Co-Regulating With Your Anxious Child in the New School Year
written by Dr. Liz Nissim, posted on Psychology Today
Here we are again! It’s September, and it’s back-to-school season. This new “season” brings on new routines and… anxiety. For some children, the new year brings on excitement, and for others, it can trigger stress and even resistance to the new routine. This is especially true for our children, teens, and young adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning differences, or anxiety.
As parents, we can often get “lost” in the “what” needs to happen between the end of the summer and the beginning of the school year with school supplies, new sneakers, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. Our children sit with this impending change and often dread the new school year with all of its newness.
What can we do to help our children through this transition? We can learn to regulate our own anxieties about the new school year and the returned demands for completing homework, back-to-school nights, extracurricular practice, and game times, etc.
Our kids are watching. If we can manage our stress and monitor our reactions, our children will use it as a reference point, and instead of worrying, they may be better able to adjust to the transition. That is, instead of mirroring our children’s anxiety about the new school year, let’s counteract it by finding ways to ease into the new school year.
Co-regulation = when our children, teens, and young adults learn how to manage stress by watching and feeling how their caregivers respond. When parents stay regulated, children feel safer and more capable of handling challenges.
Here are three ways we can model calm behavior to support our children’s, teens’, and young adults’ emotional growth.
Regulate Thyself
Kids often mirror their parents’ emotional state. If we rush, yell, or are visibly anxious, our children interpret the situation and upcoming activity as stressful. This also revs up your child’s nervous system, and the underlying message is: “This is not a safe situation/activity.”
- If your child is showing visible signs of anxiety or is having a meltdown, take a big breath and ground yourself.
- Speak slowly to your child with a lower-medium volume as this communicates the message, “I’ve got this, and we’ve got this.”
You can make statements such as: “I know this feels stressful, so let’s take a deep breath together before we get ready to leave for soccer.” This says, “I see you, and let’s calm our bodies together.”
As parents, prepare in advance. For example, if you know your child is going to need their football uniform on Wednesday, wash it in advance. Make lunches the night before. Pack up backpacks the night before and choose clothing for the morning. The more that can be done in advance, the less you have to look for or put together before you have to walk out your door.
