Helping DS2 do his best - advice needed!

[fresh]

Sorry, long post!
Can anyone help me with techniques to help DS2 relax enough to be able to do his best in tests? He swings between being able to answer questions immediately (correctly, and without needing to work things out) and just blank panic. If he doesn't get it straight away he just shuts down and forgets that he's been taught how to solve the problem he's faced with, or he guesses the answer to make it look like he knows straight away.

I'd like to be able to help him calm himself down as we're coming up for KS2 SATS and he's getting stressed over the practice papers he's getting for homework.

Whilst I don't care what level he gets for SATS, I do want to help him feel he has the tools to solve questions so he can feel in a bit more control. He's always had confidence issues but is smart enough to know when he's being 'encouraged', which he hates because he thinks you only have to 'encourage' children who aren't bright enough to know everything immediately!

He's also smart enough to have worked out that if he behaves well in class he can stay under the radar and wing things, but of course that won't work in a SATS test and he's panicking.

For DS1 we made light of the whole process and that worked fine for him, but I'm worried that if we leave DS2 to his own devices he will do badly through lack of confidence, which will just confirm his opinion of himself as 'stupid', which he's not. The Catch 22 is that if I try to help he closes down because he thinks if he needs help he must be 'stupid'...aargh! We've tried to show him that no-one knows everything, and that everyone has to learn, but he still seems convinced that we're lying to him and the rest of the world just 'gets it' somehow (actually, sometimes I think he might be right...).

Big picture, of course, a child this stubborn will probably end up running the country, but meanwhile he's not a happy bunny.

I'm really strugging with this. If anyone has any help, I'd be really grateful!

He should not care what mark he gets in SATs. The secondary school will go on whole year report and their own CATs to sort what ability group to put him into, NOT the F*ing SATs -- which are only for government bean counters, Ofsted and future parents deciding which school to send their own DC to.

Tell him to bin the practice papers, tell him you love it when he learns things but don't worry about doing well on the SAT tests because they don't accurately show anything about him personally. Odds are that his teacher loathes the SATs even more than he does.

If he's like my DS the SATs don't even reflect his actual day-to-day ability.

But he already does care, he loves it when he achieves things and he wants to do well. I'm just looking for ways to help him do that better without beating himself up.

Agree with everything you say about SATS, but the hard fact is that he will meet testing in one form or another for the rest of his education, I'm just trying to help him deal with it.

I guess SATs aren't really the issue, but rather his own (interally set) high standards. In a way I envy you, I have a bright son who doesn't care about his academic results (very frustrating).

There have been a other threads on MN about dealing with perfectionist children, maybe if you search the archives you will find some golden insights in them. The closest I can come to it is DD1. I can imagine telling her that I just want her to try her best on the day and that's all anyone can do -- plus, there will be other and even better opportunities for her to shine later, so gotta keep any one exam (or set of exams) in perspective.

Dunno if that's too mature a way to look at things for the average 10-11yo, though!

Could you get an IQ test done on him or do one yourselves from a book? He will probably come out v well and this may give him confidence.

pippop1, I wondered about that, as I've been trying to understand the different areas of IQ - verbal, processing - because I think he has always had an issue in some areas of processing. However, while I research that we've had a long chat about SATS and I've reassured him that they're not a measure that's any use to him, that it really doesn't matter to me what his score is as long as he does his best, and that I did badly in exams (didn't tell him this was due to laziness however!!). This last one amazed him as he is still young enough to believe that I'm the cleverest person in the world (I know, it won't last) and I followed that up by telling him about all the successful people who didn't like exams either. DH and I are trying to unlearn years of conditioning, and trying to foster creativity in DS1 and 2 as a way of finding what they like and are good at. We both love the youtube clip of Ken Robinson on creativity which I heartily recommend as an antidote to the current panic about exams/university etc....sorry, long rant, but this has been a real eye opener for us. The short answer is thanks, I'll investigate it!!