Why Some Kids Panic Before a Test—and What Parents Can Do

Understanding the Anxiety Behind the Panic

It starts like clockwork: the night before a math quiz, your child begins to unravel. Their hands fidget, their voice trembles, and, within minutes, they’re in tears or angry or both. Panic before school tests isn’t a rare reaction—many children between the ages of 6 and 12 face it. But for some, the intensity feels overwhelming. As a parent, it's painful to watch and confusing to navigate. Why does it happen? And more importantly: how can you help?

Test anxiety in children is often misunderstood. It’s not about laziness or lack of preparation. Instead, it usually stems from a deeper emotional struggle: fear of failure, low self-confidence, a history of academic difficulty, or even a sensitive temperament. For some kids, being evaluated—having their knowledge "scored"—feels like being judged as a person. It's the emotional weight attached to the act that becomes unbearable.

The Roots of Test Panic

Take Sophie, age 9. She’s curious, loves animals, and devours books about space. But every time a spelling test appears on the calendar, she clams up. Her mom described how Sophie sometimes pretends to be sick on test days. After some gentle conversations, they uncovered that Sophie had once been laughed at for misspelling a word aloud in class. Since then, tests have become ghosts of shame, even though she’s fully capable.

For another child—let’s call him Leo—the problem was different. He studied well, but during tests, his mind went blank. "It’s not that I don’t know," he told his dad. "It’s that I forget everything when I sit down." Leo’s panic wasn’t about confusion. It was performance anxiety, heightened by perfectionism and a fear of making mistakes.

These stories aren’t rare. And they're closely tied to what we explore in other articles, such as how to help your child overcome the fear of failure and supporting kids who fear making mistakes in class.

If It's Not About Studying, What Is It?

It's tempting to think that a solid study routine would make the panic go away. But when anxiety is the root issue, extra drills or added review sessions can sometimes make things worse. With these children, the goal isn’t just to study more—it’s to feel safer. Safer to try. Safer to fail. Safer to be themselves even when things don't go perfectly.

That said, the way we approach preparation can help ease that fear. For children who struggle with traditional methods, turning abstract lessons into personal experiences can build both confidence and retention. Some families have found that using tools that transform a child's own photo of a lesson into a short, personalized quiz (like the Skuli app does on iOS and Android) helps give kids a sense of control—instead of bracing for the unknown, they're training in a format that feels playful and familiar.

Creating a Culture of Emotional Safety

If your child panics before a test, start by offering what they may be missing at school: emotional permission to stumble, to feel overwhelmed, and to still be loved and accepted. These children aren’t just asking for academic help. They’re asking, in their own way: "Will I still be okay if I can’t get this right?"

So what can this look like in daily life?

• Normalize mistakes. Talk openly about your own failures—not just the funny ones, but the ones that really stung. Let your child in on how you recovered.
• Reframe test results. Praise not just the grade but the courage to show up, the effort to try, and the progress made.
• Model calm. If you radiate stress around school performance or grades, they will absorb that pressure. Let school be an adventure, not a battlefield.

One parent I worked with told her daughter before a math test: “This is a chance to show what you’re learning—not a verdict on who you are.” It changed the whole tone of how they approached studying.

For Kids Who Feel Like Giving Up

Sometimes, panic is the final stage of a long, quiet decline in self-confidence. Before a child becomes outwardly anxious, they often withdraw, give up easily, or shut down. If this is what you’re seeing, you might find clarity in the article What To Do When Your Child Gives Up After Making a Mistake. It’s not about fixing them—it’s about reaching them where they are.

Encouragement, when rooted in empathy, goes much further than pushy positivity. As we shared in this piece on encouraging kids to try, quiet belief in your child’s ability—especially when things go wrong—plants their own belief in themselves.

One Test Doesn’t Define Them

Perhaps that’s the deepest message a struggling child needs to hear: that one moment of panic doesn’t define them. One grade doesn’t spell their future. One hard week does not mean they’re failing life. For kids, that reassurance often has to be repeated in a hundred small ways before they truly trust it.

So keep showing up. Keep staying near. And when it’s helpful, bring in gentle support tools to help them practice and prepare in less intimidating ways. Whether it’s playing back their lessons during a car ride or turning multiplication drills into a personalized audio story where they're the hero, choose methods that speak their language. Learning, after all, should never feel like a trap.

And if today feels hard—if a test looms large and your child is curled up in fear—remember this: you don’t need to fix everything in one night. Just open the door to another way of learning, another way of seeing themselves. That’s more than enough for now.