Many of my friends are asking what they can do to reduce the anxiety they feel when back to school time rolls around. It has become such a topic of conversation that I thought I’d share some tips here.

First what a parent needs to do is determine what their own (the parent’s) beliefs are around their children returning to school.

Here are a couple of questions that a parent can ask themselves:

Does the idea of homework provoke anxiety in me?

With the resumption of school am I finding myself feeling anxious about getting everyone out of the house on time?

Since my son/daughter will be entering high school, am I fearful of the peer pressure my son/daughter will be faced with to participate in drugs or alchol use?

You see, it is the stories that the parent is telling themselves about what their child can expect to experience in the returning to school process that is really the driving force behind the anxiety the children feel.

Children learn from their parents what anxiety is. Kids are not anxious by nature. It is a learned pattern of behavior.

When a parent can begin to control their own anxiety-their own story about what their kids will experience then the whole experience shifts in really big ways.

Once a parent can acknowledge that they are connecting to a really old story; an old belief pattern that they learned from their own parents, they can ask themselves, is this MY story or is it my childs story?

So if a parent can ask the questions and go a bit deeper into the why’s behind their feellings:

Does the idea of homework provoke anxiety in me? Why? What was homework time like in my house as a kid? Did I get the support I needed? Did I feel like nobody wanted to help me do my homework? Was getting straight “A’s” all that mattered in my house? Am I overcompensating and making the homework my homework instead of letting my child do their best?

What can a parent do to ease the anxiety that they are creating for themselves and their children?

They can begin to create their own new beliefs around back to school. They can begin to model more positive behavior for their kids. Doing so becomes like a huge ripple effect. Soon the parent finds that their own anxiety level has decreased which will decrease the anxity level in the household.