Helping kids deal with test and performance anxiety

Performance psychologist Michael Gervaise, PhD, shares expert advice for parents on how to help their kids overcome test and performance anxiety
Parenting Tips | Helping Your Child With Test And Performance Anxiety
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Helping kids deal with test and performance anxiety

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It’s really painful to watch children who work hard to be proficient at something and anxiety is something that can get right in the way of that. So understanding how to work with anxiety and to teach children how to manage it is really important. So anxiety is chronic worry. It’s excessive worry. It’s that mental kind of rumination that takes place where people are just over and over thinking about something and they’re thinking about, “Maybe I can’t handle this.” “Maybe the outcome of failing or not doing well is going to be so tremendous that I can’t manage it.” So the way that we work with this is we teach them how to be aware of their dialogue, how to be aware of what they’re saying to themselves. We teach them how to breathe, we teach them how to be able to find the sense of calmness so that they can be effortless, so they can be grounded in their experience. And if we can teach those two things – how to be aware of their body and how to be aware of the dialogue that they’re having, we’re giving them a chance to be smooth and effortless in the most important moments or in moments that are important to them.

Performance psychologist Michael Gervaise, PhD, shares expert advice for parents on how to help their kids overcome test and performance anxiety

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Michael Gervais, PhD

High Performance Psychologist

Dr. Michael Gervais, a licensed psychologist and industry visionary, is a founding partner of Pinnacle Performance Center. He focuses most of his time on people at the "top of their game," from NBA players, to Olympians, to military personnel. Dr. Gervais has a clear understanding of how performers become and consistently excel at a world-class level. Spending years in the trenches of high-stakes circumstances, Dr. Gervais has developed clarity for the tools that allow people to "thrive under pressure."

Dr. Gervais is a published, peer-reviewed author and a nationally recognized speaker on issues related to high performance for those who excel on the largest stages in the world.

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Transcription: 
It’s really painful to watch children who work hard to be proficient at something and anxiety is something that can get right in the way of that. So understanding how to work with anxiety and to teach children how to manage it is really important. So anxiety is chronic worry. It’s excessive worry. It’s that mental kind of rumination that takes place where people are just over and over thinking about something and they’re thinking about, “Maybe I can’t handle this.” “Maybe the outcome of failing or not doing well is going to be so tremendous that I can’t manage it.” So the way that we work with this is we teach them how to be aware of their dialogue, how to be aware of what they’re saying to themselves. We teach them how to breathe, we teach them how to be able to find the sense of calmness so that they can be effortless, so they can be grounded in their experience. And if we can teach those two things – how to be aware of their body and how to be aware of the dialogue that they’re having, we’re giving them a chance to be smooth and effortless in the most important moments or in moments that are important to them.