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How Internalized Pressure Turns Studying Into Fear And What To Do About It · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist with another podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is very timely because it's that time of year when the spectra of GCSEs and all manner of stress-related experiences occur.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the consulting room, I see young people very often struggling to manage the internal pressure that they experience, the anxiety that they experience, and very often the sense of being stuck.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Many times I've heard young people say, I know I have to revise, I know it's important, but I just freeze.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Others who say, I don't think I've revised enough, I'm going to fail.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And extremes where the young person locks themselves in the room doing nothing but revising and repeating the same pattern.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: The psychological effects of these things are very significant.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often, because parents want the best for their children, they will put them under pressure, not intentionally, but consequently, because they feel under pressure.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about it from the point of view of how we might understand and manage this differently.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pressure comes not just from within and not just from families, but it also comes from school.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is another important dimension because this pressure experienced within the school environment itself is not just individual, it's a collective pressure.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And most teachers care deeply about their students and want them to succeed, but schools operate with it operate within performance systems, targets, league tables, and accountability structures.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: That has nothing to do with the individual young person.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, young people are frequently exposed to repeated messages about attainment, performance, and consequences.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And these messages may sound like these exams determine your future.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, they don't.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: You must reach your target grade.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot afford to fall behind.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's not true.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the most important year of your life.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Colleges will look at these results, yes, they will.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Universities start here.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, you know, when when when you're a bit older, you can you can see around the edges of this and you can look at things like compromise.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But these messages for a young person, they that first of all, they don't need to be told they already know this stuff.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, the sort of implied message in all of this is if you don't do well, you'll find yourself homeless, living under a park bench, drinking alcohol out of a sock.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I say that humorously.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, this sense of without doing well, I have no future is is very, very damaging.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And although it's intended to motivate, repeated exposure to these statements can create chronic psychological pressure.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So at first the pressure comes from the outside, teachers' school systems, expectations, but over time something important happens.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because that external voice becomes internal, and young people begin to say, I mustn't fail, I'm falling behind, I'm not good enough.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't succeed, everything is ruined.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone else is coping much better around me and better than me.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the process of internalization where external expectations become part of the young person's inner psychological world.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And once pressure becomes internal, it no longer requires reminders from school.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the young person begins to pressure themselves relentlessly.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: The psychological impact of internalized pressure is persistent anxiety, fear of failure, avoidance of revision, emotional shutdown, loss of confidence, self-criticism, exhaustion, loss of enjoyment in learning and feeling never good enough.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, this isn't true for all adolescents, but it is true for many.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in some, this internal pressure becomes more powerful than any external demand.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're no longer studying to learn, they're studying to avoid failing.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an invisible burden because although people, young people don't show it openly because they may appear calm, distant, unmotivated or overly driven or irritable, but internally they may be carrying a constant psychological message, which is if I don't succeed, I am not enough.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is a heavy burden for a developing mind.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, parents can help counterbalance this.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can't remove the school pressure, but they can soften its impact.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you as a parent, you help when you emphasize effort, not perfection, separating worth from results, providing emotional steadiness, offer perspective beyond exams, and remind that the young person that they are valued regardless of outcome.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: When school says perform, parents simply need to say, it's okay, you matter.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: When school says achieve, parents need to say, Well, yeah, but you are doing that, you're trying your best, and you are enough.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get there.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: This balance protects the adolescent mind from becoming overwhelmed by internal pressure.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what is important here is that what we're trying to do is to reframe the message.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often I'll say to young people things like, when they say, if if I can't, if I don't get my GCSEs, I won't be able to do my A levels.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't do my A levels, I'll I'll get I won't be able to get into university.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's as if they're locked into this sort of rigid trajectory because they don't know any different.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I start to talk to them about, well, let's let's do this a step at a time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's have a look where you're where you're struggling.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: We look together at what's happening, and quite often it's the that those internal voices and the anxiety that gets generated.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we have to break it down into bite-sized pieces.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some years ago I had a boy who um just completely broke down uh when doing A-level his first year, and there was absolutely no way he could attend school, and he's he's one of a number.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the school were very good, they were very accommodating and very supportive, but they wanted him to do the work at home and he just couldn't.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we developed this method, and the method was very simple.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was take one book and place it on the dining room table.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a book related to revision, and then sit with the book in front of you and then open it, and sit for a few minutes, then put the book away.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, okay, we take the next step, we open the book, we flick a flick a few pages, close it, put it away.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And bit by bit, this boy began to revise for very structured blocks of time, and he did incredibly well because he it he was overwhelmed.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did was we took out the pressure and just did it in this bite-sized kind of way.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: He did his A-levels, did very well, went to university, um, and has has done incredibly well.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the point here is take away the pressure, take away the expectation, take away the demand.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start where the young person is.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And also, as parents, think about it.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how it was for you when you were at school, and maybe you didn't do very well, or maybe you didn't do as well as you may have wanted to.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So then there was the rest of your life.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what happened then.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not suggesting that you ended up under a park bench, but maybe what you realized was that the world is a bigger place than results.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Results don't define who you are or your worth.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: In episode two, we're going to look some more at some of the things that you can do as a parent, but also how you can spot the signs that the adolescent is avoidant, freezing up, overworking, and is is suffering and struggling.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hope that's helpful.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.