Book of the Week

Okay, this may seem like  a strange book to highlight...but I loved it!!  I read it in one day. 

I happen to have a daughter who has major anxiety taking tests.  Her first experience was this last year.  About an hour and a half after dropping her off I got a phone call.  It was the test giver telling me that my daughter was starting to get really upset about the test.  When I walked in she was on question number 10 of about 50.  She was in tears and her anxiety level was so high she couldn't even get herself to read the next question.  Fortunately, the test giver was nice and I didn't care too much about the results (she's 3rd grade for heaven's sake)...so I was able to sit and coach her through the final questions (because I wanted her to have a "whew, I finished" feeling).

Anyway, after that experience and showing other signs of anxiety in other situations, I picked up this book at the library.  Note:  It is NOT just about taking tests!!!

My favorite thought from the book:

Most of the time, we focus our attention on things other than our thoughts and feelings.  Our emotions may seem so uncomfortable or overwhelming that we can't muster the attention it takes to experience them.  Instead, we occupy the major part of our attention with other things - - the ball game, last night's date, tomorrows test, the work fiasco...Consequently, we're often so busy worrying about things that we never truly experience much of the life we are living, right here and right now.

See, it's not about test anxiety alone!  It's full of information about what fear is, how to face our fears, procrastination, and other cool stuff.  I loved it.