CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — TCAP scores are in throughout Tennessee, putting serious pressure on educators, parents, and the students taking the exam.

Eight- and 9-year-olds are struggling with severe anxiety, including testing anxiety, along with depression.

“It’s just completely undue stress, unnecessary anxiety put on eight and 9-year-old kids. It causes so much anxiety that they don’t need,” said Haley Whitson, parent of a Montgomery County student.

Middle Tennessee parents have taken to social media to express their frustrations over the TCAP dilemma that’s left their third-graders feeling and dealing with so much pressure and anxiety.

“There’s no reason that one test for a child that gets A’s and B’s should cause that much stress in her life,” Whitson said.

Whitson’s 9-year-old daughter, Madison, had never had test anxiety prior to learning about the TCAP, but that changed a few months ago.

“Since January, for months and months, she’s had severe anxiety over taking the TCAP, worrying about the TCAP exam, worrying about repeating third grade, or having to spend her summer in school. It’s just been a lot of stress, physical stress you could see just by looking at her,” Whitson said.

According to Whitson, Madison would call her crying from Carmel Elementary School in Clarksville, worrying if she’ll move on to fourth grade with her friends or have to go to summer school.

“I think really when it hit me was when we found out she did pass, and I felt like what was, why did we have to go through…why did she have to go through this? I just think about the crying and the worrying. I thought she was just going to be sick the week of TCAP because she was just nervous about it,” Whitson said.

For Madison, this was a daily issue that affected her mental health at nine years old.

“I mean, it definitely affected her confidence. I mean, she was just like, ‘I must be one of the stupidest kids in class and I’m just a bad reader,’ and I’m like, ‘But that’s just not true,'” Whitson said.

One Cookeville mom said her daughter, Lainey, failed her MLA portion of the TCAP on Monday.

“Help me make this make sense. She either retests tomorrow or attends summer school and misses her summer trip to Wyoming. I know I cannot be the only parent disappointed in the state of Tennessee right now,” said Parrish Burgess, Lainey’s mother.

She then had to break the news to her already stressed-out 8-year-old, who’s been dealing with depression and test anxiety for months now.

“Three days before the school year lets us out that she may be held back due to this test. It was a lot. I didn’t even really want to put through the pressure of retesting. I don’t want her to have to go through that; she’s eight years old. Her great grandma even texted me and said, ‘Hey, when we saw Lainey yesterday, she seemed really depressed. How is she today?’ Everyone’s just kind of worried about her because her spirits were down. She’s always such a bubbly kid, and as I said, her confidence and her bubbly self, that was just not there,” said Burgess.

Thankfully, Burgess received the good news she’s been waiting for; Lainey passed her retake test.

Both moms said that all the stress and depression that their daughters went through feels even more frustrating now that it’s over.