We often hear from carers that their person can become very perfectionistic and all-or-nothing around exams, putting a lot of pressure on themselves, and equating their own self-worth with their academic success. For some carers, they can struggle with knowing how to encourage their person to study without encouraging the ED voice.

What are the Challenges?

Carers shared about the challenges they experience supporting someone during Exams, School & College in this session of Conversations with Carers. Some of the main challenges included:

• Exams causing increased stress and pressure
• Person withdrawing from friends and family
• Person finding it hard to relax, energy consumed by exams
• Expectations of the results a person ‘should’ achieve & looming dread of results
• Exams taking over the entire household
• Person finding it hard to concentrate
• Person struggling to catch-up on schoolwork due to taking time out of school
• Carers trying to find a balance between keeping their person safe and letting them grow
• Person struggling to stick to their meal plan
• Carers trying to not always try to ‘fix’ things for their person

What’s Helpful?

When supporting your person during exams, carer’s recommend finding practical ways to help them feel comfortable while trying to maintain some space for yourself and other family members. For example, many local and university libraries offer spaces for secondary school students to study, with many of them offering private, quiet rooms that are free to book. This can be really helpful for your person if they are feeling overwhelmed by distractions.

Carers also recommend getting in touch with the school in order to see whether they can provide any additional support or resources for your person. For instance, arranging that your person can take their exams in a smaller centre, or enquiring whether they can wear earplugs to stay calm. It can be really valuable to visit the exam centre in advance, so your person can see what it will be like on the day, to familiarise themselves with the environment, and minimise some of the anxiety they may be feeling.

If your person is putting a lot of pressure on themselves to achieve specific results, carers find it helpful to broach a conversation trying to alleviate some of these expectations. For instance, talking about other routes to their desired career, options of repeating the leaving certificate, and alternative third level opportunities. Especially if your person missed schoolwork throughout the year, carers find it important to remind their person that they have an illness, and cannot compare their journey to their peers. Similarly, it can be really valuable to express empathy and compassion, affirming the remarkable strength they have preparing to sit their exams.

When thinking about your role as a support system, carers find it helpful to offer suggestions to their person, without an expectation they will follow through with every idea. Carers advise to let your person make their own decision, and try not to put any additional pressure on them.

Although this can be frustrating, and may oftentimes feel like ‘walking a tightrope,’ carers often find that their person is very capable of coming up with their own solutions.

Other things carers find helpful during this time is to encourage your person to take regular breaks, even if they are small. Partnering with your person to think through some ideas of how they could step away from studying to relax can be useful. Another idea is to encourage your person to continue with a hobby or activity they enjoy, as it can provide an important space away from study.

FAQ

• My person is struggling to keep to their meal plan – how can I help?

Understandably, when your person is feeling stressed and overwhelmed because of upcoming exams, their anxiety around eating may spike. Carers find meeting your person where they are at is very helpful, and taking each day at a time. Try to focus on your person eating regularly (i.e., 3 meals, 3 snacks, not going longer than 3 hours without eating), before thinking about the ‘what.’ If you are connected with a care team, it can be really valuable to gain their expertise when thinking through how your person can manage their meals while studying for their exams.