Can't work or won't work? How can you tell if your teenager is depressed or suffering from exam stress? Our expert, Chris Turner, offers advice on how to tell the difference.

Raisingkids member's problem
My 15-yr-old son simply refuses to do any academic work both in school and out of school. The teachers say, he says he cannot do the work, although they have tested him to see if there is any learning problems and the results point to a very capable and intelligent child who has a great deal of general knowledge.

At home he is the same, mention school work, homework or anything attached to work and he changes moods from chatty and smiling to unhappy, uncommunicative and almost despairing. He often says 'I cannot do the work it's too hard, I will fail all my exams so why bother?'

Mornings are the worst, even to the extent that he says there is no point in going to school. It's becoming harder to get him to go to school each day. By the end of the day he seems to have cheered up and appears to be a happy 15-yr-old. The teachers are stumped so are we.

My wife and I suspect he may have depression, his symptoms certainly follow what we have read, lack of appetite, mood swings, despair, lack of association with his friends, worse in the morning than the evening. His GCSEs are very close, he will not even pick up a pen and write his name on test papers in class, refuses to do any homework or pay attention in class. He is not disruptive in any way at school. Any ideas as to what we can do to save him from failing all exams and becoming unemployable and even more lost?

Expert Chris Turner's Advice
At 15 yrs old, we are constantly told that the exams we are about to sit are the most important time of our lives. They will set us up to go to University or get a good job, and if we don't study or try hard then we will fail and be left unable to find a job etc. The stress exams can put on young people is massive and as parents sometimes we don't see it. All we think about is our child's future and not the how are they coping now?

If we were to take a step back and think about the amount of exams and tests that our children do nowadays compared to when we were at school, we'd probably find it shocking.

It does sound like your son could be suffering with depression, maybe from stress and worry about the exams, but I am not a doctor and you would have to have this checked out.

Talk to him, but more importantly listen to what he has to say. It could be exam stress, it could be that he is being bullied or just has a lack of confidence in his own abilities. Fifteeen is the age that to me was the most scary - you know you will be leaving school soon and moving on into that big bad world. It is also a time when quite often first relationships start and can have an influence, either good or bad.

Two of my own children found exams really stressful. Eeven though in coursework they were getting As and Bs, come the exams they panicked and their work suffered. We talked and worked out a routine to help; a certain amount of study time, and a lot of time for relaxing. This was based on the fact that if they could show they were doing coursework and other work in school to the best of their ability then we in turn wouldn't push them too hard at home. It worked, their stress levels fell and while they didn't get As and Bs in all their exams they did do much better than they thought. We also talked to them about was the fact that they could always retake an exam at a later date, which one did do and passed second time around.

Talk to your son and give him encouragement. No matter how worried you are that he may fail, it has to be his choice to do the best he can and that's all we can ever ask of our children. Remember he can always re-sit if need be. When it comes down to it, his health is more important than exam results.