If GCSE season feels heavier on your child than it did on you at the same age, that's not nostalgia talking. YoungMinds' 2025 survey of GCSE and A Level students found that 63% struggled to cope in the lead up to and during their exams. Separately, a survey of school leaders and teachers, carried out by Teacher Tapp for the Association of School and College Leaders, found that 77% had seen mental health issues linked to exam anxiety in this year's Year 11 cohort, and 47% had seen students arrive at or leave an exam hall visibly distressed.

This piece is for the ordinary, everyday version of that pressure, the tears over a revision timetable, the shortened temper, the stomach aches on results days that haven't even happened yet, and for the smaller number of situations where something more serious is going on and deserves more than a change in approach at home. Both are covered here, because most parents reading an article like this are trying to work out, in the moment, which one they're looking at.

Why this generation is experiencing exams differently

Some of what's changed is structural, not just perception. Today's GCSE students sit more exam papers, with more total exam hours, than any cohort before them, following the shift away from coursework and modular assessment over the past decade. Some of it is contextual: exam stress is layered on top of, not separate from, wider pressures. A 2025 survey of young people found school-related stress, largely exams and academic workload, was the single most commonly cited source of poor mental health, ahead of family pressure, friendships, and social media combined.

None of this means today's GCSE cohort is somehow less resilient than previous generations. It means the actual conditions they're navigating, volume of assessment, visibility of results on social media, a compressed and high-stakes exam calendar, are measurably more demanding, and treating that as the real, external cause rather than a character issue is itself a useful starting point for how you talk to your child about it.

What the evidence says actually helps

Support that isn't pressure, even well-meaning pressure. A 2023 longitudinal study of 839 students, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, found that parental support and fewer negative interactions predicted better academic coping over time, independent of how much academic stress a child was already under or how well they were doing at school. In practical terms: how you respond to your child during this period shapes how they cope with it, separately from the exams themselves. Encouragement that comes with an implicit expectation attached (‘you can do this, I know you can get the grade’) tends to land differently than support with no performance condition attached (‘I'm here while you're going through this, whatever happens’).

Protecting sleep, not just study time. Research on parental support and adolescent sleep has found that supportive family environments are consistently associated with better adolescent sleep, particularly under conditions of family or academic stress, while conflict and pressure at home are linked to worse sleep during exactly the periods when sleep matters most for memory consolidation and emotional regulation. A late study session that costs a full night's sleep is very rarely a good trade, even the night before an exam.

Naming the pressure instead of minimising it. ‘It's just an exam’ is usually meant kindly, as reassurance, but it can land as dismissal, especially when a child is genuinely afraid of disappointing someone or closing off a future path. Naming the pressure directly, ‘this feels like it matters enormously right now, and I understand why’, tends to be more calming than minimising it, because it doesn't ask a child to also manage the gap between how big this feels and being told it isn't.

Keeping some things unchanged. Exam season understandably reorganises a household, more studying, fewer social plans, a tighter schedule. Protecting a small number of normal, low-pressure routines through this period, a regular meal together, a weekend activity that has nothing to do with revision, gives a child's week at least one part that doesn't revolve around the exams, which matters more for mood regulation than it might seem from the outside.

Modelling calm rather than performing it. Teenagers are highly attuned to a parent's actual stress level, regardless of what's being said out loud. A parent who is visibly anxious about outcomes, checking grade boundaries, discussing university implications at the dinner table, tends to transmit that anxiety even while offering verbal reassurance. This doesn't mean suppressing your own concern. It means being aware of what your own stress is communicating alongside your words.

When it's more than exam stress

Some level of stress, worry and short temper during GCSE season is close to universal, and doesn't on its own indicate a mental health concern. What's worth paying closer attention to is a shift that's broader than exam-specific nerves: sustained withdrawal from friends and activities they'd normally enjoy, major changes in sleep or eating that don't track with a specific deadline, a persistently flat or hopeless tone rather than ordinary frustration, or any signs of self-harm.

The Young Minds research referenced above also found that, among the wider group of students who reported struggling to cope, a meaningful minority described more serious difficulty, including thoughts of suicide, during exam season specifically. This is a genuinely difficult thing to read as a parent, and it's included here not to alarm but because knowing this exists as a documented pattern, not a rare, isolated event, is part of taking a child's distress seriously rather than assuming it will pass on its own.

How to open the conversation

If you're concerned, a direct, calm question tends to work better than circling the topic. ‘You've seemed really low lately, more than just exam stress. Can you tell me what's going on?’ is a harder sentence to say than a vague check-in, and it's also more likely to get an honest answer, because it signals you've actually noticed, rather than that you're asking out of general parental obligation.

If a child discloses something serious, thoughts of self-harm or suicide, the most useful response in the moment is not panic or a rush to fix it, but staying present, taking it seriously without over-reacting in a way that shuts the conversation down, and moving toward getting further support together, your GP, the school's pastoral team or SENCO, or one of the services listed above. You do not need to have the right thing to say. You need to make clear that they've been heard, and that you're going to help them get support beyond just this conversation.

Working with the school

Schools are generally better resourced for this than parents expect, though provision varies. A pastoral lead, form tutor, or SENCO can flag a struggling student for additional support, adjust deadlines or expectations where appropriate, and in many cases arrange access to school counselling or a referral toward CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) where needed. Getting in touch doesn't require a crisis to justify it. A short email flagging that your child has seemed anxious or low during this period is a normal, welcome thing for a form tutor or head of year to receive, and it often opens up support that wasn't visible from home.

Part of what makes exam season harder than it needs to be, for many students, is the unpredictability of not knowing what's coming or how prepared they actually are. Reducing that uncertainty where it's within your control, a clear, realistic sense of progress rather than a vague, looming feeling of not-enough, is one of the more concrete things a parent or a support tool can help with, even when it can't touch the exams themselves. That's part of why BrainStrata's adaptive practice is built to give students a clear, current picture of where they actually stand on a topic, so that at least one part of exam season feels measurable and manageable, rather than an open-ended source of dread.

Frequently asked questions

Is it normal for my child to be this stressed about GCSEs?

A meaningful degree of stress during GCSE season is now close to the norm rather than the exception: YoungMinds' 2025 research found 63% of GCSE and A Level students said they struggled to cope during exam season. This doesn't mean it should be dismissed or left unaddressed, but it does mean you're very unlikely to be dealing with something unusual to your household specifically.

What's worth paying closer attention to is not the presence of stress, which is common, but its shape: is it specific to exams and easing once a particular assessment passes, or is it broader, sustained, and touching areas of life that have nothing to do with school.

How do I support my child without adding to the pressure?

Research consistently distinguishes between support and pressure, even when both come from a well-meaning place. Encouragement that carries an implicit performance expectation (focused on the grade, the outcome, what happens if it doesn't go well) tends to add to pressure. Support that's unconditional on outcome (focused on the child's experience of getting through it) tends to reduce it, without requiring you to care any less about how they do.

A useful practical test: if your check-ins are mostly about progress and preparedness, that's likely to read as pressure. If they're mostly about how your child is coping and feeling, that's more likely to read as support.

What are the warning signs that this is more serious than normal exam stress?

The signs worth taking seriously are less about intensity and more about scope and duration: withdrawal from friends and activities they'd normally enjoy, sustained rather than exam-specific changes in sleep or eating, a persistently flat or hopeless tone rather than situational frustration, and any signs of self-harm. Ordinary exam stress tends to be tied to specific deadlines and eases once they pass. A broader shift that doesn't track with the exam calendar is a different pattern.

If you're seeing this pattern, a conversation with your GP, the school's pastoral team, or one of the support services listed in this article is a more useful next step than adjusting your child's revision approach.

What should I do if my child tells me they're having thoughts of self-harm or suicide?

Stay present and take it seriously without reacting in a way that might make your child feel they shouldn't have told you. You don't need the right words. What matters most is that they feel heard, and that you move, together, toward getting further support: your GP, the school's pastoral team or SENCO, or a service such as YoungMinds' Parents Helpline (0808 802 5544) or Childline (0800 1111, for under-19s).

If your child is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E. Shout's Crisis Text Line (text SHOUT to 85258) is available 24/7 for anyone in crisis, including in the moment a difficult conversation happens.

Should I ease off on revision if my child seems overwhelmed?

Protecting sleep and a small number of normal, low-pressure routines tends to matter more for a struggling child's overall coping than maximising revision hours, and research on parental support and adolescent sleep specifically links supportive, lower-conflict home environments to better sleep during high-stress periods. This doesn't mean abandoning revision altogether, but it does mean that a shorter, well-rested, well-supported run at an exam usually outperforms a longer, more pressured one built on disrupted sleep and rising anxiety.

If the overwhelm is severe or sustained, that's a signal worth raising with the school directly, since access arrangements, extensions, or adjusted expectations may be genuinely available and are worth asking about rather than assuming they aren't.

Sources and further reading

[1] YoungMinds. Suicidal thoughts and self-harm from pressured exams (2025 research release). Survey of GCSE and A Level students on exam-related mental health impact.

[2] Association of School and College Leaders / Teacher Tapp. Survey of school leaders on GCSE exam anxiety and student mental health (published via Tes, November 2024).

[3] Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Skinner, E. A., Scott, R. A., Ryan, K. M., Hawes, T., Gardner, A. A., & Duffy, A. L. (2023). Parental support and adolescents' coping with academic stressors: A longitudinal study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 52, 2464-2479. Longitudinal study of 839 students, grades 5-10.

[4] Research on parental support, family stress and adolescent sleep, published in developmental and family psychology journals, examining the association between supportive home environments and adolescent sleep quality under academic and family stress.

[5] NSPCC / Childline. Annual data on counselling sessions related to exam results worries, 2024/25 academic year.

[6] Sevenoaks Youth Council Mental Health Survey (2025). Survey of young people on primary sources of stress affecting mental health, including school and exam-related pressure.