3 Signs Your Kid Is Anxious About Going Back To School
Whether your child has been remote learning or attending brick and mortar or a combination, this school year won’t be like any of the ones we are used to. Feeling of anxiety, stress and uncertainty are there and can be especially strong in children. Here are some different ways to identify signs that your kid is anxious about going back to school and how to help them get a good start.
Grumpiness and temper Issues
While we often associate anxiety with sadness, it can also lead kids to acting out, yelling or being defiant. School-aged children may be easily agitated and experience temper outbursts. When faced with anxiety, some children will withdraw and pull away. Others, may lash out as they feel the need to breakaway from the situation when you encourage them to resume “normal life.”
At times it my seem like they are looking for reasons to get upset and their reactions may seem disproportionate. Parents may also notice an increase in hurtful language to those around the child.
Changes in their routines
Typical signs of anxiety are issues emerging around changes in food and appetite, or sleep routines.
Parents should also pay attention to significant changes in eating behaviors, including loss of appetite, pickiness around food or extra comfort eating. One of the best things parents can do is to compare their child’s past behaviors and routines to their present behaviors. It is developmentally appropriate for children to experience some of these behaviors and emotions, but concerns begin to mount when it interferes with their lives on a daily basis and/or in significant ways.
Bedtime patterns may change with sleep disturbances, nightmares, waking in the night and insomnia. Children may have trouble falling or staying asleep or end up sleeping more during the day.
It is recommended that parents make sure that there is a schedule for the day. Children love structure because it safe and predictable.
Nervousness
An increase in nervousness and concern is another sign of post-pandemic anxiety. Kids may be demonstrate a general sense of an inability to relax.
One way to identify this when your child is asking the same questions over and over again. Questions could generally be about school or their community. They may have lots of questions about the process and procedures around going back to school. Basic curiosity is good but it is different when they worry about things that we can not control.
Meanwhile, other children may feel very eager to return to school and in-person social interactions. These emotions can create strong feelings of anticipation, which often feels like anxiety. Parents can help children understand and manage worry through regular check-ins to get them comfortable talking about it.
Helping Them Cope
As with all signs of anxiety, parents can support their children by encouraging them to share their feelings, providing a safe space for honest expression and taking a calm, nonjudgmental stance.
Helping children connect their physical experience in their body with their emotional experience is a critical skill that will benefit them long term. Parents can ask their children how they are feeling in their bodies. Some examples of a child’s reply might be butterflies in the stomach, sweaty hands, shaky legs. Then the parents can help the child connect this feeling to an emotion. So a parent might say, “Sometimes when I have butterflies in my stomach, it’s because I am feeling nervous about something.”
A parent can also, ask open-ended questions to deepen your understanding of your child’s anxiety triggers, and normalize your child’s worries so that they do not feel alone. Really let them tell you how they are feeling. Don’t ask, “Are you sad? Are you upset?”
Providing children with the language to better understand their inner feelings allows them to connect with what they’re feeling and communicate their feelings more effectively. Parents can use an emotions wheel with their children to help them identify and label specific emotions.
The key is naming and validating the emotion and normalizing the experience to make it clear feelings aren’t “bad” but acknowledge that they can be uncomfortable and challenging.
Once the feeling is identified, then the parent and child can work together to come up with a plan or a scoping skill for what the child can do when they are having that emotion. Helping children feel that they can cope with an emotion can reduce the power that emotion will have over the child.
Parents can help their children cope with anxiety by listening and encouraging them to share their feelings.
