When you’re stressed out and you know it, and you really want to show it,
When you’re stressed and overwhelmed, make a list.
Did you catch the ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ children’s song reference there? When I was going though a tough time earlier this year, a good friend told me something similar. The song and her revised lyrics got stuck in my head and made me smile even when I was overwhelmed, underslept and trying to work out the next best thing to do.
With HSC, IB, and yearly exams completed, and the summer holidays approaching, you may think it’s a strange time to be talking about anxiety and overwhelm. However we all know that Christmas can be a chaotic time of year. For a student, add to that thoughts about their upcoming reports and thinking ahead about next year and it’s understandable they feel worried and don’t know what to do.
One of the best ways I know to deal with stress is to brain dump all those swirling, chaotic thoughts onto a piece of paper. Usually it’s a piece of scrap paper so I don’t feel pressured to try and structure my thoughts or write them neatly into a nice lined journal. Scrap paper gives me the freedom to write messy, underline key ideas, draw lines all over the page and, if I want, to scrunch it up when I’m done.
Once my thoughts are on paper, I have a visual idea of what’s making me anxious and from there I can triage. I like to sort my messy, unstructured list into the following categories which I first heard about reading Sean Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. (If you haven’t read it, I’d highly recommend buying a copy for your high-schooler this Christmas!):
- Urgent and important;
- Important but not urgent;
- Urgent but not important;
- Not urgent and not important.
This matrix makes it easy to distinguish my priorities from those things that feel urgent but aren’t as important as other tasks. I can then add time limits to my tasks and break big tasks like exam revision, reading a novel, or beginning a Major Work, into small, manageable steps that I can use to track my progress.
When our thoughts and emotions are in turmoil it can be really hard to ask for help. Making lists helps to link our feelings to facts. Once I know what pressures I’m facing, I am better able to communicate them to those around me and ask for support. For example, if I’m worried that I’m a slow reader and know I’ll have to read a few books in English next year, once I put that feeling into words, I can ask my teacher for next year’s reading list so that I can get a start on it over the summer break.
Learning is not done in isolation but in families and communities. Parents often tell me that they recognise the signs of stress in their child but they don’t know how to help because their child won’t open up to them. If this is you, consider asking them to write or draw a list of what’s going on for them and volunteer to help them prioritise. Ask them to think of who they could ask for support and encourage them to be proactive. This also allows you to see the ways you might be able to relive some of the pressure they feel.
Nepean Tutoring is open throughout the summer holidays to support and guide your child towards achieving their learning goals, so don’t hesitate to let your tutor know if you’d like some additional sessions in the holidays. If you’re new to the Nepean Tutoring family, simply Contact Us and we’ll connect you with the best tutor to support your child’s education.
(Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash)