DALLAS – Going back to school is very different for students in 2018 than for any generation before. Violence is no longer a fight in a hallway or the cafeteria. More than two dozen students died in school shootings between January and May of this year.
Bullying can and does happen anywhere and everywhere, not just in class, but on social media. “One of the most important things in anyone’s life, regardless of age, is safety,” said Nicholas Westers, a clinical psychologist for Children’s Health and assistant professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Westers sees certain triggers that cause stress when a school year starts: pressure to fit in socially, perform academically, excel in athletics or other extracurricular activities, and the overarching concern about safety.
He said it’s important for parents to remember what it was like when they started a new year because that can help build empathy, but it’s also important to not dismiss a child’s fears. Don’t ask, “How was school?” Westers said, because your child will answer with, “Fine.”
“But ask, going into school, ‘What are you most looking forward to? What are you least looking forward to? What are you most nervous about?’ And then listen,” he said.
“Don’t tell them that they have nothing to worry about because that’s not very validating, even if it is true, it doesn’t feel good,” he said. “Open the conversation and talk more about what they’re worried about.”
It’s vitally important for parents to model healthy coping strategies for dealing with their own stress and anxiety, Westers said. “Teach them what you do. Like, ‘I take deep breaths, in through my nose out through my mouth, I’ll think about positive images, like when we went to the beach as a family.’”
If anxiety seems to last beyond a month or begins to affect a child physically – such as them losing sleep or getting sick or refusing to go to school – Westers said it’s important to see a doctor.
Parents should also remember that a certain amount of anxiety does have a positive function. “That’s what gets us to study for a test and do well and to prepare for school, or adults to prepare for work or a presentation,” he said.
“It’s important for parents to tolerate some distress that they see in their child rather than fix it all the time,” he said. “When it’s a safety concern, yes, of course, fix it. When it’s typical anxiety, we don’t want to rescue our kids from that, but teach them how to cope with that anxiety and stress to move forward in the future.”