I often get calls from parents whose children study hard, get ‘A’s on their homework, and then do poorly come test time. Many times, these parents tell me their child suffers from test anxiety. I’m certainly in no position to doubt their conclusion. But let me ask you a question: Did you ever blow-off studying the night before a test? Perhaps you went out with your friends or there was a terrific infomercial on TV? If so, I bet you went into that test feeling pretty nervous: the dark curtain of impending doom coming down.

It turns out there’s a pretty good correlation between knowing your stuff and doing well on a test. Sometimes we’re not sure if we really know our stuff, so we’re nervous. Maybe we feel a lot of pressure to do well, so we’re nervous. But the better we become at really learning the material and feeling confident, the less we’ll feel anxiety, and yes, the better we’ll do on our tests!

My recommendation to the parents of anxious testers depends on their situation, but can be summarized: let’s make sure that your son or daughter learns how to study, really knows the material and learns how to better assess their own knowledge.