Helping Your Child Cope With Back-to-School Anxiety

The start of a new school year can make any child feel a little nervous. For kids with anxiety, however, back-to-school jitters go beyond normal worries. Anxiety can begin weeks before school even begins and interfere with a child’s social and academic development.

Matheaze Tutors presents the following tips and resources.

Anxiety in Children: What it Looks Like

Do you think your child might have anxiety, but aren’t sure? It may be time for an appointment with your pediatrician if your child is exhibiting these signs of anxiety:

• Worrying about things that haven’t happened yet.
• Persistent worries about school, friends, safety, and other everyday matters.
• Refusal to go to school or separation anxiety at drop-off.
• Excessive clinginess and need for reassurance.
• Trouble falling and staying asleep and/or frequent nightmares.
• Frequent stomach aches and headaches

Remember, there are multiple types of anxiety, and anxiety can present differently from child to child. Just because your child doesn’t have these exact symptoms doesn’t mean it can’t be an anxiety disorder. If you’re concerned about your child’s mental health, the best thing to do is talk to their doctor.

What to Do if Your Child Won’t Open Up

If you’ve noticed signs of anxiety but your child shuts down when you try to talk about it, don’t take it personally. It’s normal for children not to open up to their parents. If your kid won’t talk to you, reach out to the school counselor. If your child stays out of trouble, you probably don’t give the school counselor much thought, but these mental health professionals have master’s degrees in school counseling and are far more experienced in getting children and teens to open up about personal issues than your average parent.

Take Their Mind Off Their Anxiety

Having tools like a tablet or computer readily available can be a great way for your child to distract themselves from anxiety-inducing situations. These devices offer a variety of apps and programs that can help soothe their mind and provide a healthy outlet for stress. To ensure peace of mind regarding potential damages, consider adding an electronics warranty supplement to your home warranty. This addition will protect your household electronics, giving you confidence that your investment is safeguarded while your child benefits from the therapeutic use of technology.

Back-to-School Tips for Anxious Students

Psycom.net notes that there’s a lot you shouldn’t do when it comes to an anxious child. Brushing off your child’s anxiety, avoiding situations that cause anxiety, or reacting to anxiety with impatience or anger are all likely to do more harm than good. That doesn’t make you helpless in the face of your child’s anxiety. With the right strategies, you can ease your child’s fears and make back-to-school easier on everyone.

Create healthy routines

Everyone performs better when well rested, well fed, and prepared for the day. Shift to early bedtimes two weeks before school starts so everyone is well-rested on the first day. Get your child into the habit of packing their backpack the night before, prepare a healthy breakfast, and make sure you’re calm and collected in the morning, too. Talkspace points out that parents’ anxiety levels have a surprisingly big impact on their kids.

Counter anticipatory anxiety

When your child is obsessing over back-to-school worries, it’s helpful to talk through their fears. Say your child is afraid of getting on the wrong bus after school. Instead of saying, “You’ll be fine,” ask your child what would happen. By showing that the worst-case-scenario isn’t that bad — the bus driver can tell the school, who will then call you — you demonstrate that even if the thing he’s afraid of does happen, he can handle it.

Ease into scary situations

There’s a lot to worry about when going back to school, from how to find your classroom to whether you’ll like your teacher. Instead of making your child face all of those fears on the first day, ease into the school year by attending back-to-school night and practicing walking to your child’s classes. If your child is worried about keeping up with schoolwork, reach out to the teacher to ask if there’s anything that can be worked on before the first day. Studying up before school starts gets kids back into the habit of doing schoolwork and eases anxiety about classroom performance.

Anxiety shouldn’t keep your child from success at school and in life. By supporting your child with smart strategies like these, you can help him learn to cope with anxiety and reach his full potential.

For confidence-boosting personalized tutoring to create a love of learning, visit Matheaze Tutors today!