Another thing my kids sometimes do better and feel less stresses when I over play the difficulty of something. When Ds went to take ACT I told him it is super hard and lots of people don't finish it in time. It lowered his anxiety when he had to guess on problems. He walked out feeling that was easy. Not a good idea for everyone, but it works with my kids. They come away from the conversation understanding it will be difficult and my parents don't expect perfection. It works great with my ds. My dd6, I recently noticed the more I tell her something will be difficult the more she response with "a rise to the challenge attitude." She started reading Lemony Snicket books last week because I told her they were probably to difficult

This is what I told my ds11 before he took the Explore and it relaxed him. It was the first test he took in which, after it was over, he came out smiling. Ds is also a perfectionist and I could tell just the act of taking a test like that helped him let some of his expectations go.

Last edited by KADmom; 05/15/13 10:41 AM.