Soon students will head back to school, many of them for the first time in person since March 2020. Although students, and their parents, may be excited about the return to in-person instruction, they are also experiencing high levels of anxiety as the first day approaches.
I’ve heard various reasons for the anxiety, which are all understandable. Some students haven’t seen most of their peers face-to-face in 18 months. That dynamic will feel awkward. Others have gotten used to virtual learning, and even though it was an adjustment at first, they made it work and now feel comfortable with it. Still others feel like getting back into the routine of being at school all day will be challenging.
Additionally, Virginia is requiring masks in K-12, so school won’t be like it was before. It could be hard to wear a mask for eight hours, except for eating lunch. And since children under 12 can’t be vaccinated, some parents are concerned about their children’s vulnerability to COVID-19, especially with the new Delta variant surging.
With lots of good reasons to be anxious, it’s hard to envision how to manage anxiety around so much uncertainty. However, attempting to do so will assure a good start to the school year and an easier transition to the current version of normal. This blog discusses some strategies to consider, and some ways of thinking about how to approach the uncertainty with courage and confidence.
Validate feelings of anxiety
It’s completely understandable to feel anxious because our hopes of normalcy have been thwarted. It seemed like things were improving, and now there are new threats of a more contagious mutation of the virus, combined with breakthrough infections for vaccinated persons. Vaccinated adults removed their masks earlier this year, but now we’re being told we should wear them anyway. In addition to health concerns and Covid fatigue, we are all stepping lightly back into any semblance of normalcy because we don’t know what’s coming next. Feelings of anxiety can arise around returning to a group, social awkwardness, or fear of let down once we are back in the situation we thought we wanted to resume. Remind yourself and your children that it’s not abnormal.
Teach your children about self-care
Children are never too young to start learning about how to care for their needs. It’s also a good opportunity for parents to use self-care as well. Self-care means everything from eating a good breakfast, to getting a good nights sleep, to saying no to some thing they are offered that they don’t want to do. Perhaps in their world it looks like being honest about what they’re comfortable with and knowing when they feel overwhelmed. For example, some of their peers remove their masks on the playground and your child doesn’t want to, so they keep wearing their mask. Or their peers excitedly play together after not seeing each other for a while, but your child feels overstimulated and anxious around a larger group of students, so they decide to do something else. Teaching them to be comfortable setting boundaries can be tough, but it’s a good lesson to start learning young.
Make home a safe space
After being back at school for seven or eight hours a day, some students may come home feeling exhausted, physically and emotionally. Resist the urge to ask them a lot of questions about their day, but offer them space to talk about how things are going if that would be helpful. Let them have some downtime after the school day, so they can reset after constant stimulation. Give them permission to feel mixed emotions about going back to school. Let home be their haven to reboot and get ready for the next day.
Incorporate mindfulness into the day
Pick a mindfulness app appropriate for children and engage them in some guided meditations to help them cope with stress, reduce anxiety, and get a good nights sleep. My personal favorite app for kids and teens is Smiling Mind, but there are many options to choose from. Set aside 10 or 15 minutes each evening or before bedtime just to sit with your child and do a guided meditation. Often, people get bored or distracted when they are learning how to do mindfulness meditations. But be patient, and be patient with your child. Starting to form this habit will be good for both of you.
Monitor negative thoughts, and help your child
Negative thoughts are a normal part of the brain’s process. We are all capable of them, and we all have them. It isn’t necessary to try to push them away. But too many negative thoughts, overtime, can be destructive to a person’s resilience. Help your child practice identifying negative thoughts, acknowledging that they are only thoughts and they don’t have the ability to predict the future. We can limit the power of negative thinking by acknowledging it, then letting it go. While negative thoughts help us understand how we are feeling, we don’t want to assume they are true. In fact, we want to remember they are often the product of nothing more than being tired or having a bad day.
None of us knows how the next school year will unfold. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, but if we acknowledge what we can control, that will help us deal with the uncertainty. We can control what we are thinking and how it makes us feel. We can take good care of ourselves, and we can allow ourselves to have hope for a positive future.
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash