8 Ways to Ease Your Child’s Back-to-School Anxiety

Ndidi Adekunle

After a fantastic Summer holiday, schools are bound to resume. For some children, returning to school to tell friends and schoolmates their exciting holiday stories is enough motivation. However, for others, getting back into that regular, seemingly drab routine of school, daily, is not such a cool idea.

Find a few tips to help them along:

1.) Visit: Take your child on a visit to his school prior to resumption date. If possible, get to meet the new teacher with your child, and establish a friendly rapport.

2.) Get Familiar with Special Rooms: Have her look around, sit in and get a good feel of as many special rooms as possible, like the playground, Science room, library and the likes. This will go a long way in helping her get in sync with the school environment afresh. You may even find that some rooms have moved venue, making your child quite delighted to be one of the first to know of the new venues. She can then help with giving other children directions when school eventually resumes. Talk about getting a good ‘head start’ on things!

3.) Talk To Him: Emphasise the fun things about school over and over again, and weave them into conversations with him at every opportunity. For instance, his friends, favourite clubs, and whatever else you know he loved about school in the previous terms. If you sound excited about it, he will pick up the vibes and start to feel good about resuming school.

4.) Be There For ‘School Runs’: If possible, make yourself available for ‘school runs,’ at least for the first few weeks after school resumes. Nothing helps a child settle in quite like a parent who’s present to help the child work through the anxieties he experiences at the beginning of a new school session.

5.) Prepare together: This helps to put your child in the right frame of mind early on, way before school resumes. Going back-to-school shopping with him for instance and having him help in picking out things he needs for school should make him eager about returning to school.

6.) Newbie: For a toddler who’s going to be enrolling in a school for the first time, it also helps for her to take something along with her from home, say a favourite stuffed toy or two, on each casual visit. On the d-day of school, you can ask the teacher to help her keep the toys for the first few days (just something familiar she can look to for comfort, when she needs it). Soon enough, she will be ready to let the toys go, once she has made new friends and become familiar with her environment.

7.) Eliminate Real Fears: Ensure to eliminate the chances of any real fears like bullies, or any form of abuse. Be sure that his fears are but imaginations and not real at all. If you discover that they’re real, however, work with the school to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that you child feels comfortable. Otherwise, it might be time to move your child to another school.

8.) Entrust Him To God: Build the issue of back-to-school anxiety into your family prayers and even bedtime prayers. Do make sure that your prayer ‘linguo’ is affirmative, not sad, as your child is bound to pick up on your own vibes, whether positive or negative. For instance, give thanks for a great new term ahead, full of fun, many friends, great activities like so and so, academic successes, you name it. In the end, it will all have been worth it, trust me.