Careers with Hart with Jay Hart

It's NCEA time again and, depending on how they handle stress, your teenagers are either a mess or eerily calm. Either way, here's a bit of advice on how you can help your teen beat the test stress.

Encourage your teen to create a study plan based around which exams they're sitting first and prioritising those papers that they find most difficult. A study plan should specify dates and times dedicated to study, outline which course will be studied and what they hope to accomplish during that study time. Study time should involve lots of practice questions. But a study plan should also specify meal breaks and study breaks.

Study breaks are just as important as study times, because they allow your teen to recharge for the next block of study. Students that fail to take planned study breaks are more tired, grumpy, less able to remember information and are not likely to do as well on exams as they would have had they been more relaxed. Stress releases chemicals in the brain that actually cause it to shut down. So, make sure your teen plans time to relax.

However, planned study breaks are not the same as procrastination. Where there is no study plan, some teens are prone to taking long, spontaneous study breaks - known as procrastinating. This leads to more, unnecessary stress. Yet another reason for coming up with a plan.

Once the study plan has been made, make sure you have your own copy of the plan. This will help you gently and kindly check up on your teen. If they're not meeting their own targets, help them re-evaluate their plan in order to make it more achievable.

And if, in true teen style, they don't want to talk to you about it, give me a call! I'd be more than happy to help your teen set up a manageable, personalised study plan.

Contact Jay at www.facebook.com/careerswithhart