Cara (3:11)

I'm slightly obsessed with the phrase quest, which maybe it's east coast, maybe it's. I don't know what. But like, I'm picturing him wearing a shield of armor and having like a huge sword and going after that English, you know, the Holy Grail report. It's a quest. Yeah.

Vanessa (3:32)

So it's.

Cara (3:33)

They have no book reports anymore.

Vanessa (3:34)

They have no book reports anyway. They barely read books anymore. Quest is like the more serious version of the better known D, which is the combination of day party, Quest's quiz test. So, yes, for those of you, you're learning what happens in school.

Cara (3:55)

Yes.

Vanessa (3:56)

So three kids, two are in my kid's school. Does quote final exams. Not in May or June. They do them the end of February, beginning of March, which is a trend they started about a decade ago, so that it was a little bit less stressful. It wasn't cumulative to the whole year. It was sort of two thirds of the year. And they reduced the amount these exams count in the final grade from 19% to 10%. And at 10% is kind of like a do no harm situation where they're. It matters a bit. But they're essentially teaching them how to study for big exams. Because cars, you and I know with college kids, depending on your major, you could have exams in every single subject all the time. Some kids don't, but my kids happen to have lots and lots and lots of exams. So. And I have one kid who's in the. In quote, midterms. Except they don't call them midterms. They call every test everything's a midterm. A midterm or an exam. But I'm like, isn't it just like a test a few weeks into the semester? Isn't it like a test a few weeks later? No, everything is like a midterm. And I'm like, but you're like three quarters of the way through the semester. How is it. And I've stopped asking for clarification and I just assume that everything is a midterm or everything.

Cara (5:24)

Yeah.

Vanessa (5:24)

Is an exam.

Cara (5:25)

You're being a literalist. Because mid term is rationally in the middle of the term. And yes. And you know, it's interesting, you know, you can look at all the different ways that, that schools do it, which we'll walk through, actually, because I think that's valuable for people to hear that there's no one right way for middle and high schools to assess kids and not Only is their language different, but actually what they're doing is different. My own kids in their high school experience went to a school that the kids sort of use the terminology. We have no tests. They did, they called them assessments, but they did not have any culminating exams. They never had a midterm or a final in the culminating sense. And you know, it's interesting because you're exactly right that there are two camps here. One camp that says, wow, you're not prepared for what comes next, whether it's in college or in life, because life is one gigantic culminating examination. And then there's another camp that says the way we are assessing kids and adults is changing. And none of this the way we used to do it actually applies to real life anymore. And I think the answer is it all depends. It depends on what your circumstances. In some cases you have kids who are going on to STEM fields, for instance, and they are being assessed regularly through high school, through college, through grad school. And having the skill set of knowing how to be assessed is as important as actually knowing the material that they are expected to master. So. And then you have other kids who are studying other fields and they just need a different form of being measured. How much do you know? And you know, then there's the AI of it all. You know, this whole topic comes to us from a listener question. You and I talk about this when we're just gabbing off this podcast and when we're sort of between meetings and we'll chit chat about it. But it was really nice to get this listener question, which maybe I'll just read it so that people have a little framing for how we're going to get into this. But this person said, my ninth grader is getting ready to take final exams for the very first time and is having lots of anxiety about the process, what to expect, how to prepare, what happens if she doesn't do well. For context, she is a high achieving perfectionist, which is an important piece to this conversation. Who is your kid? It goes on. Also, some neurodivergence and executive function challenges in the mix, making things extra spicy. I'm trying to help by remaining calm, being a resource, guiding her to create study plans while letting her own the overall process. But her stress is definitely triggering my own anxiety, especially as finals are still a few weeks away and she seems unable to, quote, let go of the fear around it. It is exhausting. And you know, Vanessa, I can't think of another four or five sentences that nail it any better than that. It's their stress and it's also ours, Right?

Vanessa (8:48)

So I think to pull back a little bit, it's worth having a conversation about how all schools do it differently at different times of the year, different pedagogical philosophies about homework, about assessments. As you mentioned, there's the AI stuff, so that's like the big picture questions. But when you're in it with a kid, you kind of don't care about any of that because you are just in the stew with a stressed out kid or two or three or four, and you get into this kind of echo chamber of worry and stress. And so part of this is to help give listeners a little perspective on kind of like what's valuable, what's helpful, what are ways to kind of disengage and step back. Car is going to talk about what's happening in the body with stress and when is stress helpful and when it's not, and what happens with the brain, how to manage that. So this is like really a whole toolbox both for perspective giving and also for some practical stuff that could be useful when and if you're in this messy boiling cauldron of stew. I just want to acknowledge up top that grades feel incredibly important these days. And as much as we talk about between the two of us and with guests like Jenny Wallace and other folks who are looking at the sort of toxic achievement culture, many of us are still participating in it, many of us are still feeling as parents, the pressure for our kids to achieve certain levels of grades and test scores and all of that. If we're thinking about college or other programs that look at that kind of thing, and I just want to name that, like, it's really, really hard. It's really, really hard on our kids. And keeping a healthy perspective on it as parents is also really hard. I am a hypocrite when it comes to this stuff. I'm both, like, trying really hard to support my kids and give perspective. And I still participate in this system as well. And so as we have this conversation, I just want to level set that, like, we are not judging you, we are not judging your kid. Like, we get what it feels like and how swept up you can get and how hard it is to take a step back and like, just give yourself a little grace. If stuff we bring up you did yesterday or last week and you're feeling really crummy about it. Because if we're bringing it up, chances are one of us has probably done the same thing as well.

Cara (11:42)

And you know, we're not educational anthropologists or historians. So we can't. We don't have the expertise to walk people through the arc of the history of test taking or how exams are used to measure accomplishments, someone's retention, or someone's application of material. But what we can tell you as just observers of what has been going on over the past several years, the shift feels very clearly tethered to Covid. So when Covid shutdowns happened in the spring, In March of 2020, one thing that happened almost uniformly across the country. Very little happened almost uniformly across the country, but one thing that happened very uniformly was pretty much every school said, we are holding your grades at what they are. You can only go up from here. And they gave every kid the best shot at doing well, given this unprecedented and extraordinarily stressful moment. And the result, I think it was actually a really wonderful move. I don't personally criticize it at all, but the result was tremendous grade inflation. Right. So kids of basically all middle school, high school, and college age kids at that time, if you ask them then what the net effect was, they said everyone got A's, basically a version of that, or maybe everyone got A's of B's. Right. And they appreciated it. They had gratitude. But it also reset the expectation. And now post Covid, they came into a world that was kind of back to normal, but they had experienced this blip of everyone having not the same gpa, but the band was really narrow.

Vanessa (13:54)

Right.

Cara (13:54)

That grades were not a way of distinguishing academic success when kids were out on zoom for the very first time during COVID And then there was this boomerang effect that came back when kids were back in school and schools really had to get back into a routine of trying to figure out how to measure how well a kid was doing. And I think, again, not, you know, a historian on this, but I personally think that contributed to what we are seeing now, which is what you just described, Vanessa, this excessive focus on grades. And it's a funny thing. It's like we're still having repercussions from what was a survival strategy and an important one, but we gotta acknowledge what it is. The other thing that has been changing slowly over time, and this is over decades, is the emphasis on grades as a passage to the next thing. And in particular, I've seen this with college students where when we all went to college, in the name of academic exploration, everyone kind of tried what they wanted and they did well or they didn't do well, but I don't remember and I've asked everyone I know. No one I know remembers a tremendous emphasis on grades in college. And today it does feel notably different, where certain career trajectories and certain graduate schools are so grades focused that instead of college being a time where you can literally try and fail, kids don't feel that way anymore. So these things feel to me like they're colliding a little bit, which is, I think that downward pressure in the question that we got comes through like I'm sweating it out too, as the adult in the situation. We'll be right back, but first a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations

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Vanessa (18:12)

Quince.com awkward so there's a lot of outside forces working on kids, on educators, on institutions, on families, and making it all pretty intense and complicated. I do want to say for kids who are planning to go to college or careers where they're aggregating a lot of data, reviewing a lot of data, responsible for knowing, remembering, making sense of lots of information, I do think there is a value in exams, in sort of large scale exams.

Cara (18:49)

Oh yeah.

Vanessa (18:50)

What I'm watching is the world is sort of divided into two kinds of teachers. Those who provide study guides and those who don't. And it's like a really funny thing about which of my kids teachers provide study guides and which of them don't. Kids now have a lot of tools to create their own study guides either, you know, in analog ways, using different platforms. Ultimately though, there is this point where even if you have a study guide, you have to kind of slog through. And I have two really different. I have four very different learners in my house too. I've watched go through the process over the last couple of weeks and there's a little bit of like. And this is, I want to get to the listener question, which is like, how do I support, participate help, but not too much. When is my helping or engagement just feeding into the stress? And I had a funny experience last night which was I was watching my kid read through stuff passively, right? So any of us who've gone through this or any of the educators listening, like that's the lowest form of studying, is sort of passive imbibing of, of content. And this child knows this, but he's like, had just taken an exam, was prepping for the next one. And I was like, so what am I gonna say about watching you read through stuff? And he goes, yeah, yeah, I know. And I said, what am I gonna tell you you need to do? I gotta like start to write. I gotta put stuff in columns. I gotta do the Cornell strategy. I gotta. And I was like, yeah, so if you know it, like, why am I telling you? And he's just like, mom, I'm so tired. So there's that balance of like, where do we sit? How do we get them to do what they need to do or let them mess up? Contrast. That's a 15 year old. Contrast that with a 20 year old who has been experimenting all semester with different moods of studying for this new class that he's in. And he's like, okay, so this time I tried this. It worked pretty well, but I'm not super happy with it. So I'm gonna like rejigger My attempt. And now I'm doing this. Which is all to say, as Doug Bolton says, development is on your side. So you're gonna look at your 12 year old, 14 year old, whatever, 15 year old, and be like, oh my God, how do they not know this? We've had this conversation 700 times. Because they've gotta experience it and learn it and experiment and they may not figure it out this year and they may not figure out next year, but over time, having these conversations and giving them the agency to think about it and see what works best for them is really important. So for those of you in it, and if you have neurodiverse kids or kids with low executive functioning skills who are really working on that, like, it does get better, they do get better. They do improve with support, with sort of checking in with like helpful guidance without like doing it for them.

Cara (22:08)

I want to circle back to the comment about the two kinds of teachers in the world just to say, I

Vanessa (22:14)

mean, there's really not only two types

Cara (22:15)

of teachers, there are many kinds of teachers. But when you put them in the bucket of those who do create study guides and those who don't, I want to make a clarifying comment that this is not to say there's a group that's rooting for your kids and there's a group that's not.

Vanessa (22:28)

No, totally not. Right.

Cara (22:30)

It is. They see a path to success that looks different. So their strategy to help kids get to where they want their kids to go looks different from educator to educator. And I think this sort of connects to what is the point of exams and assessments and papers and all of the things. What's the point anyhow? Because if there's no point, then all of this stresses for naught. And you know, the comment you made, Vanessa, about your opinion is they're valuable. I'm going to say they're valuable. There is great value, like your opinion is backed by data that it is really.

Vanessa (23:17)

I have a 23 year old who's studying for a professional exam right now and he's like using the different skills he's gathered over the last decade to study now for a required professional exam. And so for those of you who are like real world stuff, that's one example. And many, many of his friends and peers have had to take other. You know, there's graduate school exams, there's many different kinds of exams. And so I just want to recognize it's not just school related. There's like many points along the way where this in the real quote, real world where they need these skills.

Cara (23:58)

And I, I think the sort of lowest common denominator of all of this, regardless of how old the kid is. I mean, we could be talking about an elementary school kid. And this applies is that assessments and exams give kids opportunities to prove their integration of knowledge. They can pull ideas or concepts from lots of different directions and they can think and connect those ideas or concepts or topics in a meaningful way. Like that's kind of the point, right? So that is why they are useful, because think about going through life. I mean, again, not an educator, but one who's a big fan of educator. What I would see to be the most important point of examinations is that every day we go through life having to integrate information that we're getting in every direction and weigh things against each other and make a next move. And it can be as simple as I'm about to cross the street and there's a car coming in one direction that's going pretty fast and maybe I have time to cross the street safely and maybe I don't. How do I integrate that information? And you may say, Cara, this has nothing to do with final exams, but I think it does. I think we integrate all of the information that we're taught, all of the experiences that come our way and we become better and better and better decision makers over time on account of it.

Vanessa (25:29)

As long as you're not going to make me solve that word problem where you give me the speed of the car and the speed of my crossing and how long the, I mean, then I'll break out and hide. I will go today. Thank you. And so to counter our, you know, our support for some version of assessments and testing, the counterparts point is how stressful this can be for kids and how hard it can be on families and how hard it can be on educators who care deeply about the well being of their students and are really worried as parents are when they see that kids struggling under the weight of the stress. So one of my biggest jobs, and I think many of us feel this way, is kind of balancing the seesaw between helping our kids learn how to acquire these skills and put them into practice of aggregating information and making sense of it and integrating, I like that word, Cara. Integrating it on the one hand and on the other hand protecting their mental health, making sure they get enough sleep and, and exercise and socializing and kind of like making sure the stress doesn't overwhelm them in the long term. And this is to me like the hardest part of it, partially because we are living in a moment where we're hearing so many worrying things about young people's mental health. And so we worry about sort of tipping things over into a scary place. We don't want to do that. On the other hand, we're like, hey, this kid's got to learn how to do this. And yeah, it's hard, but we believe in them and believe they can survive it. And so that, to me is like the really the trickiest part of this journey. Right.

Cara (27:23)

And of course, then there's the layer of if they don't do well on the assessment, you know, how much does that bleed over into their self identity? Yeah, you know, I feel like a failure. I couldn't get this. I couldn't guess what I was going to be asked and nail it. I couldn't. And, you know, that is real. It is real. I mean, it may be important at this point to take a little pause and talk about the physiology of stress, because this plays in to not just the kids experience, but the adult's experience as well. So, you know, whatever the stress is. Vanessa. And it can be exam stress, which is real and for some people, existential. It can be athletic stress, it can be financial stress, it can be, you know, the capital S stressors of the adverse childhood experiences, the aces. So being a witness to violence, being a witness to drug use, not knowing where you're going to sleep or where your next meal is coming from, those are like the capital S stressors. And then these other stressors that we're describing, I call them the lowercase s stressors because they are not sort of those overwhelming threats, but the body perceives them in the same way. The common denominator of all stress, regardless of if whether it's massive or minor, is that the adrenal glands, they are stimulated. They produce. Adrenal glands produce lots of different hormones. One of the hormones that the adrenal glands produce is cortisol, the stress hormone. And cortisol has a number of downstream impacts that are. It's really designed to, you know, and everyone uses this example, but I think it works. So I'm going to use it too. You're being chased by a lion. And how do you get the heck out of there? Well, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up. You pump as much blood as you can to your skeletal muscles so you can run away fast. You want to get oxygen to the muscles, but you don't want to be hungry. You don't want to have. Right. The things that we do when we're relaxed and our defenses are down. You want to turn off and the things that we do to physically protect ourselves, you want to turn off on. That's what cortisol does. And the body was designed to have bursts of cortisol. When that mountain lion or that whatever animal that's coming to chase us, chases us, a burst of cortisol can then be utilized to get us out of there. What our body was not designed to do was to manage chronically high levels of cortisol where 24, seven or even 15 hours a day, six days a week.

Vanessa (30:13)

Right.

Cara (30:13)

But with some regular frequency, we are constantly pumping out cortisol. And there are real downstream effects to having high resting levels of cortisol, not the least of which is sort of the cascade of things that happens to sex hormones. We always talk about earlier puberty. One of the biggest causes of earlier puberty is this higher level of systemic cortisol. So, you know, if we sit here and we kind of go through the downside of exams, I have no doubt that in your household over the past week, if you had a 24 hour cortisol monitor on your kids, by the way, people, that's not a good idea. I don't even know if it exists. But like, no, don't ask for one, but if you had one, I have no doubt that the level would be high. And ultimately the heart is not supposed to be sitting at a high resting heart rate. The blood pressure should not be sitting high. The long term impacts of all this cortisol flooding our body is unhealthy for us. And, and Vanessa, I bet if I measured your cortisol, you too would have a high resting level of cortisol with your kids feeling stressed. We'll be right back, but first a word from our sponsors.

Vanessa (31:50)

And it's not just my kids. I handed in my book on Saturday. My husband's got a book coming out Tuesday. So it's like, it's not like we're all just the adults are sitting around eating bon bons and like, you know, I mean we are watching tv, but only as a survival mechanism at the end of the day. So it's like we have our own stressors anyways and then our kids stressors come on. And the truth is that when we're all together, it's typically between the hours of, let's say five and ten in the evening, at which point everyone has worked or schooled a full day and we're all tired and we've had our own interactions throughout the Day, which affect us in. In different ways. So by the time we're all together, it's not like it's a perfect recipe for calm, measured, thoughtful interactions. Like, it's a perfect recipe for things to go sideways.

Cara (32:55)

That's right.

Vanessa (32:56)

And so elevated cortisol all around. It's just.

Cara (32:59)

I mean, I feel like. I don't know if you've. Like, I've gotten really attuned to feeling when that sensation of I. I know when my blood pressure is heading north. I know when my heart rate is heading north.

Vanessa (33:15)

I mean, that's why I'm so grateful we do the work we do, because it just. Like, if nothing else, and hopefully there's other benefits to it, to everyone listening. But, like, if nothing else, I think the work we do has just made me a better family member and certainly a better parent. And so as I sit there and, like, one of my kids says to me, yeah, I'm done studying. And you're like, I don't think so. And you. You quickly have to go to this place of strategy where you're like, I'm not going to flip out on this kid. Even though in my head I'm like, don't be lazy. You're ridiculous. Study for another hour and you'll get a much better score. And then your grades for the year will be better, and then you'll set yourself up for next. Right. Like, I'm in my own head. I'm going there and there and there and there. Knowing none of that is helpful to my kid right now. All I need to do is get him to reflect for a minute or two and make a different choice. I cannot make the choice for him. No. That is the hardest thing. And the more stressed I am in trying to get him to shift his approach, the more he's going to shut down and dig in and push back on it. Yep. And so it's like the. You got to find the middle ground.

Cara (34:35)

So you've hit on the issue with capital T. I want you to start giving some advice around this. So what do you do when you know where this ship is going to go into port? Right. Like, you are not as the ship.

Vanessa (34:53)

Right.

Cara (34:53)

So, like, what do you do if you can see. And I'm using the royal you here because every single listener has been in this position. You know what the consequences of this sort of stress management strategy around? I'm out. You know what you say, take care of yourself. Great. I'm gonna watch some TV and go to bed. And you're like, well, Hang on a second, because I know the cascade that you just listed. So what do you do that doesn't exacerbate stress or create its own drama?

Vanessa (35:26)

So the first thing I do is I say, oh, interesting. Okay, can you walk me through what you've done so far to prep for this exam?

Cara (35:36)

Mom, Mom, mom, mom, you don't understand.

Vanessa (35:39)

Right? So I don't get accusatory. I don't go to the place of, like, you haven't done enough. You've done more. You've got more to do. I go to the place of, what have you done already? Which allows me to do two things. It allows me to validate what's already been done. So I'm starting with some positive stuff. And then it allows me to see very clearly where the holes are in what still needs to be done. And hopefully, if I use the strategy well enough, I actually don't even have to get to that last part because I hear what they've done, I validate what they've done. I sit quietly for a second and I wait for the next sentence, which often sounds something like, oh, yeah, I guess I still could do X. So I guess I could still do some delta math problems. Or I guess I. There's this one time period that we're not covering that much on the exam, but is going to be on the exam for history. I guess I could do some review on that. Right? So in the best case scenario, having them retell what they've done already helps them recognize what they haven't yet done. That's best case scenario.

Cara (36:56)

Okay. Because I have a couple of clarifying questions for you, and I'm going to give you both of them, and then you can answer them in whatever order you want. The first is, what if the answer is not what you want it to be?

Vanessa (37:08)

Right.

Cara (37:08)

Okay. And then the second is, what if your kid is not sharing any of this with you at all? Like, you're describing an ideal scenario where you actually know what's coming up for the week and you've gotten it out of your kid. What if you have no idea that either you didn't ask the question the right way or you have a kid who's being really quiet and withdrawn, or you've been off on a work trip and you just aren't there and you don't know? So take those both.

Vanessa (37:35)

One strategy I like to use is the let me quiz you strategy. So often when I use the, oh, amazing, you've done so much. Let me. Let me quiz you. I get One of two answers. Great. Like, let's go sit on the couch. Or, oh, you know what I just realized? Like, give me another hour. Which tells me they weren't really done, but they wanted to be done. And so. So the.

Cara (38:02)

Yep.

Vanessa (38:02)

So the let me quiz you works with some stuff. It doesn't work with everything. Another strategy that works is, okay, sounds like you've covered everything you think you need to cover. Is there a practice test that you can take or that you can find online to do this?

Cara (38:19)

Yep.

Vanessa (38:20)

Sometimes the answer is still not what I want, which is like, oh, yes, I've done 20 practice tests. Sure you have. Or no, no, no. No such thing exists. So there is a point, Cara, where you can try lots of strategies. You can be super calm, and you can have a kid who has decided they have done as much as they're going to do. They are not going to do more. You cannot, I mean, I guess theoretically you could force them to do more. I don't know. That's not my style. That's not, I think, most any of the listeners listening to this podcast style. But at a certain point, you have to accept that it is out of your control, that it is up to them, it is up to their choice, and they're going to have to live with the consequences. And I will say, yes, there have been moments where I get to this very place and I will say, okay, like, it sounds like you feel like you've done everything that you are going to do. I just am wondering if in a week, when you get your exam back and you look back at how you prepared, if there's anything you're going to wish you had done. Right. Differently.

Cara (39:33)

Yeah. I'm going to push pause on the second part of the question, which just to remind you, was about. You're like, what was it? What was it was about not knowing what their circumstances are.

Vanessa (39:45)

Right.

Cara (39:45)

But I'm going to push pause and give the opposite scenario because it speaks to the question we got, which is not for the kid who is feeling exhausted and disengaged, but it's for the perfectionist. And I think there's real parental worry here as well. And it's reasonable.

Vanessa (40:05)

Yep.

Cara (40:05)

And. And just to acknowledge that in all the same ways, sort of everything you just described about the kid who needs a little help getting over the hump of doing the things to be able to be successful. Perfectionists often need help pulling back. Their cortisol levels are through the roof. If they are not 100% sure about every possible thing that they could be asked and they know the way the teacher's going to ask it and the way the teacher wants an answer framed. And they're going to stay up until one or two in the morning making sure that they've crossed every T and dotted every I. And they're doing it in the name of making you proud. That is like a really tricky one. When you have a perfectionist who wants to not just do it for themselves, but also wants to, you know, sort of have the parents around them say, wow, you're so. This is so incredible. Right. Or wants to shine in their friend group or, you know, or, or, or. And I think a lot of the same strategies that you described can actually be inverted.

Vanessa (41:20)

Yeah.

Cara (41:20)

And used to help perfectionists. And this can end up as an argument actually. Like in the same way that I see kids battle their parents when the parents think that the kids should be doing more. There are battles that result when you think your kids should be doing less. And it's really hard. It's really hard.

Vanessa (41:44)

So the trick I use with my kid who has the tendency to kind of keep going. This is the kid who had little tabs throughout her notebook with her perfectly written notes and her own self created study guides. Right.

Cara (42:02)

But I'm not your child.

Vanessa (42:03)

I know, I know. It's like Cara, it was like I gave birth to Cara with that kid earlier in the evening. I will say I'm gonna make sure that you are in bed at X o' clock and I will explain why sleep is so important and how important it is to retention of information that she's already learned and why getting her to bed and how her mood will be better. Right. I, I go, I review all of that stuff and then I let her know, I'm gonna require you to be in bed by X o', clock, knowing that. Yeah. How are you gonna plan out your evening so you get done enough of what you need to get done without compromising your sleep? So that's the strategy that I have used with the kid who will keep going and going and going. Kara, you probably have more strategies.

Cara (42:51)

You know what I've seen from educational therapists that can work really well. Sometimes that works really well, especially if they understand the value of sleep and you're talking about it because it speaks to what their goal is, which is to be able to retain information better. If they sleep more, they will actually retain the information then they will, they'll actually get med. Another strategy that I have seen work really, really well is to kind of come up With a bigger picture approach. Right. If you were doing this once or twice because a particular subject or a particular exam was particularly challenging, I wouldn't mind at all. But I'm seeing a pattern here. I'm seeing this three days a week with every subject and I think you're going to burn yourself out. And I'm so impressed with the work ethic. But the strategy that you are imploring for your work ethic is not going to pay off in the long run because. And then it goes to cortisol and you know, all of that. And I have seen that work really, really well because what it does is it validates. Listen, I'm not taking away what you want. You want academic success, I want academic success for you. Great. It's just that the long term repercussions of having that approach to studying as hard as you can, every detail you can, and burning the candle at both ends, that long term strategy will not be sustainable. And by the way, if it is sustainable in terms of your ability to do well academically, it doesn't allow for a well rounded life. And I think kids who are perfectionists, who feel seen and don't feel like you're criticizing their desired goal, but instead just feel like, oh, you get me and you're just trying to help me get there in a healthier way. I think those kids respond pretty well to it. Sometimes with perfectionists you need help from a mental health professional provider. I mean, it's just, it's a really tricky. And sometimes with kids in the opposite direction, you need help.

Vanessa (45:08)

Right. So I want to recognize both of those extremes where nothing you say or do seems to be having an impact and you are worried about your kid. Yes. And you know, as we talk about all the time, the duration of what we're seeing, low mood, sleeplessness, withdrawal from other people, changes in eating behaviors, those kinds of behaviors are very concerning. And there is a point where you just need more support, you need more help. Great places to start is the school themselves, guidance counselors, advisors, psychologists, those folks, pediatricians like you may never have encountered this before. This might be new. You may not have a mental health professional who your kid has already seen or with whom you have a relationship. So start with the other trusted adults in your kid's life who have this training. It may just come up around these high pressure moments. I was talking to one of my kids who had studied and studied and studied and studied and walked into an exam and got a question and his mind just went blank. Blank.

Cara (46:27)

Oh, it just Went blank.

Vanessa (46:30)

And so not only was he not remembering, but then he was kicking himself.

Cara (46:35)

Right.

Vanessa (46:36)

For not knowing. And he went, and. And this gets to some practical strategies which you can brainstorm with kids. He then went to some later questions and then went back to the question that had stumped him and was like, oh, my God, this is so easy. But at which point he'd lost all sorts of time on the test. So there are folks who can help with kids. There's learning specialists in schools, there's executive functioning people. There's all sorts of folks who can help with practical strategies, tactical strategy. That's fun. Sometimes it's mental health people. But I really think, like, we've been playing around. We even. One of my kids have been playing around. He gets really stressed before a test. And I was reading that sour candies can help reduce anxiety. And I was like, let's test it. Like, go get some sour candies. Let's see if it helps. So he had an exam and he was like, I'm walking around eating some sour candy so you can have a little bit of fun with it.

Cara (47:31)

I'd like to see that study. That's fascinating.

Vanessa (47:33)

I know it was. I have to go. I have to go find it now. But I understand how worrying it is, how scary it is when kids either seem like they don't care at all and they're not invested in their futures, or they are so invested that you're worried about their wellbeing. And that's a time for support, but it's also a time to think about, like, just sitting down and thinking, what have you done that's not been working so well? Maybe we can take some. Some tasks off. Let's think about what are some things you can try. Have you talked to some of your friends or classmates? Is there anyone in your study group.

Cara (48:10)

Yeah.

Vanessa (48:11)

Who can make some suggestions about strategies they did, where it becomes collaborative, social, interactive, cooperative, rather than this isolating experience where they're just siloed with their own stress.

Cara (48:26)

That's right. And I think one place to land in the name of practical strategies is also just self care. You know, we talk about sleep a lot, but there's not just how much you sleep and the quality of your sleep, but there's nutrition, there's exercise, there's taking a bath or a shower and feeling refreshed. There's getting outdoors. I mean, as kids get older and older, by late high school, sometimes they will be studying for exams that you walk into their room and it's like stale air the shades are drawn, they haven't left, they're in their pajamas at three in the afternoon. You know, whatever it is, and it's intuitively, you know, it is not healthy. It's also not conducive to optimizing the way your brain works. So this is one you can get ahead of because this is predictable. If you, way before exams start to talk to your kids about the routines of self care and help them identify that which makes them feel a little bit better and a little bit more human, then when you're suggesting those things in the heat of the moment, they don't bite your head off. Right. And it's listen, I don't blame them for snapping at us when we say, you know, why don't you take a break and take the dog for a walk? And they're like, you know, they're very unhappy with it. But if you can build your case early on by pointing out, do you see how your shoulders have come off of your ears after you came back from a 20 minute dog walk? That's amazing. What did you do? Oh, I listened to music and I just tuned out. That's an amazing strategy for you. So I would really suggest that you start collecting this data now about your individual kids and helping them to see what in fact works for them to bring down their cortisol. It can be brought down in a matter of minutes. Self regulation is everything. And you know, these are talk about life skills that will give get you through so many tricky situations as you get older.

Vanessa (50:40)

Yeah. And you know, nutrition is super important in this stage. Making sure they're fueling their bodies in ways that are really nutritious and long lasting. So like I will do things for my kids on an exam morning that I won't necessarily do. Like I'll make a big egg sandwich with lots of yummy stuff in it. Normally it's like, all right, have some cereal, kiddo. Or banana. And dinners. Like I'll ask them a week in advance, what would, what would you like for dinner during exams? What would feel like it'll keep you full and focus. Like giving them a say in thinking about car. To your point, like, what ecosystem can I create for myself that will make me feel good? And then like a little treat, a little chocolate. I mean, when I see my kids sort of just like sliding down in their chairs, you know, I have ice pops, I have, you know, little English chocolates. I have little things that just helps give them a little spark of joy as they go through it. Everyone's going to do that differently. But I think the hardest part is helping them with the perspective that while it feels like this matters so much and it's make or break and their futures are depending on it. That's right. That it doesn't define them as a person. That there's many, many other ways they can prove their knowledge and their worth and they can have a say on their futures and their future choices. But it's really hard for a kid to hear that when they're in the middle of studying. It's like they're already. To your point, Kara, they're already elevated. So before my kids go into exam periods and they're calm and they're not yet in it, I do have that conversation with them. I don't know if they hear it, I don't know if they remember it. I don't know if it seeps in or not. But I sometimes hope that they're. When they're in a real moment of stress and I say to them, hey, you are more than a grade. I love you. No matter what happens. I just want you to give it your best shot and try your hardest. And I hope it's great and I hope you do well. And if you don't, it's okay. And like we're going to learn from it. But if you say that to them at 11 o' clock at night, the night before a big test, they're sure as hell not going to not going to hear it. And that sometimes is the moment for music and a hug and just like lying there quietly so they don't feel quite so lonely. Yeah.

Cara (53:17)

You want the opportunity to be the little Vanessa angel on their shoulder.

Vanessa (53:23)

That's right. I wonder what the Vanessa angel would wear. So I'm trying to picture. Would I have, would I have a toga? Would I have like a little white toga?

Cara (53:32)

100%. The Vanessa devil, on the other hand,

Vanessa (53:35)

I know that's a scary thought.

Cara (53:37)

That one I have fully imagined.

Vanessa (53:43)

So good luck to all of you. Take a deep breath. It's most important thing is that your kid is healthy and safe. The rest can be figured out. Even if it feels like the highest of stakes. The most high stakes is that your kid feels loved and cared for by you.

Cara (54:03)

Thanks, Vanessa.

Vanessa (54:04)

Thanks, Cara. Thank you so much for listening. You can email us with questions, feedback or episode requests at podcast

Cara (54:16)

if you want to learn more about what we do to make this whole stage of life less awkward for everyone involved. Our parent membership, our school health ed curriculum, our keynote talks and more are

Vanessa (54:29)

all@lessawkward.com and if you want products that make puberty so much more comfortable, visit myumla.com.

Cara (54:46)

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