My child is very anxious about GCSEs - what should I do?

First: a lot of this is normal

GCSEs are the first time most young people carry genuinely high-stakes pressure, so some anxiety is not a malfunction - it is a proportionate response to a big thing, and it is everywhere: most parents of Year 11s are watching some version of what you're watching. Ordinary exam-season wobble looks like grumbling and dramatics, pre-exam nerves and short-lived tears, a teenager who is snappier and more tired than usual but still eating, still sleeping roughly enough, still seeing friends, still - grudgingly - going in.

Naming that matters, because an anxious parent treating normal wobble as crisis can accidentally confirm the child's fear that something is badly wrong. Much of the job is simply holding steady while a young person has entirely appropriate feelings about a hard thing.

The signs that deserve more than watching

Trust the change more than any checklist: you know this child's baseline, and what matters is distance from it. Still, the signs worth acting on are reasonably consistent - sleep that has genuinely broken down, eating noticeably more or less, withdrawal from friends and things they usually enjoy, panic attacks, persistent physical complaints like stomach aches and headaches, talk of everything being pointless, or refusing school. One rough week in the mocks is weather; a sustained pattern is climate.

If you are seeing that pattern, it is not disloyal or dramatic to seek help - it is the assignment. Start with the school and your GP, and know that the services below include support lines for parents as well as for young people; you do not have to triage this alone.

How to listen without amplifying

When an anxious teenager finally talks, the instinct is to fix - reassure, advise, problem-solve, all within the first thirty seconds. Resist it. Anxiety mostly wants witnessing, not solving: "that sounds really hard" keeps the door open, while "you'll be fine, you've worked hard" - kindly meant - can land as "this conversation is over". Ask what would help rather than announcing it. Side-by-side conversations (in the car, walking the dog, cooking) reliably beat face-to-face summits.

Two traps to dodge. Don't amplify - a parent's visible panic confirms the catastrophe, so keep your alarm for another room. And don't accidentally raise the stakes: reminders of how much rides on these exams, comparisons with siblings or cousins, even heavy encouragement, all add weight. The most powerful sentence available to you is some version of: these exams matter, they are not what you're worth to us, and no result will change that.

Working with the school

The school cannot support what it cannot see, and anxious teenagers are often excellent at hiding it on site. A short, factual email to the form tutor or head of year - what you're seeing at home, how long it's been going on - puts support quietly in motion: a check-in, a counsellor referral where the school has one, sensible adjustments during exam season. If the anxiety is significant and sustained, ask to speak to the SENCo as well: for evidenced need, exam access arrangements exist - supervised rest breaks, a smaller room - and there is a guide on this site covering exactly that route.

Your own stress counts too

Parents largely absorb exam season's second-hand pressure with no results day of their own to discharge it - and children read us constantly, calibrating their own alarm against ours. Looking after your own steadiness is not self-indulgence; it is the mechanism. Talk to other Year 11 parents (you will find the same conversation everywhere), keep some family life that has nothing to do with exams, and if your own worry is getting loud, the services below include a dedicated helpline for parents. The calmest voice in the house sets the temperature - arrange for it to be yours.