If your child was already experiencing performance anxiety in school, they’re likely to be particularly affected by the consequences of the pandemic. Luckily, there are a few ways to help them better manage their anxiety.
Many things can cause performance anxiety—wanting to succeed at all costs, trying to maintain a high average, or taking on a personal challenge, for instance. The upheavals of the current situation cause even more stress. But you can help boost your child’s self-confidence by praising their strengths:
How will I do on my exams? What if I can’t keep up while learning from home? These are the kinds of questions that can play on loop in your child’s head and increase their performance anxiety. Talking to someone about their doubts and fears may reassure them. You can encourage them to do the following:
Fear and fatigue can also influence how your child perceives their academic abilities. To remedy the situation, you can encourage them to adopt healthy life habits. Here are some things they could do:
Under extraordinary circumstances, adaptation is key. To help your child adjust to learning from home and reduce their performance anxiety, you can encourage them to adopt new study habits. For example, they could do the following:
As a parent, you can have a major influence on your child’s attitude. Be positive and encourage them to try these techniques to ease their performance anxiety:
By valuing hard work over results, you’ll help your child develop greater self-confidence and help reduce their performance anxiety.
Rewriting: The Alloprof Parents’ team