Take Out Your No. 2 Pencils: Here's How to Help Your Kids Beat Their Stress

“Mommy, my tummy hurts” or “I just don’t want to go to school today.”  Those are the voices of stress in our children.  

For children, stress is just as real, just as debilitating, as it is for adults.  However, they may not understand it or even recognize it yet, and certainly do not have the tools to manage it. 

There are many times during the school year that bring stress upon our children, and standardized testing time is one of the big ones.  Teachers are stressed about this increasingly important “report card” on their instruction and your child’s learning.  This stress necessarily gets placed back on the students whose performance on these tests is becoming more and more the determining factor of whether a teacher is considered successful. 

This one-stop, days-long assessment that, in some cases, examines multiple years’ worth of instruction and boils it down to one number  is just as much a test of a child’s stress management and attention span as it is of their retention of knowledge.  Therefore, we need to give them the tools to relax and do their best in the face of this, and any, stressful situation. 

Stress-Busting Tips

    •   Talk about stress and empower your child to take control.  Think of yourself in a stressful situation.  Share this experience with your child, and then discuss how your managing your own situation made you feel better and perform better.  Empowering your children to take steps to manage their own stress will help them in all sorts of situations, not just testing. 

    •   Relate stress to other life situations.  The ball field, the playground, meeting new people and going to new places: each creates stress.  Preparing your child to manage stress in one arena may come naturally to us, but extending that stress management into other areas of life can make it more understandable and readily useful when your child really needs it.

   •  Discuss the symptoms of stress and how to recognize it.  You know from years of experience that stress comes in many forms, from body aches and tight muscles to headaches and stomach aches.  Teaching your child what stress is and how it may take form in their own body and mind will help them know when to manage it.

   •  Teach tools for managing stress. Deep, yogic breathing and stretching, positive visualization, and motivating self-talk are ways we calm ourselves down.  Teach these techniques to your child and practice them on a regular basis to help solidify them into memory for when they really need them.      

Before the Big Event

    •   Maintain Nutrition and Exercise.  For dinner, provide foods that comfort and calm your child.  Avoid soft drinks and sugary juices or desserts.  For breakfast, wake up early enough to enjoy a leisurely meal of energy-sustaining whole grains and complex carbohydrates and proteins.   Avoid simple sugars that will raise short term energy (and physical stress) and result in a sugar crash. Visit this WebMD site for a great slide show on stress management nutrition tips. 

    •   Get a Good Night’s Sleep. Sleep promotes memory and brain function.  Sleeplessness impairs it.  Set your child’s bed time and stick to it to build a strong routine of healthy sleep.  According to WebMD, children ages 7-12 need 10-11 hours of sleep each day!

    •   LAUGH!  Laughter is the best stress buster.  Just giggling together will ease the tension.  Remind your child of a funny memory or familiar joke and encourage her to think about it when she feels tense. 

    •   Encourage a Good Attitude.  Despite what we adults think about forcing our children to participate in such high-stakes situations, our negative attitudes can rub off on our children and influence their performance or increase their stress about being in the situation to begin with.  Be positive in front of your children and they will walk in your positivity.

    •   Let your child know how proud you are of him, no matter what happens.  Remind your child that this is the time to “show off your smarts” and to “prove all that you have learned this year.”   This battle cry can send your child off with a purpose to shine.  However, let him know that this test is not the most important thing in the world and you love him no matter how he does. 

    •   Tune-out from television and video games the morning of the test.  These technologies over-stimulate the brain and can cause undue stress before an already stressful situation.  Enjoy some morning conversation instead, and don’t be afraid to tell your child why you are limiting TV and video games.  This is not a punishment.  You are trying to help them do their best.  If you let them know this, you are empowering them to make similar choices for themselves in the future.

    •   Do not do any homework or studying the night before.  Your child is prepared!  Trust that you and your teachers have done a great job working with your child and let them relax!  Last minute cramming or academic activities will not make a difference on a test that covers such a broad range of material, and the crunch will only add to stress.

    •   Read a relaxing book together the morning of the test.  A familiar story that brings back easy memories or reminds us of less stressful times helps us realize that the stressful situation won’t last forever and that it is not all that there is to life. 

During the Test

    •  Provide fun books to read or activities to work on quietly between tests.  Believe it or not, there is a lot of wait time for kids during testing days.  The classroom must remain silent until the last child finishes, and that could mean a good amount of anxious sitting for those who have already finished.  Keep them engaged and relaxed with fun books or activities to do at their desk while they wait.  This may be a perfect time to give a gift of a new box of colored pencils and a sketchbook or puzzle book that they can use when they finish the test and are waiting for others.  The newness of the gift will bring excitement to the testing situation.

    •   Stretching before, during, and after a test. The following are two resources to teach your child stretches to use while seated.  Practice them beforehand so your child knows how to do them and how great they feel! Here is a guide for stretches designed for use on an airplane that can be printed out and sent to school with your child.   

   •   Provide a “Magic Pencil.”  Send your child to school with a “magic” pencil that will help her do her  best.  Any simple, yet special, pencil will do the trick.  You should get this approved by your child’s teacher first, as it must be a #2 pencil.

   •   Peppermint Stimulates the Brain.  Again, get this approved with the teacher, but the smell of real peppermint extract stimulates brain function.  Sending your child to school with peppermint mints, gum, or extract on their wrist to smell while testing will increase their focus. 

    •   Pastel-Colored Scratch Paper.  For the math portion of the test, ask the teacher if your child can be provided pastel-colored paper to use to show his or her work.  The color of the paper has been suggested to calm stress and stimulate focus.

    •   Healthy Snack.  Breakfast was hours ago.  Time to refuel!  Make sure your child has a healthy snack with protein, such as milk or cheese, and carbohydrates, such as fresh fruits and vegetables.    

   •   WATER!!!!  Water is brain food!  Allow your child to take a water bottle to school and keep it on their desk or floor during the test.  The cells of the brain need hydration to function, so encourage your child to stay well hydrated!

Although most of these are common sense and important every day, often we need reminders about how to best manage not only our own stress, but that of our children, too.  Stress management supports a healthy mind, body, and soul. 

Practicing stress management with your children will enhance their lifestyle, as well as yours.  Stress takes a physical and mental toll on our bodies.  Teaching children to be aware of stress, to recognize it in their own bodies, and then to manage it are skills that will improve their overall outlook and performance in life.

About this column: Jennifer Luchesi Long, a fifth-grade teacher in the Placentia-Yorba Linda school district, tutors in the Newport-Mesa district enrollment area. Her passion is helping students who don’t necessarily fit the mold of traditional education become successful in traditional settings. She also writes the Academic Pentathlon Language Arts exams for the Orange County Department of Education. Jennifer was born and reared in Corona del Mar.