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Ep.88: Academic anxiety and failure - how to cope
230 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, we talk about academic pressure and the anxiety it can create for our teenagers. But more than that, we talk about FAILURE. Fear of failure, what failure really means, and how to help our teenagers when they think they've failed.
Amelie Moore is a former language teacher who thinks it’s vital that kids learn to fail. Amelie says teenagers need to know that failure is not the end of the road, and that offering a safe, non-judgmental space for them to make mistakes and reflect, is how they will learn how to reach their goals and overcome challenges in their own way.
As someone who felt overwhelmed by academic anxiety in her own teenage years, Amelie believes there’s a different way to help teenagers succeed whatever their school record.
She says to teenagers listening: "You are not broken, you don't need fixing, you are amazing, unique individuals full of potential."
Get more from Amélie Moore?
- Amélie's website It's Mindcraft coaching
More from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy, a resource for midlife parents of teens.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please get in touch.
You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
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Please note that Helen Wills is not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about yourself or a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.
Episode produced by Michael J Cunningham.
Transcript
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Failure is just a temporary setback and we can overcome challenges and we have, everybody has the tools to overcome challenges, all of us. Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast, where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who had a difficult time in the teenage years but came out the other side in a good place and has insight to offer to parents and young people who might be going through the same.
Impact of Academic Pressure on Teenagers
00:00:49
Speaker
We've got lots of episodes on the podcast about how academic pressure is affecting our teenagers. But today I'm talking to someone who looks at the other side of the coin. Failure.
00:01:01
Speaker
Amelie Moore is a former language teacher who thinks it's vital that kids learn to fail. Amelie says teenagers need to know that failure is not the end of the road and that offering a safe, non-judgmental space for them to make mistakes and reflect is how they'll learn to reach their goals and overcome challenges in their own way.
00:01:23
Speaker
As someone who felt overwhelmed by academic anxiety in her own teenage years, Amelie believes there's a different way to help teenagers succeed whatever their school record. Amelie, welcome to the podcast. Hi Lynn, thank you so much for having me here, I'm very excited. Oh no, I think this is a really important conversation so thank you for offering it up.
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, we've got plenty of episodes on anxiety in teenage years. So I don't think it'll be any surprise to anyone who's got a teenager or who's been a teenager that anxiety plays a massive part in teenage years. But I'm someone who suffered anxiety in my academic life and bizarrely did really, really well. So it never really got looked at.
00:02:11
Speaker
But I feel like I could have benefited from it because it's something that I've had to manage throughout the rest of my life.
Amelie's Academic Anxiety Experience
00:02:19
Speaker
How was it for you being a teenager? What was school like for you? So it's actually really interesting what you just mentioned because I feel like I'm in a bit of the same position. I did fairly well at school, but that always came with a lot of anxiety.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I think it started from the primary school years already. I had a lot of pressure on my shoulders to perform, to get the best grades to be at the top of the class. I felt a lot of frustration as well towards other students who are set with performing better than I did, while also seemingly working less than I did.
00:03:04
Speaker
And I think I carried that on in my teenage years and it got relatively worse over the years because we got closer to A levels, so obviously more pressure. And I think the school system works a bit differently in France. So instead of having five years of secondary school and then two years of sixth form, we have four years of secondary school and then three years in sixth form.
00:03:33
Speaker
And I think it started to get quite bad during my last year at secondary school, where I felt a bit disconnected from my environment, from my friends. I had other interests, other things I wanted to focus on. And then moving on to a new school in sixth form, where I don't really know anybody,
00:04:00
Speaker
And if they start talking about, you know, the exams and how serious it is, I think, yes, it got a lot worse.
Comparing French and UK Education Systems
00:04:09
Speaker
But I'm also glad that I did my sixth form in class because I think back in the days, there was pressure, but not as much pressure as what I've seen since I've been in the UK, especially when I was a teacher in a language school.
00:04:27
Speaker
Oh, really? That's interesting. We'll talk about that later, but the difference between, yeah, in the system, it'd be interesting to see your view of that as a teacher. So did it impact you having this stress from an academic point of view? Did it impact you in other ways in your life? I was an anxious teen, generally speaking. I was anxious about pretty much everything, I would say.
00:04:55
Speaker
I guess it started with academic structure and then I think when you're anxious about one area in your life, you tend to be generally speaking anxious about a lot of other things. So I think it kind of spilled over.
00:05:12
Speaker
And especially because I was a team in the early 2000s in France, so there wasn't a lot of awareness about mental health or about resources we could find, especially because it was kind of the beginning of the internet, which makes me feel really old right now. And I think like today, at least we have, you know, teams have had access to
00:05:41
Speaker
more resources and are a bit more aware. It was really difficult. I don't think, you know, back in the day teachers were trained to pay attention to signs that could indicate that a teen was struggling. Yeah, it was quite difficult. And I think
00:06:10
Speaker
especially in what would have been the equivalent of year 12 in England. So in year 11, we take our GCSEs in year 10, which is nowhere near as big as the GCSEs in England, because I think it's about four subjects. It kind of is important, but not that much.
00:06:35
Speaker
And then when you enter at the end of year 11, you have to decide on what pathways you want to go. So I think the system has changed in the last couple of years, but back in the days, you would have to choose between a scientific pathway. So when you would do math, physics, chemistry, biology, then you had a literature pathway, which was more about literature, languages, history, philosophy,
00:07:05
Speaker
and then you had an economic and social sciences one, which was kind of in between. And some of the scientific one was seen as the best one. And as you can see, I'm pretty... Oh, the best. Anyone that's listening rather than watching Amelie's doing air quotes when she says that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I know what you mean.
00:07:32
Speaker
It's so, so hard, but the academically highly rated Offstead schools are the ones that most of us want our kids to go to because we swallow the narrative that that is going to give them the best start in life, the best opportunities to find a good job, to support themselves. But
00:07:58
Speaker
inevitably, they are rated highly by Ofsted because they get great academic results. And so they push kids for that. And there is, whether they say it or not, there is always a perception that the best path is this. I remember when my kids were choosing GCSE subjects, and one of them really didn't want to do humanities, didn't want to do history or geography because they wanted to do more arts.
00:08:28
Speaker
And because she was academic and got good grades, they really didn't want that for her. They desperately wanted her to do history. And I remember her coming home and saying, I said to my teacher,
00:08:43
Speaker
part of this conversation makes you think I want to be a lawyer. Because he'd said, if you take history, you can go to a Russell Group University, and then you could still have the option of being a lawyer. And ironically, she is now thinking about that. But
00:09:02
Speaker
It's so pigeonholing that this is the best and you've got to aspire to that. And of course, if that's not your thing, you're not a science pathway, you're not a Russell group person because you'd hate it, then
00:09:17
Speaker
What is that? There's no focus for the rest of the kids. It sometimes feels to me that I'm being very black and white there and probably quite unfair. But yeah, what's your take? Okay, let's move into the whole teacher thing, because what's your take on it as a teacher?
Collaborative Approach to Education
00:09:31
Speaker
Well, as a teacher, I actually see this for both parents and children, because I feel like, you know, if I think about my parents back in the days,
00:09:46
Speaker
come from, they were the first generation born in France, so their parents were immigrants, and they both came from a very big and very poor family, so they didn't have lots of opportunities, they also experienced racism and discrimination at school, so it was really tough for them, and I think
00:10:07
Speaker
They carried it with them. And they thought, OK, we want you to have the best options, best opportunities. And what they were hearing was, if you study sciences, if you study math, then you are going to be successful. All the doors are going to be open for you, and you will only have to choose. And I really feel for parents, because as a parent myself, if I was hearing that all day long, all week long,
00:10:36
Speaker
That's how I would start feeling as well. I would start feeling and thinking, okay, my daughter has to study maths and chemistry and physics and biology because otherwise she's going to fail. She's not going to be successful. So I really feel for the parent, I really feel for the teachers as well because they have so much pressure. I think we do expect a lot from them.
00:11:03
Speaker
But I also do believe that it's all about teamwork. If I can say that, I think that it's teamwork with the teachers, the parents, the kids, but also the government, because I think there needs to be an awareness, a general awareness that children have their own path to follow.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yes, maybe if you study maths and chemistry, you have more options in a certain area. But if the team is not interested in that area, it doesn't matter how many doors open. Yeah, exactly. I mean, is that what happened to you? Did you have to go down the science maths route?
Finding the Right Educational Path
00:11:47
Speaker
So my past was actually really interesting. I used to talk about it quite a lot, quite a lot.
00:11:53
Speaker
Maybe not, but I mentioned this in class. I remember with one of my group of students when I was talking about, because I was a French and a foreign language teacher, and I was explaining the differences between the school systems. And mine was a little bit original. Let's put it that way. I started in the scientific path, and I think I did one year.
00:12:19
Speaker
which was not pleasant at all, because I knew I was studying things that I had no interest in. I had the anxiety of failing, you know, failing the subject, failing, you know, as a person as well, because to some extent, I think failing in an academic setting, whatever that means, it could be failing an exam or failing a year.
00:12:44
Speaker
is become failing as a person. Yes. Because as a team, you know, your, your, your life is mainly centered around school. So the shortcut is, unfortunately, easily, easily made. So I did my year 12, and then beginning of year 13, I've really started to struggle with my mental health, because I knew I didn't fit in
00:13:10
Speaker
my anxiety was really high. I didn't feel like I had anybody who didn't have an agenda who I could talk to. And then I remember, I think I will remember that day forever, but I think it was, I swear that big day after having a math class with our home teacher. In France, we don't have class on Wednesday afternoon. And I told my teacher jokingly
00:13:40
Speaker
Is it too late to change that way? And I was expecting her to say, yes, of course. What do you mean? And instead, she looked at me and she said, she wants to go to the literature pathway. And I had a moment where I thought, really? Did she read my mind? And she took me straight away down to the principal office. And we talked.
00:14:06
Speaker
And I was able to change pathways, which I think had never been done before. I did not in that school. And I think it was really lucky because if I had waited three more days, I wouldn't have been able to do it because of the registration process. And it was both really amazing and really funny to see the looks on the students who were in the literature pathways to see me in the class thinking
00:14:36
Speaker
Is she okay? I think she's not awake yet. And it was amazing for me, because all of a sudden I was learning more about philosophy and history and languages. And I thought, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be. It didn't mean that the anxiety left, because I think anxiety is something that is not easily
00:15:06
Speaker
It's hard to manage it. It's really hard to manage it, especially when you've had it since you were a little child. So it was still here, but at least I felt like I was in the right place.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yes, and that is so, so important. I've always said this to both my kids, actually. I was put under quite a lot of academic pressure. My parents were, well, they were war children, so anything was good for them, but they didn't have the opportunities that I had, so neither of my parents went to university.
00:15:44
Speaker
And my mom was from a very working class family. My dad's dad was a laborer. So my dad actually was kind of self-made. He started his own business and did quite well in his own business. But they had so much ambition for me and my brother that I felt the academic pressure for sure.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I did get to do what I enjoyed. I did languages and my brother went to Cambridge and I put my foot down and said, I'm not going to Cambridge. I don't like the sound of the course. It's all medieval literature. That's just not me. But it was a fight. So I think there must have been pressure to be the best, go to the best, et cetera, et cetera, and doing the air quotes again.
00:16:38
Speaker
And so as a result of that with my kids, I've always said, you need to find the thing that really makes you tick and do that because then your days will be happier. And then you find a way, because you're bright, you'll find a way to make money out of that.
00:16:56
Speaker
don't do the things that the school are pressuring you to do. It's really hard though when you're surrounded by kids who are of the similar ability to you and they're all pursuing the best path not to fall in line with that when you're capable of it.
00:17:14
Speaker
And yeah, my daughter really wanted to do arts and creative things. But I'm hoping they have ended up doing things that they absolutely love. My son's a complete geography nerd. He won't mind me saying that. He loves it. And so that's all that matters. Just do that until you run out of educational years and then see what you're qualified for. It makes so much sense to me than doing something. And they've got friends who are being pushed by their parents into medicine and law.
00:17:44
Speaker
who don't love it. And I think what you're doing there is training someone and spending a lot of money on them to do a job where they won't be happy and then they'll leave. It makes no sense to me when doctors drop out halfway through their career because it doesn't fire them. Oh, I completely agree with it. And I think there's, I think what we, what we, again, as a team, and again, as a team, knowing through
00:18:14
Speaker
everybody really that has a role in the education of our children to come together and create this awareness that there is no one path. When I started my business, I did a bit of market research and I was talking to teenagers and late teenagers, so 1920 were still at uni and something that kept coming was
00:18:42
Speaker
that they felt like they were on this pathway, they had to do this and then this and then this, and if they failed at any point, that's it. It was all over. It was the end of the road, they would have failed at life.
Diverse Career Paths and Passion
00:19:03
Speaker
It's so young to feel that way. I so agree with you and I so agree with you. I think that's where we can do
00:19:12
Speaker
a lot of work together to create this awareness, but also to give them the tools, you know, give them the tools to think about, okay, what do I want to do? How can I achieve that? And most importantly, how can I handle setbacks? Yes. Just failure. And I think that's the main thing that I want to
00:19:37
Speaker
convey in this interview with you is that failure is just a temporary setback. And we can overcome challenges and we have, everybody has the tools to overcome challenges, all of us. And I really wish, you know, when I was making some research, I actually found that some universities in the country were now offering life coaching services for their students. And I thought this is brilliant.
00:20:06
Speaker
This is so needed and I'm really hoping that in the future, every university and every sixth form and secondary school will be offering such services because they need that space. They need that safe, non-judgmental space where they can stop, reflect and establish the ways and strategies
00:20:34
Speaker
that will get them closer to what they want and what they want to achieve. And sometimes they don't have to know where they want to go. They don't have to know what they want to do. And if I talk from my own experience, I've figured out what I wanted to do a year ago.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm 36. Yeah. Well, I've had three careers or three different career paths in my life. I'm 57 and I'm just starting my next one now and I love it. I loved my previous one. I did not love my first one because I just followed a set path and followed the crowd. Actually, I followed the herd into a commercial role and it didn't suit me, but I didn't know that until I was 30.
00:21:23
Speaker
Exactly, because probably you didn't have the time and the space to actually stop and think about it. Also have someone who's not your parents, not your teachers, not someone who can be neutral and someone you can talk to. And we're not going to try and lead you in one direction, but help you find out your own. And I also want to emphasize the fact that sometimes we need
00:21:53
Speaker
experience to figure out what we want to do and I'm actually a good example on that because after the sixth form I actually went on to studying history because I was passionate with the history and in France unfortunately when you study something
00:22:18
Speaker
we think, society thinks that you can only work in that area. The idea of transferable skills is not quite there yet. So back in the days when you were studying history, you had pretty much two options. It was either moving on to a PhD and becoming a researcher or becoming a teacher.
00:22:48
Speaker
always says I will never ever ever ever become a teacher. But because I didn't have the, I was missing the key elements, I was missing the key experiences that would make me want to become a teacher. And I loved every second of being a teacher. I loved it. I was
00:23:18
Speaker
passionate about it. And that's why I'm, I'm retrained now as a coach, because I found out that I was
00:23:25
Speaker
passionate about working with kids and helping kids and seeing them becoming more confident and giving them the tools to say, you know what, I got this. I'm doing this. Yes. Yeah. And oh my God, it's amazing. Lucky kids, because it's amazing when they've got a teacher like that, both my kids in a six foot, well, before six form actually, but when they were doing their A levels, both my kids loved
00:23:51
Speaker
a couple of their teachers so much that it not only helped them to learn, it inspired them to think outside the box and to figure out what they were passionate about. It matters so much, a good teacher. I agree. And you said something just now, discover what you're passionate about. And I think that's something that is key to give
00:24:20
Speaker
teens and students generally speaking to have to be able to think about, okay, what am I actually passionate about? Because if you had asked me that question, when I was a teen,
00:24:31
Speaker
I would have been unable to answer. I had no idea. No, I felt exactly the same. I'm interested in your view. This is a bit of an aside, but I'm interested in your view on careers advisors today because I really thought my careers advice when I was 18 was, oh, you're good at languages.
Limitations of Career Advice
00:24:48
Speaker
You should be a teacher or an interpreter.
00:24:51
Speaker
I'm like, okay, I don't want to be either of those, so what else can I do? Oh, you like books so librarian? And that was it. And I really thought that 30 years later, 40 years later, it would be different, but both my kids came home and said their careers advice was really not focusing on what they loved. My daughter
00:25:13
Speaker
was doing English politics and history and loved all three. And the careers advice she got was, be a journalist. And she said, but I don't want to be a journalist. So what else should I do? Well, you know, you're uniquely qualified to be a journalist. But seriously, what's your take on careers advice now? So it's an interesting one because when I was a teen, career advisors didn't exist.
00:25:43
Speaker
I don't know if we have someone like that now in school in France, but we didn't really have a place where we could actually talk to someone and get feedback and get information about what we could do, which was a big missed opportunity for me because now that I'm a bit older and I look back, I'm thinking, oh, I could have done this and this and this.
00:26:12
Speaker
I'm not sure how career advisors work nowadays in the UK, but I think that we would need something that needs to be done. I think with career advisor, I don't think it has to be a replacement, but I think
00:26:28
Speaker
we would also need something that's a bit more holistic. So instead of just focusing on what are you good at, or what subjects do you like? Looking at the team as a unique individual with strengths, with their own challenges, with their values, their own values, because I think so very important, you know, our values can
00:26:59
Speaker
change and thrift race a little bit, but I think even teenagers have their own values. You know, they might want to, they might, they might want to emphasize, you know, kindness or, you know, being empathetic. Yes. Yeah, family. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that that's part of that moral, holistic approach.
00:27:29
Speaker
that I think would really help them figure out where they want to go. So I guess that's what you do, isn't it? As a life coach for teenagers, it is a holistic approach. We haven't really talked a lot about failure yet, but I wanted to talk about the whole kind of setup first.
Embracing Failure and Overcoming Setbacks
00:27:48
Speaker
So what's your experience of failure? So my experience of failure for me was a swear word. That's how bad it was.
00:27:59
Speaker
I think for me failure was really my biggest nightmare because I really felt like it was the end of the road and that's why I put a lot of pressure on myself for exams but in an interesting way that's also what made me
00:28:26
Speaker
in worse situations that could have been because I was so worried about failing my exams that I would keep procrastinating.
00:28:38
Speaker
delaying having to face what's making me anxious. And I think that I've heard a bit about procrastination and what people have to say about it. And I've read a few articles from people saying that procrastination is actually not harm management related, but it's about pain management. Absolutely. We procrastinate not because we don't have, we're bad at organizing our schedule.
00:29:06
Speaker
We procrastinate because we don't want to do that one thing that is causing us pain. Yes, exactly. But in turn, we keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it to the very last minute. And then we're in a situation where we have so much work to do in so little time that the anxiety is, you know, off the roof. It's overwhelming. Overwhelming. And I think I've spent pretty much all my
00:29:35
Speaker
years as a student with that mindset. Right. Thinking, okay, if I say that's it, I'm going to fail one exam, I'm going to fail my semester, I'm going to fail my year, I'm going to fail my studies, and I'm going to fail my life. It's a snowball. It's a snowball. I think, had I had the tools to
00:30:00
Speaker
manage that, or even to stop and think about what was going on inside my head, because what I was thinking was, I'm the only one like that. Everybody, they all have it together. Exactly. As a legend, you're thinking, okay, no, definitely not. But you know, as a teen or as a young person, you see other people going, going about and you know, and laughing and working and you're thinking, okay, so I'm the only one in that situation, which means
00:30:28
Speaker
Oh, God, what would be good if we could all just tell each other the truth? Exactly. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. And I think that's what also that fear of failure does is that it makes you be stuck inside your own head, because even putting it in words is
00:30:50
Speaker
admitting that there might be a chance that you are going to fail. Uh-huh. And there is, isn't there? There is. There's always a chance. Exactly. Exactly. There is. I've spent many times, especially at uni, actually. I passed my levels. I didn't get amazing results because I was struggling
00:31:16
Speaker
But I passed them. I had them. It was done. And in the September following my graduation, I studied in a Spanish course, Spanish degree, which made zero sense at the time because Spanish was far from being one of my favorite topics, not because of the language, but
00:31:38
Speaker
I had this, I wanted to study Italian, I ended up studying Spanish so I had this frustration of not having been able to study what I wanted. Right, so you're already pigeonholed, you've gone down the Spanish route because you weren't allowed to do the Italian route. Exactly.
00:31:54
Speaker
Um, so I'm involved in Spanish because it was the highest grade that I have in my animals. I literally looked at my results and thought, okay, which one? Okay. Spanish. Yeah. Okay. Slippery slope. Exactly. And I did one day. Okay. One day I never came back. Okay. Because I knew I didn't belong there.
00:32:21
Speaker
So I waited a couple of months to be able to switch degrees and ended up enrolling in a philosophy degree. I really enjoyed the topic during year 13 and thought, okay, let's give it a try. I need three weeks.
00:32:41
Speaker
Oh my God. Never came back. I can't imagine how you were feeling about this by now. No, it was a nightmare. I felt out of place. I felt like I didn't belong. I was kind of like sleepwalking in a way, because I could see other people, I could hear other people, but it was like seeing life through the eyes of someone else.
00:33:11
Speaker
The day was over, and then I said, okay, I need change. So I need to leave my hometown. I need to see what else I can do. So I moved and I went a half a way from my hometown to a bigger city, new city, and I enrolled in a history degree because I figured out, you know what? You've always loved history, so let's see what we can do about it. But to me, that's really important. I enrolled in this degree,
00:33:42
Speaker
without knowing what to do next. Okay. And I think that's really important to say, and I think that Martin Luther King said that, he said, you don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Taking the First Step in Uncertainty
00:33:58
Speaker
Yes. And I think this is so important. And this is, you know, need to, what I was mentioning earlier, that sometimes you miss the experiences needed
00:34:10
Speaker
in order to move forward and closer to what you want your lives to be like. So I did my history degree and I passed the degree with measured success because again anxiety made it so I would procrastinate a lot which made it so I wouldn't get the results that I could have gotten but
00:34:39
Speaker
I passed it, and then I did a gap year. Right. Which was not something that was very popular for us, not as popular as in the year where it's quite common to say, oh, I'm doing a gap year. Yeah. But I knew I needed a break from studying. I knew I needed a break from that crippling fear of failing. Yeah. And just to think, you know, let's go
00:35:09
Speaker
discover the world and see what else there is.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'm still sitting with that Martin Luther King quote about taking the first step and you must have known that that first step felt right. So just do the next thing that feels right and don't stay on a step for too long if it's screaming at you, get off this step. Just go backwards. Don't keep going forwards hoping it will get better. Just go backwards and then reassess.
00:35:39
Speaker
Is that what you would say to kids who are feeling that kind of anxiety and like they're failing? I would also say go inward. See what's going on for you. And that's something else that I wish we could bring to kids at school is being able to identify, manage, find all emotion. You know, emotional literacy.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I think that's really, it really is the key skill to have, especially once you are an adult. And I think that if we had the tools to do that, if the kids had the tools to do that in any situation, they could have the resources to say, okay, let's, let's just stop, let's see what's coming up and what's going on for me. And then
00:36:38
Speaker
I can move on. Yeah. How do you, how do you, how do we get emotional literacy, especially when we're young? I think we have to talk about it. We have to talk about it openly, not just about or what you need to be happy and, but what is it being sad? Where do you feel it? How do you see it? If you close your eyes and you imagine being anxious, what do you see?
00:37:09
Speaker
And then giving them the tools to manage it. So in coaching, for example, we can start a session by asking the coach to notice what's going on for them. Because even when you enter a classroom, you're entering a classroom with everything that's been happening during the day.
00:37:35
Speaker
Maybe, yes, you got into a fight with a friend. So you're having a classroom in a, you know, you're still thinking about that fight. So you're not in the ideal learning environment. But if we get a couple of minutes to, you know, take some time to notice what's going on for us. What are we thinking about? What is the feeling or emotion that that thought is bringing? Then labeling it. Because if we label it, the,
00:38:07
Speaker
amygdala response which is responsible for the fight or flight that sometimes we can feel is the activity of the amygdala decreases. So we label the emotion and then we decide on what to do with it, how we can
00:38:29
Speaker
discarded in a way, neutralize it is the one that I was looking for. So for example, even we can apply that to adults as well. You know, when, when, for example, before coming out to the podcast with you, I did that exercise. And the way I neutralized what was going on inside my head is that I wrote it down. Okay. I wrote it down and I put it aside. But
00:38:56
Speaker
There's other ways to do that. You can write it down on a piece of paper and then hear the piece of paper apart and put it in the screen. You can say it out loud. You can do some breathing exercises. There's plenty of methods to do that. And I think that's how we get children to learn about emotions, learn about how to handle them, how to identify them.
Teaching Emotional Literacy to Teens
00:39:21
Speaker
And be okay with them. The counselling version of that is that actually you can neutralise the emotions by practising having them in your body and knowing that nothing terrible happens.
00:39:36
Speaker
So we call it expanding your window of tolerance. So people avoid feelings that don't make them feel good and they kind of push them away, but actually allowing them to be there, being okay with being sad or scared momentarily. I'm surprised you're not in any immediate danger is a way to become comfortable with those feelings. And then you can be more rational about how they might inform what you do next.
00:40:06
Speaker
And when you were talking about writing them down, I was reminded we've got an episode on journaling with a lovely lady who really swears by journaling. And I guess for teenagers, that feels like more homework. That's my teenage brain kicking in and going, oh, more writing. I've just written an essay. But the thing with journaling is it doesn't have to be perfect because no one's reading it. And actually, if you can just kind of sit and offload a stream of consciousness into a notebook,
00:40:34
Speaker
that can be really therapeutic. I'll link to that episode here as well. Let me give you a scenario and you can tell me what you would do. You've got an 18-year-old who's failed their A-levels or hasn't got the grades they want to be able to go to university.
Focusing on Goals Despite Setbacks
00:41:01
Speaker
Panicking, life's over, I failed, I'm a failure, as you described. What do you do with that person? First of all, I would invite them to stop everything. Put down anything they're doing. Try to, and I know that stopping that, you know, one real work of thought is really hard, but
00:41:29
Speaker
I would encourage them to find a safe and non-judgmental space. And I know I keep repeating these words, but I think they're really important. And take a piece of paper and think, okay, what is it that I want to do? What is it that I want to achieve? Not taking into consideration what they have done so far, but just what is it that I want to achieve? Yeah.
00:41:59
Speaker
And just start with the end in mind. Start with the end in mind and walk backwards. Because if you know where you want to go, you will find the strategies that will take you to where you want to be. Right. And I think that's the other thing that I really wish we could teach teams is that you have to start with the end in mind.
00:42:27
Speaker
Start with your goal. What is it that you want to achieve? And from there, you will find the strategies to achieve that goal. And to achieve that goal in your own way. So maybe you didn't get the grades to go to that university and to study what you wanted to study. What can you do? What can you do? Because there's always another path. Always.
00:42:55
Speaker
It might not be the more conventional one. It might be that you go on another path and you realize all of a sudden, well, actually, you know what?
00:43:07
Speaker
I don't want to achieve this thing anymore. I might be more interested in doing that instead. Yeah. Well, like you said, so by being forced to do something different than what you thought you had in your plan, you'll learn different things. And those different things might take you down paths that you may not have considered before, that you like the look of more now.
00:43:36
Speaker
And I also want to emphasize that the fact that we are allowed to make mistakes. We are allowed to change our mind. It doesn't mean that we have failed. It just means that we have experiences that took us to where we are now and we have now decided to go another way and that's okay. I think there's something in that about
00:44:05
Speaker
doing the next part of your journey and then, as you've said, take a step back or in and reassess and think, now where do I want to go? And I think it's a universal human condition that we see the whole of our lives and we plan it all out and we think that's how it has to be. And actually, if we just think about
00:44:29
Speaker
In some cases, the next six weeks is probably enough because in six weeks time we'll be a different person, won't we? Because of what we've learned and experienced. So then we might have a different view of what we want to do with the following six weeks.
00:44:43
Speaker
Exactly. And sometimes, you know, having a goal that's too far away in the future is not motivating us enough to do the work. Oh no, then you can procrastinate because you've got ages. Exactly. So sometimes we just need to break that one goal into smaller chunks that we see as more easily achievable. Yes. Yes, exactly that. Yeah. Yeah.
Supportive Parenting in Academic Challenges
00:45:12
Speaker
As parents, what do you think we can do when our child is facing a failure like that? Because when our child doesn't get what they hoped they would get, I mean, you know this, even with a child of two and a half years old already, you know that when your child's disappointed and upset, you feel their pain as well as your own.
00:45:35
Speaker
So what as parents of teenagers who are facing a failure, what can we do to help? I would start by saying that to parents, don't be hard on yourself. I think that's the first thing. Don't be hard on yourself. And I feel for you because it's hard to see your child struggling.
00:46:02
Speaker
I would say to not to panic would be my first piece of advice because it's so easy to you know you have friends who have children and you see them you know having this linear path where it's one thing after the next and they're succeeding and they're on their way to becoming whatever it is that they want to become and if you have a child who you know doesn't have that much of a linear path
00:46:31
Speaker
It's okay. It's okay. They don't have to. And I would say, I would say take some time to listen to each other as a family. Take some time to see if there are any resources that could help your child, any person, you know, person that you could, you and your child could go to.
00:47:01
Speaker
to try and find some answers. But mainly, I would say, don't panic. Don't panic. Again, it's not the end of the road. There is another path. And I would like to, I actually want to take this opportunity to, you know, give you an example. I have a friend, her son, used to be one of my students. And we studied, I hadn't
00:47:30
Speaker
less than a year because I went on to a maternity leave and I was giving him French lessons on Zoom for private lessons. And we started our lessons, I think it was 13 at the time, we started our lessons
00:47:45
Speaker
And all I can see from him was this. For anyone that's listening, Amelie just mind being like, not really on the screen at all, just a shoulder. Exactly. He was not, he was not happy. He didn't want to be here. But I kind of, I could see that it was just a prompt. There was, you know, there was something else behind it. So I had to find another way of
00:48:12
Speaker
teaching him which was not conventional because we play video games. He had this one video game that he liked that put a smile on his face which was Minecraft. Punch the name of my business. By playing Minecraft and by using his interest to teach him and moving him forward,
00:48:42
Speaker
I actually, you know, created this, I think he saw that I was listening to him. I was taken into account what his way, his own way of learning and his own way of doing things. And it worked. It worked. He did great. He got an, I think an eighth at his French DTSC, which was amazing. And then he moved on to sixth form. And he went to the sixth form where he,
00:49:13
Speaker
wasn't particularly feeling great. He didn't really like the environment, the setting, because it was a boarding school, so quite different from what he had known. And he talked to his mum, and his mum had the choice, you know, she could have told him, you have to do it, you have to do your eye levels, you don't have a choice. Or she could have, I would say, almost taken the risk of listening to him, which she did.
00:49:43
Speaker
And he is now, because he figured out when he was in boarding school that he really enjoyed music. He really enjoyed creating music, playing instruments. So what he's doing now is that he stopped sixth form. He stopped BA levels. And he's moved on to a more professional sixth form where he's now studying music production. And he's doing a level three
00:50:14
Speaker
degree diploma, which will give him the equivalent of 3A levels. So if he wants to access university afterwards, he can. But he's not doing something that he enjoys in a smaller setting, so less students, which is overall a better environment for him.
00:50:36
Speaker
Yeah, so there's your example and his example, that's just two examples of many, and I'm aware of others in my own school community, of where the traditional path just wasn't right, but taking a different path can get you to the same end goal if that's what you choose. And I think it's more like that now than it was when I was in school, God, such a long time ago.
00:51:05
Speaker
I could do an A level now if I chose to, that would be fine. My husband did a GCSE in his 40s because he just wanted to learn French. So there are ways, there's more ways of doing
00:51:24
Speaker
Getting the things that we want or so that you don't need to despair is what I'm saying Just because you've not done your right and done well with your a levels. It's not all over I know people that have been to university in their 60s So yeah, there's there's multiple other ways of doing things exactly
00:51:44
Speaker
Yeah. And as you mentioned your business, I just reminded myself, I knew what it was, but I remind them is it's it's minecraft.com, not minecraft, minecraft, which I think is really clever.
Introducing ItsMindCraft Coaching Business
00:51:58
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about your coaching business and where people can find you if they want to connect. So I'm doing at the moment online coaching sessions or private sessions with teenagers from 14 to 19 years old.
00:52:13
Speaker
And I don't have any social media profiles at the moment. I like looking at social media. I don't really like creating social media content. Fair enough. It's time consuming. It is, isn't it? It is very time consuming. But I do have a website which is 3w.itsmindwithagcraft.com.
00:52:37
Speaker
and all the information about what I do and how I do it are on there and also my contact details.
00:52:45
Speaker
Excellent. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a few connections as a result of this podcast going out. Thank you so much. It's been a really useful conversation, Amelie. Thank you very much to you, Ellen. I'm so happy to have been here and I hope that it can be helpful to the teens listening. And if I may take just a few seconds for that last message that I really want teenagers and their parents and parents to hear.
00:53:12
Speaker
if you'll allow me. Yes, of course. I just want to say you are not broken. You don't need fixing. You are amazing, unique individuals. All of potential will find their own way to achieve their goals and seek out any obstacles on your path, no matter who you are and where you come from, where you come from. I love that. That's a perfect way to end.
00:53:42
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. Thank you to everyone who's already rated and reviewed the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Amazon, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. It really helps get the word out as well as making me very happy to read what you have to say. If this episode strikes a chord for you, please share it with anyone else you know who might be in the same boat and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.
00:54:11
Speaker
If you have a story or a suggestion for something you'd like to see covered on the podcast, you can email me at teenagekickspodcast at gmail.com or message me on Instagram. I am Helen Wills. I love hearing from all my listeners. It really makes a difference to me on this journey. See you next week when I'll be chatting to another brilliant guest about the highs and lows of parenting teens. Bye for now.