering what we want as the output to all of this. So, our children go to school to acquire academic knowledge. They go to school to acquire social skills, as well as a whole other set of skill sets that aren't specific to academics themselves. But the end goal that I think, is helpful to keep in mind whenever we're stuck as to what should I be doing next? What, you know, I have an issue. What should I be doing next? Is the end in mind, I believe, is that we want to raise independent adults who can set goals, plan and prioritise. That's, I'm sure there's a whole host of other things, of course, we want to do. But if we're thinking about it from that academic perspective, that really is where we fundamentally, want to go with our children. We want them to be independent. We want them to leave home, to be able to go out into the world and to set their own goals in all aspects of their lives, not only professionally, but also personally, plan how they're going to get there and then prioritise all of the conflicting tasks, demands that they're going to get so they can do those. So, if in doubt, remind yourself of that and that will hopefully give you some sense of direction as to what you could be doing next. So, what I want to start with are three general things that I believe are good things to avoid when it comes to helping and supporting our children around managing those academic stresses and pressures. And the first one is, I say this with love, is doing things for them. We've all been there. They've come home. Their homework is either they don't want to do it or they're in tears or they're being belligerent about it or they say they don't understand. There's a difference between being there to help our children when they are struggling in where to start and sort of being that support and that coach and that person that they can ask things of and doing it for them. And I don't mean doing it as in you're doing their homework, but getting ourselves into a situation where our child over time is incapable of doing their homework without us either pointing out to them or pointing at every single question and like, come on, now the next one, now the next one, or where we're having to start them for every single one. Again, we're working with the end in mind. We want them to be able to set goals. We want them to plan. We want them to prioritize. So, we do our children a huge disservice. And my wholehearted belief, and certainly this is my experience in 20 plus years of my own children, but also in terms of the work that I do, is that homework is an opportunity for your children and your child to demonstrate to their teacher where they're at, what level they're at, and what they can and they cannot do. We do them a disservice if we continually find we need to do that initially, potentially with some children, but we should be viewing it that way rather than what I think sometimes happens is we sort of feel like the teachers might think that we're failing as a parent because we're struggling to get our child to do the homework or they might judge our child in some sort of way. In my experience, when I've worked with families and where we've approached it as having a conversation with a teacher and say, look, this is what's happening at home when it comes to homework and we really want them to be independent and therefore please accept that if the homework comes in unfinished, it's not because we don't care, but because we're working along with our child to help them become more independent. Not once has a school ever in the 20 plus years that I've been working with children and with schools ever said that, that's unacceptable. All schools will be like, oh my goodness me, I had no idea that they were finding it difficult or that it was becoming a massive battleground at home. Absolutely, we're happy with that or they will come up with a suggestion in terms of how that they can build that child's confidence. So I do think let's avoid in that scenario where we're doing it or making homework a battleground. Number two that we should avoid is overgeneralizing. What can sometimes happen is that in terms of our expectations is that if we find our child struggling to do something with that work, we can find ourselves overgeneralizing, which is what often what we talk about when children become anxious or adults become anxious is they overgeneralize. They take a challenge that is happening or a belief that a child might have in a particular situation and then snowballing it to, well, my goodness me, if they can't do this well, then they won't be able to do anything well and they won't succeed at school and it will all be a complete failure. It's going to be an utter catastrophe. So it's really trying to stay centered in the my child is feeling overwhelmed or stressed about this specific piece. What are the skills, you know, I'm a big fan of rather than looking at I've got a problem that I need to solve is step back and ask ourselves what's the skill that's missing here that I need to help equip my child in order to be able to do that? Don't you worry, I've got your back with the five top tips. So let's avoid, let's avoid that overgeneralizing because I think that feeds into our anxiety and then we feel we then need to do a whole load of intervention or that we're super worried about our child. Whereas it could just simply be that piece of work on that particular day is just, they're not feeling great about it or that they're feeling very low in confidence. They've had an argument with a friend or they've just not particularly got the concept behind that piece and tomorrow they'll be absolutely fine. And then the third one is, and this happens to all of us because we are human beings, we are social animals, it's this comparing. And it's not, it's either comparing our children to other children or comparing what other parents are doing or what we perceive other parents' children are doing. Because what happens then is we often then get sucked into panic tutoring, panic exasperation, panic overgeneralizations. And I think more often than not as parents, we're very much in our lane and very specific for our children. But when the comparison gremlin comes in, that can just set us off on a whole host of challenges. Particularly if you are listening to this and you are in an area of high competition for school places and you are seeing a huge amount of tutoring happening, whole separate podcast episode for that one, because I won't go there. But if you're seeing that and then you have kind of agreed a strategy for your family, but then feel, as you hear and compare others, you're thinking, my goodness me, we're not doing enough. So those are the things that I would try to avoid. These are the five things. They're in no specific order other than the first one. And the first one is around getting the foundations right. Our children's confidence is hugely impacted if we don't get the foundations right. Their ability to manage the stresses and strains of either academic testing, assignments, homework if they don't have the foundations in place. then it has a huge impact on that. So these are things like sleep. Is your chart, you know, have we prioritized? And even if we are prioritizing, have we yet resolved any issues and challenges around sleep? When I go into schools, regardless of the age groups that I'm working with, I will always, as part, whatever workshop I'm doing with them, whether it's about friendships, whether it's about confidence, I will always ask for a show of hands as the number that find it difficult to fall asleep at night. And it's just unbelievable the number of young people who put their hand up, even in reception. Now, obviously, I've got no objective measure. I can't, I'm not in these people's homes to be sure. But if our children perceive that they're struggling to fall asleep at night, and most will keep their hand up when I say, is it because you are replaying aspects of the day in little mini movie clips with slightly different endings. So I will get potentially as I start it up to sort of year eight and nine, I will probably see about 75 to 80% of children, teens put their hands up. But above that, when we're talking sort of 14, 15 year olds, I'll probably get 90 to 95% will put their hands up in the lower year. So when we're talking about primary school level is normally between 50 and 60% will put their hands up. These are the foundations, our ability to self-regulate. Our emotions of which stress and overwhelm is part of that. And that level of confidence starts with whether we're waking up refreshed. So it's what are we putting in place to ensure those foundations of sleep are right. So sleep is a really, really crucial one. Organization is also a really crucial one. As our child got some form of organizational skills or developing organizational skills to manage that academic, assignment or that academic assessment or those academic exams. Organization is a really big one. And what I would say, particularly if you're listening to this for a child that is, we're looking at for exams. I think young people spend an inordinate amount of time when it comes to exam, creating revision timetables. I don't believe that they need to be as complex as they often do. It's different if your child is creating a really complex one and then following it to the letter. What I find generally, and we'll talk about this with procrastination, is that the revision timetable becomes a beast of itself. It's almost like they pour so much energy into it as a way of avoiding the actual task in hand, which is to revise. So organization is just simply, as I sit down to do whatever it is that I need to do, whether that's revision, whether that's homework, whether that's a chunky assignment that needs to be handed in within a couple of weeks, is are things where I need to be? And I think that's I expect them to be. Can I sit in a particular place, bring things to that space and be able to get cracking? So it's how have we helped them develop that? Routine, as in when do they do that? Routine, as in how do they make time for all of the things that are important? And that is not just the academic revision or the academic work, but also that downtime too. And these are all trial and error. These aren't perfect first time. And it's communicating that those aren't perfect first time, but it's laying those foundations. Because if you haven't got sleep, if you haven't got organization, if you haven't got a routine, if you haven't got a habit of problem solving, then when you come to some of the more specific things, like I've got a piece of work that I don't even know where to start with, if you haven't got those other aspects in place, then you're just not prepared to be able to do it. To layer up any of the more complex. And the fourth one, that sort of idea about a habit of problem solving goes back to some of the things that I talked about, about what to avoid. Because if we are always resolving our children's problems, rather than facilitating, coaching, mentoring them to consider what are the things that you might be able to do? What could you try? How might you organize that? Not with a, there's a perfect right answer, but just simply a, I wonder, what then happens is if we facilitate that, if we encourage that, then we are super equipping them to be able to prioritize for themselves, to problem solve, to try different things. So the foundations for me are such a crucial part. The number two, and again, the next four are in no particular order. And now we're going to take a quick pause for a word from our sponsors. The second one is about helping them being able to identify the sources of stress. I think quite often when we're having challenges with our children about either cracking on with their homework or doing their assignments on time or revising, is that we tend to see it as this very objective, you need to do X, but you're currently doing Y. How can we move you on? And it tends to be quite task specific, but we don't necessarily take the time to help them do a bit of a reflective piece around where is the source of stress? Of course, there's a, there's an objective source of stress of like, I've got a piece of deliverable that I need to do, and I don't feel as if I can do it, or I don't want to start it. But actually the source of stress is often much bigger than just the piece of work. It's around how they might feel about themselves, their capabilities, the gravitas of potentially having a clue about how they might approach it. They might feel that that particular subject is something that they're not particularly good at. It might be a deep rooted belief system. So the source of stress is, is a really helpful piece here because we can then help our children fill that gap or have more meaningful conversations that we might need to have around their belief system about their, their own capability or the judgment that they're making about themselves. And I think that that's a really, really helpful piece to do because I think we can be more impactful in the support that we give them and the conversations that we have with them if we really understand where that source of stress is coming. And if you're struggling to think about how you might actually apply that in practice, for me, the easiest way to understand or help our children understand that where the source of stress is, and then be able to communicate it to us is around the dialogue that they have. So we can help our children understand that where the source of stress is. And if you're struggling to think about how you might actually apply that in practice, we can help our children understand that where the source of stress is, and then be able to communicate it to us is around the dialogue that they have. So we are often caught up in our inner critic that will either be saying, I'm not very good at this. What if I fail? Other people are better than me. You know, this is so huge. If I make a mess of this, my whole life is going to fall apart. My parents have a huge expectation of me and I don't want to let them down. So it's really helping them unpick that by being sort of suggesting that they're not in lots of ways, you know, and actually sort of saying, I can see why this would feel really overwhelming. You know, I wonder if you've got a bit of an internal chatter that's saying, good, what if I make a mess of this? What if I fail? What if I let people down? You know, sort of almost being aware and making comments to them that you know that it feels stressful. You know, that there's often times that we have self-doubt about our capabilities and that that's okay. And I wonder what might be showing up for you with this particular assignment or this particular test or this particular examination. And I think sometimes, because more often than not, they may well be thinking these things, but they don't have the language necessarily to be able to tap into that inner critic. And so sometimes we might make a suggestion, you know, are you worried about that you might not do very well and that we might be disappointed in you or that you might let us down or you might let your teachers down or that we might not compare you to a sibling. Now, I know we're not comparing our children, but our children often feel, and certainly from my experience, they often feel that they don't want to let their parents down because they've got an older sibling who has been successful or they've got peers or contemporaries or best friends who seem to find things particularly easy. There's a lot that's tied up in comparison with young people that has a real significant effect on their belief and their sort of overwhelm when it comes to those academics. So it's really helping them through conversations to be able to identify those sources of stress. And they don't have to be able to identify them accurately. It could just simply be, oh, actually, you know, it could be that. Well, then if it could be that, let's try, let's problem solve and try and put something in place for that. And if it doesn't work, let's reflect again. You know, with these things, it's never about an absolute right answer whilst also accepting that at different times and at different ages and stages, we might need to use different strategies. So number two is about identifying sources of stress. Number three is a really helpful one, because what we want to do is break down big tasks into manageable chunks. So that could be breaking down an individual piece of homework into small chunks. It could be, and this is particularly the challenge for those as they're transitioning from primary school, to their secondary or senior schools is that suddenly they've gone from oh I get my spellings on a Monday and I have my spellings test on a Friday and on Wednesday I get my maths and on this day I get my English and you basically get it and you deliver it the next day suddenly they're at secondary school and they are being given multiple pieces of work that are not due the next day that have different dates that they need to be returned by and that ability to manage their time and to break down tasks is such a crucial piece otherwise you end up with a scenario where they're literally always doing their homework the night before or it could be you know it could be that they're revising for a plus exam or for a GCSE or their IB or their A levels and suddenly they've got a lot that they need to break down so the sooner we can help our children take any big task you know think about it those of you who've got children who really love doing Lego you know these incredible things that they can build with Lego through these kits are small tasks you start with this little bit and then you add to this bit and then you do this bit and before you know it this incredible model is created but it's all in terms of steps so it's helping our children break down something which feels huge into what might those how could might we be able to break that down and you could break it down with the task first so there's this bit you could do first then this bit then this bit and that's therefore going to take you X number of sittings at it or instead you break it down in terms of time so you could do some this day some that day some this day so how what could you apportion to each day but it's just helping them see that and of course the more we practice breaking down big tasks into smaller tasks the better they get at it because they practice it more so it doesn't have to just be taking academic tasks and breaking them down we could take our evening routine and break that down and look at how they might do things at certain times we could take their pocket money and something that they are saving up for we can break that down this is what you want this is how much it's going to cost this is the pocket money you get how long will it take can you get a little bit of extra money by doing some little whatever it might be within our home or within our neighbors or with your grandparents I think the more that we do that the better and again we're going to be able to and again all of the tips that I'm giving you are all aspects of that working with the end of mind we want to raise adults independent adults that can set goals prioritize and plan so that would be number three is break down tasks into manageable chunks number four is find strategies to break the procrastination cycle and that's a huge one that I think actually for us listening as parents we probably could do with a little bit of work with this one as well lots of times when I speak to parents they'll be like I'm so frustrated my child will avoid doing everything they leave everything to the last minute they won't revise they're not taking their work seriously they won't do their homework that's procrastination at its absolute core and in essence if you've not heard this before it'll be quite profound if not it's always a helpful reminder procrastination is simply an avoidance of a task that you're not going to be able to do and that's a huge one that I think because of the emotion that you have associated with it it isn't laziness it isn't being unmotivated it's an active avoidance because of the feelings that are associated with the task if I do not feel that I am capable of passing my 11 plus then I will procrastinate because the feelings I have about my capability attached to that work means that I actively avoid it if I don't feel that I'm particularly good at biology or times tables or spellings see we get this avoidance it's all to do with the feelings so it's helping young people understand that they're not lazy and it's also helping us change our mindset around it and then helping them find ways of being able to get started and one of the ones what the best strategy that I found to be honest with you is a five-minute walk and that's a promise that you make to work diligently for five minutes on that task and then make a decision after that whether you keep going or whether you stop so setting a timer because what that does is it's the inertia isn't it it's that getting started that often causes the issue and and actually if you have this little promise to yourself that you're just going to do five minutes and you just get started it's a very small amount of time that you're going to have to to kind of consider five minutes isn't really not that very long so you're making a very small promise to yourself you set a timer and then if at the end of that five minutes you're in flow crack on you keep going if you're not you come away from it for a for a small amount of time and then you set another five minutes and in my experience certainly I have found that to be the most effective for others it may well be that there's a conversation and maybe you help initially for those first five to ten minutes and once they get going and they begin to feel something other than incapability that that's enough to keep them going so it's just playing around as to what helps just get them over that hurdle it's that just getting started because that's in essence what procrastination is it's that avoidance of getting started so playing around with those try the five minutes if you haven't tried it before if it's helpful for you then why not try it for yourself because we all procrastinate with something and then number three is to try the five minutes if you haven't tried it before number five is help children to see the connection between their work efforts the task the revision the assignments with the bigger picture and I think and I this is often where I think young people really struggle because we often they can't see the bigger picture about why they're having to work on certain things because of course we sort of say well then you'll get a really good education you'll get some good GCSE grades then you'll get some good A levels and then if you want to go to university or few years you'll get some good A levels and then if you want to go to university you want to get a job you'll be more employable or something along those lines well to an eight year old who's sitting there having to do their maths homework or and do their spellings or their times tables is so far away they're so in the present moment you're making me sit here for half an hour I've been at school all day listening being told what to do and I want to play and I want to have some chill out time they're not thinking oh I can really see the connection between my times tables and the fact that I'm going to get a really good job later on that's just not the case so I like to try and break it down and make it as tangible and as close in time to where they are right now in their age and stage of development for example this test helps your teacher know how much you understand about this topic that's it that's why you're doing this test doesn't need to be about your getting some good grades and then getting a great job that's why you're being asked to do this that's why you're being asked to do that this assignment is giving your teacher a baseline understanding of how you put sentences together so they can see how their teaching builds on this for you how they develop it big picture or later in life you know the impacts in later life is tricky to for our children to get their heads around so really trying to connect to the now as much as possible and to be honest with you almost every assignment that your child is doing is going to be about helping you understand where you're at in your maths right now so you know what you might need to work on so keeping it super super tangible yes I know that you get that every single week but it helps see how much you've learned across each week and where you might get times where it seems to suddenly click and you have this big acceleration and times when it's taking longer and you might need some extra support. So really trying as best as we can and I know it isn't always easy but if you just use that default of it it's informative we take the sort of the arduousness about it and the why am I doing this now to much more potentially really what we're doing is helping our children with that growth mindset so helping them see the connection that this is feedback it's feedback for your teacher so your teacher can adapt and modify it's feedback for you so we in still slowly but steadily this this notion that there's no failure here they're simply learning but doing it in a way that doesn't feel contrived that our child can see is much more tangible in those tasks and I'm hoping that that that you're listening to this at a time where you're not immediately under a huge amount of pressure as a parent to support a child who's feeling overwhelmed so that what that then allows you to do is digest this and think about what you're doing and what might be helpful for you to try right now for your family knowing that you don't have that immediate pressure but also knowing that this is an episode that you can come back to again when the pressure does mount when your child is in a particular period of time where there is a lot more of that stress and that overwhelm around either homework or assignments that they're having to do or some form of high stakes exam because I often feel that and and it's obviously it's typical it's normal whenever we've got big challenges big issues big problems we're looking for those solutions and if we can can actually have that information before it becomes big, we often can approach it in a much more even-handed way. So I'm hoping that this episode reaches you at a time where you're able to do that. But equally, for those of you who find this episode later, reaches you at a time when you most need it. So as ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, or if you enjoy listening to the podcast generally, whether you're new to How Not To Screw Up Your Kids, or whether you have been an avid listener from the outset, if you've enjoyed the episode, and particularly this episode, then why not share it, forward it on to someone who you feel would benefit from listening to this as well. And if you have just a moment or two, why not rate and review the podcast, so that others can find us, and we can spread the love. So, until next time. Bye.
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