Education / 8 June, 2026 / Ellie Thompson

Parenting During School Exams: 6 Ways To Support Your Child Without Adding Pressure

Katharine Radice, author of The Parent’s Guide to Exam Stress, combines more than 20 years of classroom experience with a practical understanding of adolescent development and family dynamics. Here, she shares six key principles to help parents support their children through school exams.

School exams can be stressful for children, but they can also be stressful for families. Parents often want to lean in and support, but there’s a delicate balance between encouraging motivation and piling on problematic levels of pressure. It’s hard for parents to know if they’re getting this balance right and it’s all made more complex because conversations about revision or exams can easily get fraught. A well-intentioned question such as ‘How’s your revision going?’ doesn’t always land well. Many parents tell me that they feel left on the sidelines, watching the process but unsure how to help.

That’s why I wrote The Parent’s Guide to Exam Stress. It’s a book that offers clear, practical guidance to help parents work out which approach will benefit their child most. It explores how the educational landscape changes as children get older, explaining how parents can support in ways that adapt to this evolving context and their child’s individual needs. Underpinning the age-specific guidance, however, are some general principles which are always relevant. I’ll share the headlines for these principles with you now.

Listen to your child’s perspective

One of the curious things about parenting older children is that, in theory, listening should be easier, but in practice it often isn’t. Family life gets busier; there are competing demands on time and attention: by the time a child is in double-digits, it can be surprisingly difficult to pause for long enough to really listen to your tween or teen’s perspective on something. This can be particularly tricky during school exams. Every parent remembers their own experience of taking exams; the temptation is to swoop in and assume you know what it’s like. That’s why #1 on this list is to listen first, react second: if your child hates maths, that’s worth knowing. If they’re tired, that’s worth hearing. If they’re nervous about exams, that’s definitely worth understanding before you decide how to respond.

Recharging the physical battery

Exams are all about using what you know to best effect under timed conditions. If a tween or teen is exhausted, they’re going to find this difficult to do. Regular bedtimes, no screens in the bedroom, and enough time to rest and recharge at the weekends: all of these are just as important as revision strategies and plans.

Recharging the emotional battery

It’s rare for anyone to look forward to revision. For most teens, they’d rather be doing something else. This means that if your child is feeling angry, frustrated or bored by the process, that’s an understandable response. If there’s room for your child to offload at home and get a sympathetic, compassionate response, it’ll be much easier for them to handle these feelings and then be ready to crack on with revising.

Helping with resilience

No one knows for sure how an exam is going to go. At school, teachers will be focused on how to get the best results possible, but every student needs to live alongside the risk that they might not get the grade they want. As a parent, you can help your child build resilience by encouraging them to think through this scenario. Maybe the exam paper throws up all the worst questions, maybe the mark comes as a surprise: this isn’t a great situation, for sure, but there’s always a route though. ‘Ok, if that happens, what will you do next?’ Questions like this will help your child think through a situation in a constructive, positive way, building their resilience and helping them stay calm in high-pressure situations.

De-problematising stress

Sometimes, the way we talk about stress problematises it – we say things like ‘don’t worry or you don’t need to feel this way ‘. This makes the emotion harder to handle because it implies that it’s an inappropriate response. If your child can’t sleep the night before an exam or doesn’t want to eat breakfast on the day, they need to know that they’re not at fault for feeling this way: ‘it’s natural to feel anxious before an exam if you want it to go well – this feeling comes from a good place. It’s a difficult feeling to live alongside, but this doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong’.

Building safety and a balanced perspective

Children and teenagers often feel that exams are really important: sometimes there’s so much talk about exams that other things fade from view. As a parent, you can help your child maintain a balanced perspective by reminding them about the things that do not depend on their exam results. ‘When I see you, I see your kindness, your reliability, your cheerfulness – these qualities are not dependent on your grades. You’ll be the same person and loved in the same way whatever happens on results day’. If you do this, you will help your child feel much stronger and more secure; this sense of safety will give them the confidence they need to stay motivated, especially during the inevitable stresses of taking exams.

While every child experiences exam stress differently, the most important thing parents can offer is a sense of support, perspective and unconditional love.

Exams matter, but they are only one small part of a young person’s journey. Helping children feel listened to, understood and valued beyond their grades can make all the difference during exam season.

Article by Katharine Radice, author of The Parent’s Guide to Exam Stress by Katharine Radice (Bloomsbury), out now.

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