With students around the country now counting down the days until their first set of exams, stress will be a familiar state of being in many households.

But what can parents do to support their offspring through this difficult time? According to educational psychologist Vivian Hill of the Institute of Education, it may not just be your disgruntled teen who's creating stress for him or herself - a lot of the time, mums, dads and schools are the ones putting pressure on pupils who are already thinking of their post-A level options.

"The biggest stress around examination time is the managing of the inter-personal relationship between the parent and the child," she told the BBC's Woman's Hour podcast. "If you are over-encouraging and nagging it can actually be quite counterproductive. They will just feel 'I have really had enough of this and I am just not going to cooperate'. It's getting the balance right."

Instead, parents need to sit down with their teenagers and talk about how the revision process is going to be managed. Ms Hill recommends discussing the issue un-emotionally and coming up with ways to sort out any potential problems.

"Hopefully you can get some parameters about what's expected, but I don't think you can expect someone to change their personality and their learning style for a three week period of revision," she noted. "You have to accept that somebody who has cruised all their life is likely to carry on doing that."

However, that is not to say that mums and dads should give up hope in their apathetic pupil, as Ms Hill believes in the power of encouragement.

"Maybe finds ways of making studying a little less isolating, because it does feel for the young person like they are all on their own with this thing. It is very isolating," she added.