How to deal with school anxiety
New shoes. New timetable. New teachers. A pristine pencil case that will somehow contain three broken pens and no ruler by October.
For many children and young people, going back to school after the summer holidays brings excitement, nerves and perhaps a little reluctance to swap late mornings for early alarms.
But for some, those nerves feel much bigger. September feels bigger than a new pencil case.
That’s school anxiety, and it isn’t the same as not fancying the alarm clock. It’s the difference between grumbling about Monday and dreading the building.
As a parent, it can be difficult to know what to do.
What school anxiety looks like
It rarely announces itself. The signs parents tend to notice first are:
- getting quieter, or more irritable, or more easily upset
- trouble sleeping, or waking early
- stomach aches and headaches, often worst on a school morning
- suddenly finding lots of reasons why going back feels impossible
- tears one day, anger the next
Any one of these on its own might be nothing. Several at once, in a child who was fine a few weeks ago, is worth paying attention to.
School anxiety doesn’t always say “I’m anxious”.
It might say:
“My stomach hurts.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Everyone hates me.”
“I’m not going.”
And sometimes it says nothing at all during the school day. Some children hold everything together for six hours and fall apart the moment they get through the front door. That isn’t bad behaviour. It’s a child who used up everything they had getting through the day.
It’s usually not about school
School anxiety often isn’t about school itself.
It might be friendships. A new teacher. Getting changed for PE. Walking into a crowded dining hall. Falling behind. Being bullied. Or simply not knowing what the first day will feel like.
Instead of starting with “You have to go to school”, try:
“What is it about going back that feels difficult?”
They might not know. That’s okay too. Sometimes being listened to without immediately hearing “You’ll be fine” is exactly what a young person needs.
How to help a child with anxiety about school
Make the big thing smaller.
“Going back to school” is huge. Monday morning is smaller. Getting dressed is smaller still.
When anxiety is building, work on the next manageable thing rather than the whole term. Get their uniform ready together. Check the journey. Talk through the first morning. Agree who they’ll meet at the gate. Move bedtimes back towards school nights a bit at a time.
It helps to know which sentences shut the conversation down, too. Reassurance is what most of us reach for first, and it tends to end the conversation rather than open it.
Instead of “You’ll be fine”, try “What would make tomorrow morning easier?”
Instead of “There’s nothing to worry about”, try “That sounds hard. What’s the worst bit?”
You’re not trying to talk them out of the feeling. You’re trying to find out what it’s about.
And if the first morning doesn’t go perfectly? It doesn’t mean the whole term won’t.
When your child won’t go to school at all (school avoidance)
Sometimes it goes further than nerves. A child gets as far as the front door and can’t do it. Or they get to the gates and turn round. Or the morning becomes an hour of negotiation that ends with nobody going anywhere.
This is usually called school avoidance. Your child’s school might call it school refusal, or emotionally based school avoidance, which is the term most councils now use. A lot of people have moved away from “refusal”, because it makes it sound like a choice, and for an anxious child it very rarely is.
School avoidance anxiety works in a loop, and the loop is what makes it stick. Staying home works. It works immediately, and the dread lifts the moment the decision is made. But the relief is short-lived, and the next morning is usually harder rather than easier. The longer a child is out, the bigger school gets in their head.
That doesn’t mean forcing it. Making a child go in without changing anything can make the anxiety worse over time as well.
What helps sits between the two. Small steps, kept up. Going in late rather than not at all. Going in for one lesson. Visiting the building outside school hours. Being on site even if they’re not in the classroom. The aim isn’t a perfect day, it’s that going in stays possible.
That isn’t something to work out on your own, and it isn’t something to give a few weeks and see. If mornings have become a fight, tell the school now.
What to ask your child’s school
Don’t wait until things become unbearable before speaking to school. A teacher, form tutor, pastoral lead or SENCO may be able to help, and most schools would far rather hear from you now than in three months.
Three things worth asking for:
A named adult. One person your child can go to who already knows what’s going on, so they aren’t explaining themselves to a different member of staff every time.
Somewhere to go. A quieter room, the library, an office. Somewhere that isn’t the corridor at break, which for a lot of children is the worst part of the day.
A softer start. Coming in through a side door, arriving five minutes early or five minutes late, or being met at the gate. School-based anxiety is often at its worst before the first bell, and the morning is the easiest part of the day to change.
Ask what they’ve done for other children, too. This is the kind of anxiety schools see every year, and the good ones already have a way of handling it that doesn’t involve you inventing on.
It isn’t only the first week back
We talk about “back-to-school anxiety”, but the UK school year is full of moments when pressure can build.
There are new terms and teachers, friendship changes, parents’ evenings, SATs, options, mocks, GCSEs, A levels and results days, not to mention the Sunday night feeling that can appear throughout the year.
A child who walks happily through the gates in September might find exam season overwhelming.
Rather than thinking of school anxiety as something to “solve”, notice your child’s pressure points. When do things become harder? What do you notice first? What helped last time?
