Back to School Tips for Children with Anxiety

All children feel a bit anxious about heading back to school. The start of a new school year can be exciting and fun with a new classroom, teacher and new classmates. That is not the anxiety I am talking about. Feeling butterflies in your stomach on the first day of school is different than the anxiety that causes constant stress and disrupts normal daily like for the child and the family. This later back to school anxiety is what my son deals with.

To be honest, he deals with anxiety before the end of the school year, before the start of summer camp, before holidays and many other times too, but for some reason back to school anxiety hits him hard. Perhaps it’s being exhausted after a long summer of being physically active.

My son worries about every little detail, whether it’s a real anxiety concern or something that seems like a bigger concern in his head. He lies awake at night wondering about every detail of what school will be like. Yes that’s right. He is worried about the school year that hasn’t started yet.

My son has ADHD and anxiety and although it took us awhile to realize what we interpreted as hyperactivity was actually anxiety, his anxiety has always been there. It’s common for ADHD kids to also have anxiety, in fact 30% of children with ADHD have anxiety too, whether mild symptoms or full-blown anxiety disorder. This doesn’t make it any better. In fact his ADHD seems to fuel his anxiety and keep his brain going over scenarios until the wee hours of the morning.

What does your child’s anxiety mean for back to school?

Every child is different and their anxiety can manifest in different ways. In public places my son picks at his lip. When playing hockey my son constantly touches his stomach, moving his shirt. For back to school, as soon as August hits my son starts obsessing about EVERY possible thing about school. Common with ADHD and Anxiety he also has low self-esteem, which kicks in and gets him thinking of every situation will be negative. He thinks everything will turn out in the worst possible scenario for him.

Not only does he think everything will turn out bad, he feels he will have no friends to help him through the hard times and it will be a horrible year. This year on August 1st he started obsessing about everything school related. Even with my trying to get him to focus on positive things, like focusing on how many days are left to summer, it didn’t work.  To make matters worst I knew that  whatever he was sharing with me was only the tip of the iceberg to what was going through his mind. When he was raging in anger at his sister, or waking me up at 3 a.m. to ask what the temperature will be on the first day of school,  I tried to keep in mind that he is trying to process and deal with everything. He’s frustrated with himself and looking for an outlet.

Here are a few of the constant things that run through my sons mind.

• How many days left until school starts?
• Who will my teacher be?
• Will I have any friends in my class?
• Will all my friends like me?
• Is my teacher going to be mean?
• Will I have homework? Too much homework?
• Will the kids in my class be nice or mean?
• Where will I sit at lunch?
• What will it be like on the bus?
• Will my classroom be too hot? too cold?
• What if I miss the bus?

After a few years of dealing with this and struggling to find ways to help my son get through the 3 weeks leading up to school (and the 3 weeks leading up to the end of school and leading up to Christmas, etc.) here are a few things that we found worked for us.

Get everything ready in advance.

This can involve a wide variety of things. With school supplies we learned, after a few years, to see what kids have at the start of the summer and pick up things when our anxiety kid isn’t there. At the beginning of the summer we get the school supply list and go through it with our kids then to see what we have and what we need to get. Then as far as kids know we don’t look at it again. Although getting  a ton of supplies and label them is a parents responsibility, it doesn’t mean your child won’t stress about it.

Getting ready doesn’t just mean buying pencils and paper. It’s mentally getting ready and for many getting back on schedule.

With my sons ADHD schedule has been a BIG help in surviving daily life. One summer we thought he would benefit from being off a schedule, no camp, no early mornings and learned he does better when he has a schedule to stick to. Used to a schedule, the fact of having to get up for school after 2 months of vacation can cause stress.  This year our school times changed, so we had to find a way to make it manageable for him.  We used phone map apps to plot our how long it will take from our house to school. Together we made a poster for the kitchen of the times of everything he has to do in the morning and when we have to leave.

The reality is knowing the time and actually making it work are two different things. So the week before school I made my kids get up every morning, pack a lunch, put their ‘work books’ in their backpack and make it out of the house on time. The reality is we were at a lake the week before school, but I still made them get up, out of bed, teeth brushed as if it was a school day. The added bonus for me was that since they were already up, they walked the dog!

You don’t have to get up and do practice drills. If your child is starting at a new school drive to the school a few times so they see the route they will take. Perhaps for older kids get them used to an alarm clock so they can get up on their own. Picking outfits for each day is a great help for school anxiety for girls and older kids. Going to bed earlier (and calming yourself to fall asleep) or writing out a task of things you have to do in the morning helps too. My kids LOVE lists. It started with visual lists I would make them for morning routines, evening routine, vacations, etc.. They liked being able to be in control of what they needed to do and now they make their own lists. This really helps with school anxiety and busy morning.

Divert their attention.

I tried the route of communicating about everything school related. I got him involved in buying school supplies and buying everything int he hopes to qualm his anxiety. For my son it had the opposite effect. I found the less talk about school, the less children think about it and the less they have school anxiety.

Trying to keep kids minds off of school isn’t helped by the fact that most summer camps finish a week or 2 before the start of school. This means that kids have more time on their hands and for anxiety and ADHD that is not always a good combination. I started creating a summer bucket list for my kids to try and combat this.

The reality is that keeping my kids busy started out as a way to make sure my kids accomplished something on the summer I felt they needed a break from scheduling and camps. In later summers I realized tasking them with accomplishing anything was always left for the last week or 2 before school started. I could make this work for me. I had the kids home out of camp then, so rather than my son sitting and obsessing anxiously about school, I set them to accomplishing the remainder of their bucket list items. For 2019, they were focused on trying to get 100% in school, so I created them a bucket list of 100 items. The didn’t know when they started the summer, but they got .25$ for every item they completed!

Another great diversion is school snacks and lunches. My son worries about where he’ll sit at lunch, will he have friends to sit with, will he have time to eat and play and a million other things. Being an athlete his ADHD drives him to  crave sugar. This year we tried focusing on healthy lunches and snacks, so he made a list of 50 healthy snack and lunch ideas and is planning on trying a different one every day for the first month!

Get them something special.

By no means am I saying buying something will make their anxiety go away. It’s not a magic cure, but if they have something special they may think more positively and look forward to school. For my kids they both get to pick out one special thing for school. It’s usually a different pencil case (my son loves one he got with a lock on it) or scented markers rather than regular ones. It’s money well spent. It helps the kids to have something positive and good to look forward to for school, rather than the negative thoughts and self-doubt. If your school has a dress code, perhaps it can be a hair accessory, fun socks or a new backpack.

Tell them it’s ok to be scared.

At one time or another everyone feels stress, with or without anxiety. As parents we try to point out times when we are stressed about something and show them how we deal with it. It could be about something at work, a goal we aren’t meeting or an upcoming event. One of the biggest changes was when we showed our son it’s ok to have emotions and feelings and feel anxious about things.  Things are going to happen that are out of your control and that is life. We can’t stop life from happening.  It’s how we deal with them that makes the difference. Mind you we don’t always handle things how we wish we did either, and that’s ok too. None of us are perfect, but we have to own up to how we behave and talk about it and try better next time. Same as we hope our children will do.

After a few times of pointing out our stress or anxiety, we started to notice that our son started sharing how he was feeling and what he was going through. He felt a little less like an outcast and frustrated at what he was feeling and going through. Everyone has stress and some have anxiety, but we are all going through things. He also became aware that school anxiety is something he has to deal with all year round. Accept that anxiety is real, even if you don’t understand it and your child will be able to start processing it.

Accept your child’s anxiety is real … even if you don’t understand it.

This is difficult for my husband. He doesn’t have anxiety. He doesn’t worry. In his world things will work out as they are meant to be. It’s hard for him to see that a whole slew of things, both real and perceived concerns consume my sons mind. It’s not something you can see. You can’t wish it away. You can’t tell your child to just ‘get over it’ and they will. Even if they seem fine on the outside and are no longer talking to you about what they are feeling, it’s still there, they are just pushing it down.

The fact of where your seat is in a classroom may seem unimportant to a parent but it may be consuming your child’s mind. To your child, they may feel that seat placement is THE THING that will make them have a good year. As a parent you need to recognize your child’s anxiety. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you, it makes sense to them. They are dealing with this every moment of every day. What they share is only the tip of the iceberg and as their parent you need to try to understand and support them.

Go the extra mile.

If you want to go the extra mile, instead of just telling them it’s ok to feel anxiety or be scared, be their cheerleader. Try to always have a positive outlook and be understanding. Ask them what they are feeling. Sit and talk with them in a calm tone and help them problem solve, plan and find a way that works for them. Also, don’t be afraid to communicate with your child’s teacher. At first I was worried that my son’s teacher would label him and treat him differently because of his anxiety. It was in fact the opposite. His grade 5 teacher appreciated knowing what was going with him and was able to see him building up and working on things in his head and even intervene a few times to help him before it got out of control. She even went on to add items to him IEP (Individualized Education Plan) liek social interactions that will help with his anxiety.

Every year, no matter how it went, we celebrate the first week of school with something special on Friday. This year we are going for ice cream.

Do you have any tips or things that help with your child’s school anxiety?