Hi, I’m Jono. I run Cognito, a UK GCSE and A-Level revision platform used by about 1.5 million students. Claire let me put together a guest post for Motherhood: The Real Deal because the same conversation has been coming up in our parent inbox over and over this term: “how do I support my teen without making it worse?” It’s a fair question, and a hard one.
Exam season has a way of making parents do the wrong things in the right spirit. You hover. You over-check the revision plan. You ask, gently, if today’s session went well at exactly the moment they need ten minutes of nobody asking them anything. Or you go the opposite way, stay quiet because you don’t want to add to the pressure, and they read your silence as you not caring. Most parents we talk to do both of those, sometimes in the same week.
Here’s what we see in the families that come through exam season with their teen’s mental health intact, plus some specifics from the parents who’ve shared the most with us.
1. The catastrophising is the real risk, not the exams
A bad mock isn’t a bad GCSE. A failed Geography topic test isn’t a sealed future. Your teen knows this in their head, but the part of their brain running the show in exam season doesn’t speak that language. Your job is to be the steady voice that puts each setback back into proportion, not by being relentlessly upbeat, but by being matter-of-fact.
2. Watch for the quiet warning signs, not just the loud ones
Slammed doors and tears are easy to spot. The harder ones to read are the teen who suddenly can’t make a small decision (what to eat, what to wear), the one who’s going to bed earlier and earlier not because they’re tired but because the day is too much, the one who stops mentioning their friends. None of those mean disaster on their own. They just mean it’s time for a check-in.
3. Low-stakes conversations beat sit-down ones
A ten-minute chat in the car, while you’re washing up, or out walking the dog will get you further than a sit-down “how are you really feeling” conversation. Teens talk when there’s a parallel activity going on and they’re not being stared at. The car is genuinely one of the best places to find out what’s actually going on.
4. Trust the tools they’re using, don’t audit them
If your teen’s revising in a way that isn’t how you’d do it, it’s tempting to ask whether they shouldn’t be doing more past papers or fewer videos or more flashcards. Try to resist this. Their job is to find a method that fits their brain. Your job is to give them the conditions to do it. If you’re looking for a Science and Maths platform that gets out of the way, Cognito is the one we built. It’s free to use (with some limits on the free tier): short, exam-board-aligned videos with practice that adapts to where they’re weak. Try it free first, and if your teen finds it useful, Motherhood: The Real Deal readers get 20% off Pro with the code REALDEAL20.
5. Motivation isn’t a switch you can flip
You can’t talk a teen from low motivation to high motivation with a single pep talk. What you can do is adjust the temperature of the room. Lower the pressure when they’re flagging, raise it gently when they’re coasting. The vast majority of teens we hear about do want to do well. They just need the conditions to be navigable rather than overwhelming.
You’re not going to get this right every time. Some days you’ll hover. Some days you’ll go too hands-off. Getting it right every time isn’t really the point. The thing that matters is your teen knowing, once the dust has settled, that you were on their side the whole way through.
For most of them, that turns out to be the bit that mattered most.
Guest post by Jono Ellis, CPO at Cognito. Partnered with Motherhood: The Real Deal. Cognito is free to use. Readers get 20% off Cognito Pro with the code REALDEAL20.
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