Your Training Session is Hurting People and You Don't Know It
Learn how to spot distressed students and put them at ease
Everyone wants to learn but many people are terrified of attending a training course.
Why?
Because going on a course, even an online one, can make people feel vulnerable, even severely distressed.
It even happens to me, though I love learning and I’ve delivered hundreds of courses as a professional trainer.
Shame and a raging case of imposter syndrome was my experience of an online bootcamp I attended. After one of the sessions, the facilitator asked us to email her our next steps for individual feedback, so I did.
She ripped my email to pieces. It was brutal. Not because what I’d written was wrong, but because the direction I wanted to go in didn’t align with what the facilitator wanted to upsell.
OK, I put on my big girl pants and got over it, but if an experienced trainer like me can be made to feel like an idiot in a course, imagine what people with genuine issues around learning feel.
As a trainer, you want your students to learn, but they won’t learn anything if they are anxious. And if your students rush home and dive under the covers to recover, they are unlikely to come back. Plus, they’ll tell all their friends about how awful it all was in general, and how awful you are in particular.
So, to avoid losing students, money and your reputation, you need to know how to put your students at ease.
But that’s just good manners, right?
Not quite. You also need to watch out for people with:
Social anxiety
Physical challenges
Literacy challenges
Dyslexia or dyscalculia
ADHD, AuDHD or Autism
If you don’t have any of these yourself, or know someone who does, you could be unaware of how they play out in a training situation.
Here’s how to spot people who could become anxious in your sessions, and what to do about it.
People with Social Anxiety
Many people suffer from social anxiety and find the social interactions and communication expected on a training course excruciatingly painful.
Fear of judgment, or being the centre of attention, could send students with social anxiety into a panic. Even being looked at by other students, or being asked to answer a question, can cause real distress.
Being in a large group, being called on to speak, or having attention thrust upon them isn’t just uncomfortable — for some people it’s genuinely terrifying. And a terrified student isn’t learning anything.
Social anxiety doesn’t look the same in everyone. Some people go visibly red and stumble over their words. Others go completely quiet.
What you’re unlikely to see is someone putting their hand up to tell you they have social anxiety. Instead, they’ll find ways to manage around it such as choosing a seat near the door, always letting someone else go first, and never volunteering for anything.
Group activities and role play are the moments that can push your students with social anxiety into overwhelm. If you spring a role play on your participants without warning, or insist that everyone participates in front of the group, you risk making your students so uncomfortable they’ll leave.
A friend of mine gets so anxious in face-to-face courses she has to take an anti-anxiety medication before she leaves the house. Remember that for some people, a training session is an event that has to be managed to minimise acute distress.
What to do about it:
Set ground rules at the start of the session. Include respect, confidentiality and the right to pass on some activities.
Normalise anxiety by saying it’s common to feel nervous in a course. Share an example of when you found a course anxiety-inducing.
Use pairs or small groups for early activities rather than asking people to perform in front of the whole room.
For role plays, pick students who are visibly comfortable with speaking in front of a group, or ask for volunteers well in advance so people can mentally prepare.
If you’re running a session online, don’t assume everyone is fine with having their camera on. Give people permission to keep it off if they need to.
People with Physical Challenges
In a face-to-face session, your students may be worried about being able to see or hear, toilet breaks, or whether they can eat regularly.
No one wants to share that they need to pee once an hour, or that they are menstruating and need to go and change their tampon.
And yes, I have seen trainers ask women to ‘hold on’ until the break, or make loud jokes about why a woman is taking her handbag with her to the loo (it’s to avoid waving tampons and pads around for all the world to see, in case you are wondering).
Allergies can also cause concerns, especially if the allergy is life-threatening. People could have allergies to nuts, citrus fruit (even the zest or droplets in the air), strawberries, or pretty much anything else.
Wondering if you’re going to go into anaphylactic shock because the person next to you is eating something that could kill you isn’t conducive to learning.
I was once on a course where a fellow participant used a wheelchair. Getting to the accessible toilet meant travelling down six flights in the lift — but first there was a lengthy fuss to get hold of the key.
When she finally got there, the door handle was positioned too high to reach and was too stiff to pull from a seated position.
The venue had a disability toilet (their words), but it was completely unsuitable for anyone in a wheelchair to use comfortably.
What to do about it:
At the beginning of the session, check whether everyone can see and hear, or whether they need to move to a different seat. If they do, normalise it.
Clarify that trainees can pop out if they need a comfort break. They are adults and don’t need to ask.
Check that you know everyone’s dietary requirements, tell everyone when the breaks are, and keep to those times.
Point out that you’ve provided biscuits, fruit or snacks, and tell trainees they can eat their own food if they get hungry.
Check the accessible facilities before the day. Don’t wait for a participant to discover the problem themselves.
People with Literacy Challenges
Not everyone in your session is proficient with reading and writing. Some people have struggled their entire lives.
For many, it was never picked up at school, so they’ve spent decades finding ways around it such as asking a colleague to check their emails, avoiding reading anything aloud, or sitting near the back.
No one is going to tell you they’ve got literacy issues because there is a lot of shame attached to not being able to read and write. Instead, your students will do everything they can to avoid showing that they’re struggling.
The signs are subtle. A participant who seems engaged verbally but goes quiet when there’s written work. Someone who takes much longer than others to complete a written task. A student who hasn’t picked up information from pre-course documents.
What to do about it:
Don’t ask participants to read aloud unless you know they’re comfortable doing so. If reading aloud is part of the session, ask for volunteers rather than pointing at people.
Verbalise everything that’s written on a slide or in a workbook. Don’t assume people can read it and move on.
Use straightforward language in all written materials. Short sentences. Plain words. No jargon.
Offer instructions verbally as well as in writing, and give people enough time to work through written tasks without pressure.
If someone seems to be struggling, don’t make it obvious to the group. Have a quiet word during a break.
People with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia
Dyslexia is a challenge with reading. Dyscalculia is a difficulty with maths.
For many adults, neither was picked up at school, and both continue to cause problems throughout working life.
Your trainees with dyslexia may be worried about being asked to read aloud, or about understanding written information in workbooks. They may worry about falling behind in front of the other students, or about failing written assessments.
Learners with dyscalculia might be anxious about getting maths problems wrong in front of the group, or about following numerical instructions. Anything involving numbers could be a source of real concern.
What to do about it:
Ask whether people are comfortable reading out slides and workbook excerpts, or choose people you already know have no issues.
Verbally summarise content written in slides, on whiteboards, or in workbooks so your trainees aren’t relying solely on reading.
With anything involving numbers, acknowledge openly that some people are great with numbers and some people find them difficult — and that both are completely normal.
Use graphics in your course materials wherever possible. Not everyone processes written information the same way.
People with ADHD, AuDHD or Autism
ADHD, AuDHD (a combination of ADHD and autism) and autism are more common in adult learners than many trainers realise — and more often undiagnosed than you’d expect.
Participants who were assessed and supported at school are relatively rare. A significant number of adults have spent their working lives not knowing why they find certain situations so difficult.
What does this look like in a training room?
Someone with ADHD might struggle to sit still for long stretches, find it hard to follow a lengthy verbal explanation without visual support, or appear distracted when they’re actually trying very hard to focus. They may blurt out answers, interrupt, or go very quiet when the material gets dense.
Someone who is autistic may find unexpected changes to the session structure unsettling. Loud group activities, ambiguous instructions, or unclear expectations about participation can all create real distress — even if none of it is visible to you.
Sensory issues can also be a factor. Bright lighting, background noise, strong smells from food or cleaning products, or a crowded room can all make concentration harder.
None of this means these participants can’t learn. They often learn extremely well when the environment works for them.
What to do about it:
Share an agenda at the start of the session and stick to it. If something changes, tell the group in advance rather than pivoting without warning.
Break content into shorter chunks. Long uninterrupted blocks of talking are hard for most people, but genuinely difficult for people with ADHD.
Give clear, explicit instructions. Don’t assume participants will infer what you mean. Say exactly what you want them to do.
Allow movement where you can. Short breaks, opportunities to stand, or tasks that involve some activity all help.
If someone seems to be struggling with attention or sensory overload, don’t draw attention to it in front of the group. A quiet check-in during a break costs you nothing and matters enormously to them.
Summary
If your trainees are anxious, worried, and thinking about something else, they won’t learn.
They’ll also have a horrible experience in your course, which no trainer wants for their students.
None of this requires a psychology degree or a major redesign of your content. It requires a bit of thought before the day, a welcoming environment, and the awareness that every person in your room has turned up with something going on that you can’t see.
A small amount of preparation will ensure that all your learners can benefit from what you’re teaching. That’s the whole point.
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