How to identify and ease your child’s back to school anxiety

Jody Coffey

Every September can bring a fresh set of worries for kids.

Even as adults, we remember this feeling.

While excitement would build around seeing our friends, that unexplainable niggling pit in your stomach would begin to crop up when talk of going back to school started.

When you liken this to starting a new job or college course as an adult, it’s totally fair that a kid or young person may be experiencing anxiety around early starts, more advanced schoolwork, or even new classrooms.

However, there is a way to identify and approach your child’s back-to-school anxiety before the final few days of summer ring out.

According to Young Minds UK, there are a number of factors that contribute to this type of anxiety.

Making friends, schoolwork, learning styles, and difficult teacher relationships could be sending your young person into anxiety mode as the academic year is upon them.

External factors such as bereavement, illness in the family, or being a young carer can also seep into their school life, making going back seem much worse than it should be.

A child or young person who struggles with their mental health and has a neurodiverse condition such as ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, or dyslexia may also find returning to school an anxiety-inducing experience.

Signs of Back to School Anxiety

Sometimes it can be difficult for a child or young person to communicate their inner struggles, but there are some ways to detect if some academic anxiety is at play for your school-goer.

These include:

Not wanting to get up and get ready.
Saying they can’t go.
Worrying a lot about small issues, such as having the right equipment for a lesson.
Feeling sick, or having stomach aches or headaches.
Not sleeping well.
Not doing schoolwork, or their grades dropping.
Being angry or upset, or acting out – at school or at home.
Withdrawing – seeming low, quiet or depressed.

Identifying that there is an underlying problem around your child’s relationship with school is key to addressing the issue, and you’ll be in a stronger position to help make those necessary changes with them towards a happy and healthy school life.

How You Can Approach It

The Anxiety Iceberg technique is a proven method to encourage them to open up and talk about their school anxiety or any other anxieties or worries.

This clever communication tool involves having you or your child draw some images or write some simple words on an iceberg (the iceberg can be drawn or printed; it doesn’t matter).

With older children or teens, writing key words or phrases on the iceberg about school or other topics can be useful for pinpointing its root cause.

Mind maps are always especially powerful in unveiling inner struggles. Try writing ‘school’ in the middle, and then ask them to write down the things they’re finding stressful about their learning environment.

This may reveal school worries that are unique to your offspring and that you can begin working on to make school better and easier for them.

Remember, a problem shared is a problem halved.

The results that are yielded from this exercise will determine what course of action you, as a parent or guardian, will take next.

Nobody knows your child or young person better than you, and the steps that follow may vary from talking to their teacher to more permanent changes such as changing schools or anything in between.

If you require assistance or advice, more information on child and adolescent mental health can be found on the HSE website.