Advice for a new school year

Grip it, own it, do it

Do we ever lose that “new school year” feeling as September approaches with its raised expectations, anxiety/excitement about the unknown and a shiny new pencil case? We all remember it (imperfectly) from our schooldays, witness it in our children and students and still experience a version of it even if we don’t work in a school setting. There’s a tantalising mix of emotion as we instinctively wish we could stay on holiday forever and yet we look forward to new leaves, fresh starts, resolutions to do our best and hopes that this year so-and-so will leave us alone and Mr Brown will stop playing the comedian card in his effort to excite us in his lessons.

For some, the idea of going back to school slips beyond the anxiety/excitement blend and into anxiety/anxiety/fear. If you are the parent or carer of a child who is really not looking forward to the start of school, how do you tackle this?

Here are some links to other things I’ve written about this:

• I recently reposted an article I wrote for Hodder Education a few years ago

• A piece on school anxiety in relation to No Worries

• Five Ways to Build resilience for a New School Year for Scottish Book Trust

• And my two most relevant books: No Worries and Be Resilient

New thoughts for 2024

Love needs to be tough sometimes. The best path is not always the easiest. And hiding from the things we fear is almost never the best thing to do.

Important note: in what I am about to say, I may seem to be ignoring that fact that some children have a very severe and almost paralysing anxiety about going to school. If your child is in that category, I sympathise greatly and I do realise that it is not as easy as I might appear to make out. You may well need some professional help to enable your child to overcome this.

But many more of you will have children with a perfectly natural - though unpleasant - nervousness and negativity about going back to school or starting a new one. Your children may be expressing their fears in a way that makes you worry for them, in your desire to protect them from discomfort.

Why I say that such nervousness is “perfectly natural”.

The human stress system is set up to make us feel anxious about things that are new or that may be challenging or difficult and that take us out of our “comfort zone” - aka home. When our brain is preparing to do that, it sends the “stress hormones”, adrenalin and cortisol, rushing round our body to make us physically and mentally ready to face whatever this challenge is.

Those stress hormones do the opposite of make us feel comfortable. If we felt comfortable, we wouldn’t be motivated to get off the sofa or out of our beds.

That’s the basic biology of the discomfort or feeling of anxiety.

The psychology is similarly “natural”. There are many reasons why we might naturally be anxious and negative about going back to school after a long holiday:

• We remember the annoying or distressing things that can happen - the people we don’t like, the subjects we find hard or boring, being told what to do all the time.

• We remember the feeling of pressure, rushing, too much to do, not understanding something, realising that we didn’t hear what a teacher just said, having to give a presentation, tests - etc etc etc.

• We remember the smell. Cabbage, usually. Or in my case from the boys’ boarding school I went to, peanut butter on fingers. Ugh.

• We remember how we don’t like going to the toilet at school.

• We worry that we won’t make friends or that friendships have changed.

• Anything new or unfamiliar is less comfortable than something familiar and every new school year brings things that are new and unfamiliar.

• Being around people is alerting and anxiety-inducing, especially for those who tend towards introversion.

• Holidays are supposed to be relaxing - school is not…

Thinking about that, it’s a wonder anyone wants to go back to school! So my first advice is this: having acknowledged the validity and utter reasonableness of being anxious for any or all of the above reasons, let’s now stop thinking about them and let’s now list the positives about going back to school (or work).

Here are some positives but you adapt them to yourself:

• Some experiences at school are GREAT: when you answer a question correctly or get a good mark or a bit of praise; when it’s your favourite subject or teacher; when you sit with your friends; when something funny happens and you all laugh together; when something suddenly makes sense; when it’s your favourite food for lunch; when you get picked for a role you wanted or a new choice comes up in after-school activities; when you get a chance to read a book in the library.

• You are growing, learning, developing - every day.

• Something great might happen this week - maybe even today. If you don’t go in, you’ll never know what could have happened.

• You are building friendships and every day brings a new opportunity to say something to someone that will make a difference to them - and to you.

• You are part of something bigger than you, bigger than your family, bigger than any one or two or three people can construct. And you, small and young as you are, have the chance, every day, to make that something better, kinder, stronger, bigger.

Avoid avoidance

When we are anxious about something that we know we ought to do, the worst strategy is avoidance. When someone has a phobia about something, successful therapy is always built around helping the person feel more comfortable around the feared thing, not avoiding it. It’s called exposure therapy and its one of the most - perhaps the most - trusted and agreed therapies.

Avoidance is a poor response to anxiety because it reinforces the feeling of comfort that comes from avoiding the uncomfortable thing. We want that comfort even more the next time. So it makes the situation progressively worse.

Learning to manage the anxious feelings, on the other hand:

• Reinforces our agency - we can do this

• Leads to a feeling of pride that we were able to do it

• Gives a feeling of reward and of deserving a reward

• And opens our life to the opportunity we would have missed if we had continued to avoid the thing we dislike.

Therefore - and this is the hard bit - your role as a parent or carer when your child does not want to go to school is to facilitate their going to school, not to accommodate their anxiety.

This is critical. It is where the “tough love” comes in. Your child needs to believe that, although they might not feel like going to school, going to school is a) something they need to do and b) something that they can do and survive, even enjoy - or enjoy parts of.

Your job is then to:

• Show them how they can

• Let them do it themselves

• Acknowledge that they did it and can therefore do it again

• Not make a big deal of it - they can do a lot more than merely go to school (although that itself might feel big enough right now)!

How can you achieve this?

Don’t overthink and don’t encourage them to overthink

Adults often spend far too much time encouraging people to think about how they feel. You might be surprised to hear me say that but rumination is not something that helps, other than a brief check-in - “Oh, yes, that’s how I feel - now what am I going to do about it?” Thinking is good but too much thinking can be paralysing. Constantly reflecting on your negative feelings reinforces that you have negative feelings.

So, of course, yes, you want to know how they feel about the new school year but then you want them to focus on everything else that makes life rich and varied, full of everything from mundane tasks and to times to dream; everything from eating to sleeping, friends to family, physical activity and learning a new skill. The act of walking to school is just one small act in one’s life. It’s not something to dwell on.

Keep (them) busy

When we are busy, we don’t have time or headspace to fret. There are all sorts of ways an individual can be busy. It could be a family trip, fun with friends, reading a book, physical activity, baking a cake, shopping, a challenge, planning something. You can’t (shouldn’t) be busy every minute of the waking day but having enough things to do during the day reduces the time spent worrying and also creates opportunity for satisfaction, enjoyment and achievement.

Sometimes any of us might need to be pushed into doing an activity. That’s because worrying about things can lower our mood and energy so we don’t feel like going for a swim or to the cinema with friends. So, be prepared to push. Tough love…

Practical preparation

Although ruminating about the thing you’re worried about isn’t a good idea, practical preparations are. And a lot of this is fun: buying the new stationery or whatever equipment, making those choices, lining it all up, writing your name on it.

The more autonomy you can give your child or teen about this the better. Get them to make the lists, manage the budget, make good choices. Get them to take responsibility and show that you believe they can.

Remember and repeat: this is “just now”

Of the many strategies to combat anxiety that I offer in No Worries, is my favourite mental trick: “This is just now”. It’s very simple. Any time you are experiencing a negative or uncomfortable thought or feeling, you add the words “just now”. So, “I am worried / scared / angry / confused / upset / unhappy with my life / alone / ashamed about…. just now.” It automatically reminds us that feelings and responses change. And that very often we can do something to change them but even if we can’t, they will change.

Celebrate

Can you have a special family meal before the end of the holidays? Can your school-agers plan the food and cook at least some of it? Again, give them as much autonomy as possible. It could turn out to be a great family tradition.

Consider joining with the family of your child or teen’s friend. Inviting other people gives it more energy and fun and dissipates the anxiety that each young person might be feeling. They’re in it together!

You could include a talking point or activity where each person has to say something about a fun or happy memory of the holiday or something they would like to do again next holiday.

Or if a meal doesn’t float your boat, an activity or outing? Something which you could all do again soon if they enjoy it? This gives something to look forward to.

Also, you might plan a fun activity or outing for a week or two after the start of term, again with the aim of having something positive ahead.

In short

Anxiety about going back to school is natural. You probably feel it every time you go back to work after a holiday or illness. But the answer is not to choose not to go back today - or it will be harder tomorrow. The answer is to find ways to do it - and celebrate the benefits when you do.

As a parent your (often difficult) job is to help your child learn the skills to achieve that, to be brave and do the things they fear but know they need to do. If it is too difficult (just now), you may need help but actually you probably don’t need professional help. Not wanting to go back to school is not an illness, though it can be part of a wider anxiety which can occasionally be classed as a disorder requiring treatment. (But that treatment doe not involve avoiding the thing we are anxious about; it involves learning not to be so anxious about it, which comes with practice.)

The even harder thing for parents - but better, in my view - is to do the minimum, not the maximum. As parents we most often want to help our child with everything so they get it right first time, so that they never suffer, never fail. That’s helicopter parenting and it’s very hard to avoid.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to do any of the things you wish out of those I suggest in this article and then to step back and to believe that your child can do this. Trust them. Help them grow from the oxygen of the faith you give them. Let them see that you believe they can do this. You even expect them to.

Good luck to all of you: parents and carers, young people, teachers. I hope your year has wonderful highlights and achievement to feel great about but I hope you can also value the small things, the days that you simply get through or that pass by in a blur. Not every day has to be brilliant, not every lesson will be inspiring and not every person you come across will behave well. That’s life - and if life didn’t have dull or gloomy corners, the sparkly parts wouldn’t be so shiny.

The hill that’s hard to climb has the best view from the top!