She managed to control her stress when she knows beforehand that there will be a test and she's well prepared. The issue appears when there is a surprise test (some teachers are still using that....sadistic maybe) she's then so frightened and surprised that she can't think. At home she would redo the test without problem.
Any ideas on how we could help her?
It may help if you talk to her about what specifically makes her anxious, and see if you can help her devise strategies for calming herself. There are some techniques in this article that she may want to try, listed under "during the test."
Good luck. I never had test anxiety but I had plenty of friends who did - it's not funny.
Have a stack of questions ready for random quizzes.
Throw in unrelated questions here and there which might raise a smile and dispel her tension, like "Who is the lead singer of One Direction?"
If it's a member of the family springing these things on her it won't feel so threatening plus it might de-sensitise her to having these things happen in school.
But I like that idea! I used to get really stressed out with tests and sometimes I still do. I guess it is important to emphasize as long as you do and try your best, it is ok to make mistakes. Now I just need to listen to my own ideas!
As soon as the test is over, she can go to swim in the lagoon, then relax on the beach.
Now she can open her eyes and do the test.
Although, I know that some of these tests effect the terms grade, it is important to stress to her, that they're not so important to get all worked up about, and it won't be much different to ones she's already done, or the next one.
No ones holding a gun to her head (or similar analogy) if she gets something wrong.
It's important to trivialise them in her eyes; after all, the tests are just preparing for when she has more important exams to do.
Still there, still doing that, still wearing the T-shirt.
No idea why. I was never punished for bad marks, never pressurised by other people - perhaps having a big brother who was brilliant didn't help - but I wasn't compared to him by parents or teachers. Just me. And I STILL don't like pressure from 'outside' or even 'nice' surprises.
Great suggestions on here. Try them out. If any of them work, please, please PM me with details.
What I found helped (with school / university tests) was to always allow time for my panic. I realised that it did eventually die down, and that I was capable of getting good results even allowing for that panic time so I just accepted that the start of any exam would be 'panic stations', and worked out how to best deal with this.
So in any written test I would say to myself 'For the first five minutes I am going to feel panic. In that time I am going to read the questions slowly until I find one I think I can answer. Then I am going to start to answer that. As soon as I have answered that question (or started to answer it in the case of essay questions) my panic will diminish and I will be able to complete the exam.'
This helped control my test nerves, to the extent that when I took my teacher training 'skills tests' (exams in maths, English and ICT which all teachers in England had to pass at the end of their training before they qualified), I managed to get through the maths exam, which started with a 20 minute timed mental maths test, which had to be completed with something like 13 out of 15 correct answers if you wanted to pass the entire test. And I hate and fear mental maths!
Never worked with the driving I have to say, as of course you cannot sit in blind panic for the first five minutes of the exam.... so I always failed my exams by committing a major fault in the first five minutes... and no matter how much I calmed down after that, I'd still failed.
Perhaps you could set your daughter some one-the-spot but timed tests, after having explained the above technique to her, so that she can (hopefully) recognise that taking five-or-so minutes out to panic still leaves her enough time to complete a test with a good mark.
Even if that doesn't help / isn't appropriate for her, I think the technique of looking for a question she knows she can answer rather than starting at question one and working down is a good idea. It will teach her to read exam papers through before starting work on them (a good idea for later study), and it will give her a confidence boost that may well serve to counterbalance her anxiety.
Another thought - have you discussed this with her teacher? If nothing else, it might be a good idea to let the teacher know if your daughter is going to try using some of the strategies mentioned in this thread, for example TiMow's... the last thing you want is for your daughter to be doing a calming exercise and for the teacher to loom up behind her causing her to panic because she 'hasn't started yet'.
I did a CBT course on managing emotions and one of the exercises we had to do was to 'mindfully' (basically with our full attention on the present moment) use each of our senses. We were given different things to smell, a lump of sugar to suck, a flower to stare at, we opened the window and listened to the noises with our eyes closed, and oh what did we do for touch... sorry can't remember but you get the idea. We then were asked to 'grade' each sense according to how much using that sense enabled us to focus on the present moment, and also how pleasant using that sense was for us. This helped us identify one or more key senses for us.
What I then did, having found that I respond very strongly to smell, was to hunt high and low until I found something small, scented and portable that I liked smelling and that I could keep in my handbag. In the end I bought one of those little sachets filled with scented beads which you normally keep in your underwear drawer.
I keep it with me and if I start to feel anxious or panicky one of my strategies is to take it out and smell it, breathing in deeply and just focussing on the smell.
Amazingly, this really helps calm me down. For example, whenever I had to have a blood test done I used to panic to such an extreme that sometimes the nurse had to get a second person in to restrain me, and it would take several tries to find a good vein because I was so tense. But now I just get out my scented bag, explain to the nurse I am going to be smelling this and ask her not to talk to me unless necessary... and lie still and focus on the smell. Generally, the nurse finds the vein with no problems and the blood test is easy. Now I can even notice the feeling of the needle in my arm without panicking.
I'm just wondering if you could do the same exercise with your daughter, help her identify something that she could focus on to calm her down, and then ask for permission for her to keep that with her at school? It might not work if she responds strongly to sounds (although she could always just sit and focus the classroom noises), and perhaps they might object to her sucking on a sweet... but if they are good teachers, they must have noticed this tendency of your daughter and want to help her overcome it.
There is definitely a pressure side from us as parents: we insist maybe too much on the importance for having good marks. I'll try the surprise test at home....good idea indeed.
Ask for scrap paper before the exam starts- you can't take in your own paper.
I immediately write my name on the scrap paper- I know that I remember my name I can put it on this paper and commit.
I through the questions , jot down on the scrap paper any ideas I have-however random, maybe nothing to do with the subject a bit like my EF posts. Go back to the exam paper read it again. jot down more ideas on the scrap.
Glance through the scrap, start to put the ideas into some kind of structure, other things come to mind, write them down. I don't look at other people, stay in my thought bubble, don't get distracted.
Go back to the exam paper- start with the question you feel most comfortable with, you probably have something- start writing. If more answers randomly pop into my head I jot them on the scrap, I can organize them after you finish the thought you are dealing with.
At the end I re-read my exam answers. Check my scrap paper, did I miss anything?
You can model it at home I did it with my kids - get them to close their eyes- imagine lining up for the exam to go into the exam room, being in the last exam, get them to talk about how they felt, feeling the tension in their neck and hands, feeling sick, heart racing whatever. Then tell them that you are going to give them the last exam paper they had, without their answers of course. Get them to redo it, but give them as much time as they like. Reward for effort- saying nothing about what they got right or wrong.
Start to give other exam questions go through imagining the situation again and start to restrict the time, then very gradually introduce critiquing and grading.
Until you get to the point where they are under a lot of pressure with time constraints, with no notice with the clock ticking away beside them.
What I learned is that we should pay attention to how we praise our children. Praise how they engage, stick and keep trying. Don't praise the performance. Something we understood over time but that has apparently scientific foundations as I discovered recently in this article . It's especially important for girls.
Then leave it for a day or 2 and pop one!!