Does Your Child Have "Back to School" Anxiety? Here's Some Tips!

Tips for Helping your Child Deal with the Anxiety Often Associated with Returning to School

By Lata K. McGinn, PhD: Co-Founder, Cognitive Behavioral Consultants in White Plains and Professor, Yeshiva University

Returning to school in the fall can bring excitement as well as stress and anxiety for many children. There are several things parents can do to help their children ease back into the new school year and deal with the anxiety that often accompanies that first day and even those first few weeks.

1) Help your child know that feeling anxious about going back to school is normal and don’t minimize how they feel. Don’t say, “don’t worry, it will be fine.” Instead say, “it is normal to feel some anxiety about going back to school. Everyone feels it to some extent. Anxiety is a protective emotion and it will help you prepare and get ready for school, and it will pass when you adjust to being back at school.”

2) Help them understand what the purpose of anxiety is and to listen to it rather than push the anxiety away. Say “anxiety is like an unpleasant but helpful alarm, so the alarm will keep on ringing and get louder until you figure out what it is alarming you to do and then you do it.”

3) Help them figure out what is making them concerned or anxious, so they can talk to themselves in a way that will help them to cope with it. Ask them to pay attention to what is going through their minds when they get anxious and come up with helpful things to say to themselves. If the anxiety is saying, “I am starting high school and I will not do well and won’t get into a good college,” help them to say something like, “I am understandably anxious about starting high school and am worried that I won’t do well but that doesn’t mean I actually won’t do well. I just need to make sure I prepare in advance, organize my work, make sure I have enough time to study, take away all distractions when I study, and get support when I need it.”

4) Help them gradually approach all the things that are making them anxious rather than avoiding what is making them anxious about school. If seeing their friends is making them anxious, and they are avoiding seeing them or thinking about meeting them at school, help them to create a fear ladder and slowly climb it. Say, “how about you call Matt to see if he can meet up before school, and then after that, you could meet again and include Jack and Alex too?”

5) Do something academic to prepare because the brain drain is real over the summer. If they are weak on a subject, get a tutor for a few weeks or use online forums like the Khan Academy or Crash course (a YouTube channel led by “Fault in our Stars” author John Green and his brother Hank Green) to help them prepare. It will help them get a refresher and build their confidence.

6) Help them to focus on positive things about going back to school as well. Ask them if they are looking forward to any aspect of going back to school. If seeing their friends is something they feel good about, say things like, “it will be nice to catch up with Jane. You have so much to tell her.” Of course, if seeing their classmates is anxiety provoking, pick another topic.

About Cognitive & Behavioral Consultants, LLP

CBC is a center comprised of internationally recognized mental health professionals who have researched, pioneered, and are highly experienced in delivering cutting edge evidence-based treatments that help adults, adolescents, and children live more fulfilled lives. Founded in 2004 by Drs. Lata K. McGinn and Alec L. Miller, leaders in the fields of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, the CBC team provides a large array of Clinical and Wellness services to the public, provides Custom Designed Programs for schools, agencies, and businesses, and Continuing Education for Professionals in the field of psychology. More information can be found at www.cbc-psychology.com.

Dr. Lata K. McGinn

Lata K. McGinn, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder of Cognitive Behavioral Consultants. She is also a tenured Professor of Psychology, Director of the Doctoral Clinical Program, and Director of the University-based Cognitive Behavior Therapy Training Program for Anxiety and Depressive Disorders at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. McGinn presents her research worldwide and is regularly invited to conduct keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops throughout the world to professionals, consumers, schools, agencies, and companies. Her research focuses on vulnerability and prevention of anxiety and depressive disorders. She has recently developed an intervention to prevent the development of depression and has tested the efficacy of this intervention in a NIH funded research study.