'Academic' Confidence

[TheMoreItSnows]

Dd is nearly 14, socially v confident, lots of friends - life & soul of the party.

Academically she's bright but being held back by a lack of confidence - her recent report from school has at least 4 subjects where this noted by the teachers.

When I talk to her she says that she doesn't speak up because she thinks she hasn't got the answer correct, so she'd rather say nothing. Her attitude seems to be - don't go 'all out' for fear of failing? Why 'push yourself' when you might not reach the stars?

This is clearly holding her back somewhat.

Any ideas how to boost her 'academic' confidence (or is the loud, sociable exterior hiding a fundamental internal lack of confidence?) - books, websites, YouTube, Ted Talks - open to anything.

Thanks

Hi,
Eve Bennett, Ruby Granger and Unjaded Jade are all revision youtubers. , As wells as revision stuff, they speak a lot about school life in general and how to deal with academic pressures which could be helpful.

Ruby Granger
www.youtube.com/channel/UC6a8lp6vaCMhUVXPyynhjUA

Eve Bennett
www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2h_l6FMIta19ronaayedg

Unjaded Jade
www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-uObu-mfafJyxxZFEwbvQ

That's great - thanks. I'll pass those on to her.

She said that she'd talk to the librarian and see if they could recommend anything & I suggested that she ask each teacher for 2 'confidence tips' to try out across all subjects - so I guess that might help?!

Hi OP. I thing it might be worth chatting to DD a bit more to get to the root of the issue. Is it a genuine lack of confidence, i.e. she wrongly believes that she is rubbish at these subjects, or is it more of a personality thing?

It could be that her internal confidence is OK, but she is perceived as being under confident by her teachers because she isn't very vocal in class. This is often an issue for introverts, and it is worth remembering that there is nothing wrong with being an introvert, they just express themselves differently from extroverts. I recommend the book 'Quiet' by Susan Cain.

Btw introverts can be very sociable and have lots of friends!

I have a DS 14 who is exactly as you describe your DD, so
I'm really interested to see what people might suggest. His issue is particularly with maths. He's gone from set 2 to 3 and is now saying he's not even good enough for that set. I'm trying really hard to keep his confidence up as all of his teachers say he has the ability to do well, in yr8 he was predicted A(7), now he's struggling to even stay in the set to take the higher tier paper.
I've found sitting with him whilst he does his homework (in subjects he is less confident in) has helped. We are then 'learning' together and he is sometimes teaching me, which seems to help a bit. I'm also trying to focus lots on where he has done well has helped too a bit.

She's around for 1/2 term next week so I'll be able to talk more to her. I'm struggling to imagine that she might be an introvert - she really is loud & confident within her friendship group & even in situations she's not familiar with. No problems chatting to strangers etc.

I think she doesn't have a lot of resilience, so won't take an academic risk (loves managed risk - roller coasters etc), in case it goes wrong. How do you really make them see that the biggest risks often give the biggest rewards. How to encourage the risk of 'getting it wrong' to build up that resilience?