4 Ways to support your anxious child with worries about back-to-school and beyond

By Dr. Marina Heifetz, C.Psych

It’s back-to-school time! We may experience a great mixture of emotions during this time, including excitement, relief, and anxiety. It is easy to get stuck on worried thoughts that make us vulnerable to ongoing anxiety.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health conditions. In Canada, there are approximately 9% of children and 11-19% of adolescents that experience anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are often exhibited through both physical and emotional symptoms (e.g., stomach aches, sleep difficulty, and intense feelings of worry or fear). Anxiety may impact a child’s ability to connect socially as well as perform academically.

It can be challenging to know what to do during these high anxiety times. While connecting with a healthcare team is important, below are some practical tips that can add to your own understanding and approach as a parent.

1) Helping your child recognize the anxiety: Sometimes words may elude us and it is challenging to express our mixed emotions and anxiety that may be there during this transition time. It is important to help your child notice that the intensity of their emotions may be higher when they are attending school and normalizing that all feelings are normal. We can do this by helping them notice differences in the way that they have behaved – such as being quieter than usual or, for others, perhaps being more talkative than usual. Sometimes anxiety may appear in ways we don’t expect, such as being irritable and angry with others around them. Other ways to explore emotions is through a Feelings Wheel, which allows us to put words to our emotions.

2)  Supporting your child in expressing and managing their anxiety: Children (and teens!) look to their parents to gauge how to respond in potentially frightening and new situations. It is very easy to go on autopilot and be reactive in the moment without realizing how powerful our responses are. For instance, sometimes we may be overprotective and allow our child to go home if they are feeling overwhelmed, rather than sticking it out. It is a very tricky balance to protect our child while also allowing them to sit with discomfort. Yet, allowing children to experience the discomfort that comes with anxiety, while receiving empathy and encouragement from those around them, can be a powerful way for children to learn to manage their anxiety. For example, we may say “I can see how nervous you are about going to school and meeting new people, and I know that you can handle it.”

Parents modeling their own calm and how they may cope with anxiety is a helpful way to support their children in learning to manage anxiety. For instance, we may verbalize our thinking pattern: “I am worried about presenting my project to the team tomorrow, and I know I’ve worked hard on it and I think it looks good. I also remember my team appreciating my presentations before.” In this way, we are modeling flexible thinking, rather than spiraling in the anxious mindset.

3) Learning to center our mind through breathing practices: At the end of the day, some anxiety is normal. Both children and parents may benefit from ongoing ways to center their mind each day. For instance, paying attention to our breathing can help us shift attention and stay centered in the present moment. We breathe approximately 20,000 times a day, yet we generally don’t attend to these breaths. When we feel anxious, our breathing quickens. To activate our parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation response), we can take deep, slow breaths through our diaphragm. Another way to focus on our breathing is through Box breathing, where we breathe in for four, hold the breath for four, and breathe out for four repeatedly.

4) Learning to “anchor” ourselves through “ACE”: At times of intense emotions, it may be challenging to focus specifically on our breathing or, for that matter, on anything else around us. Dr. Russ Harris, a well-known Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practitioner and trainer, developed a beautiful ‘dropping anchor’ exercise to help us connect back to what matters to us and stay in the present moment, so that the ‘storm’ does not sweep us away. This exercise can be particularly helpful during moments of panic, though of course it can be used as a way to also prepare ourselves for any storm that may come our way. There are 3 steps involved in this exercise (‘ACE’):

A: Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings. This can be done by silently noticing and being curious (without judgement) what may be showing up for you.

C: Come back into your body. In other words, connect back to your physical body, such as pushing feet into the floor, pressing fingertips together, straightening spine, stretching arms, shrugging shoulders. The aim here is to continue to acknowledge thoughts and feelings, while also being connected to the body.

E: Engage in what you’re doing. You can do this by using your senses and exploring your environment. For instance, looking around the room and noticing 5 things you can see, 3 or 4 things you can hear, things you can smell or taste.

Remember that this ACE exercise can be practiced any time and anywhere.

If you feel like you or your child may need more support in managing anxiety or school-related worries, our team is happy to help. We also have an anxiety group for children coming up that may be a good way to build some good foundations for your child in managing their anxiety.