School Anxiety

If you have a child who is anxious and scared to come back to school, you are not alone! Change is scary for our little ones, and they have lots of worries in their heads about school!

Worries could be: "Will I like my teacher? Will my teacher like me? Will I have friends in my class? Will school work be too hard? What if I miss my mom? Will I have time to go to the bathroom?"

The best thing to do is to validate your child's feelings! Even if we think they are silly worries, they are very real to them.  Rather than using a cliche response, “You’ll be fine” or “Don’t worry about it,” let your child know that you hear their concern, “It sounds like you’ve been giving this a lot of thought.”

There is a chance that your child may not show signs of school anxiety before the new school year starts.  Some children start to show signs later.  You may notice: unwillingness to get up for school; reluctance to talk about school; faking illness to stay home or a drop/change in grades or performance.

 It may seem easier to think, “she’ll be fine once school starts,” but it’s important to address your child’s worry and provide them with ways to handle feeling anxious.  If you are unsure how to help your child, it may be beneficial to contact me, and I would be happy to work with you and your child to come up with some solutions!