Helping kids with back-to-school worries

Michael Broadstock: 

Hi everyone and welcome back to season three of isPodcast, ISV’s show for schools and the wider community. I'm Mike Broadstock.  

On today's episode, Natalie Moutafis talks with Emma-Rose Parsons from Spectrum House. Emma-Rose is a psychologist, speaker and board approved supervisor working in both private clinical practice and in schools. She's passionate about assisting educators, children and their families. She spoke to Natalie about how teachers and parents can prepare and assist their children for the new school year. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Hi Emma-Rose and welcome to isPodcast. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Thank you. It's so fun to be here today. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

We're so lucky to have you. Now it is the start of 2023 and we're thinking back to school. So, we've got you on board today to have a chat about back-to-school anxiety and some tips and tricks that you might have up your sleeve for our teachers and possibly our students. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah, and I think that one of the things that is really interesting about 2023, as we've, you and I have had a little bit of a behind the scenes chat about, is just that we haven't really had a usual start to the year in quite a while now. I mean, we expected that last year was going to be a usual start to the year, but really it wasn't.  

This year is looking a little bit more as you would expect, but it's been a long time. So, we don't really have this start of the year head space that kids can jump into. And some kids actually have never had a regular start to the year. It's been three years in a row of quite bizarre starts to the year. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

That's right. They would never have done it. All of a sudden, they're like, hang on, we don't have a delay. We've got to go and start normally. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. So, I think this year's is its own little set and scene really, because it's going to be a little bit different for almost everyone, for many teachers and of course, for many students. So, I think one of the things to expect is the unexpected, because we just don't really know how some of our students are going to feel going back to school this year. And I think that that's probably a really nice starting place to expect the unexpected.  

A couple of quick little things really, is number one, expect kids to be tired. Having to learn all of the social rules again and having a change. Change for most people is pretty tiring, even if it's positive change. Change itself requires a lot of thinking. It requires a lot of analysing of social information, as well as new environment, new classroom, new teacher, new rules, new expectations. And that takes its toll. 

So even though we've hopefully come back from a bit of a relaxing or a fun, or at least a slower paced holiday, coming into the school year, generally speaking, is actually quite tiring. So, I think that would probably be my first thing, is just to be aware of that tiredness and don't overpack the first month of school.  

So, if there's an option to start some sports or some of those extracurricular activities for students a little bit later, that would be ideal. And I would try and just get those first few weeks to be as bland as you possibly can. It sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Make it bland. But they're so much new already. We don't really need to layer that any more than we already have. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah, find that new routine again first before adding to it. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. So, I don't know, I think bland thoughts for that first few weeks. I think the next thing is try not to make it more exciting than it needs to be. So, any extreme emotions are going to take more energy than the ho-hum, right? So sometimes, I feel like there's an expectation that it's “going to be exciting and it's going to be amazing! Let's make this the best year ever!”  

But that actually sets expectations and it sets energy up that may not necessarily be helpful. So, coming into the year and having it calm and cruisey, oh, I keep falling back into that bland land, but that calm and cruisey is actually really helpful rather than feeling we need to hype up the start of the year. 

And that same reflection can be helpful for parents to know as well, like, oh, are you excited about a new year? Well, some kids genuinely really are not, and so they might even be quite apprehensive or they might have lots of different feelings about the year. Some kids are dragging their feet into the year. So, trying not to over hype the start of the year can also be another trick. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And whether that go easy and slow. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. Yeah, just slow it all down a little bit. So, expect tiredness, do less, go slower, be blander. Gosh, I can't believe I said that out loud. Be blander. Anyway, I think you guys know what I mean. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

We do. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

And then I think one of the other big ones is the social expectations. A lot of families during the holiday period will actually bunker down. They'll spend quite a lot of time with just their immediate family or some periods of time with extended family or with friends, but then come back to their immediate families again. And so you're going from these smaller groups back into the big school environment where there's a much higher pace of social expectations. And so I think where you can, breaking your classrooms into smaller groups to replicate that smaller environment, is actually also really helpful. 

So rather than doing whole class activities, looking at where are some options for me to do some small groups right from the get-go. And even keeping those small groups consistent for a couple of weeks, just to allow those connections to happen with less social noise, if you will.  

So that can be another way of easing into the year and reducing anxiety through not having so many expectations. I mean at the end of the day, one of the things that creates a lot of anxiety is too many expectations that you can't manage concurrently. So, if we're not trying to manage huge numbers of people and new rooms and new rules and new social expectations and all the other co-curricular activities, we are less likely to overwhelm our students and they're more likely to cope. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

That's a really good tip. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. So less, right? 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

I think one of the tricky things we've got that's on the back of the last few years is we have a lot of kids at the moment, a lot of students who are genuinely also anxious. So, they have diagnosed anxiety disorders or they have diagnosed anxiety related concerns. And so you've got a much, much higher cohort of students coming into school this year who have got an anxiety background.  

Now, there are obviously individual nuances as to how to help those students, but one of the things that's going to be the best is clear and kind.  

So, clear expectations and that can be set out even before they arrive at school. Okay, where are you going to be putting your bag? Where are you going to be sitting? Where that information is really key.  

And uncertainty, can obviously increase anxiety. So, if there are opportunities for you to ask your students, okay, what is it that you don't know that's going to be helpful for you that I can fill you in on some of the gaps? Are you really worried about when camp's going to be? 

Are you really worried about how you're going to manage the workload of the year? Are you worried about who you're going to be sitting next to? Are you worried about the fact that you haven't got a friend in your class this year? What is it that's on your mind that I can help problem solve with you? Because when we move into that problem solving land, that problem solving head space, the part of our brain that's going to calm down a little bit is that anxiety part of the brain. So, problem solving is a really great antidote, if you will, to some of those anxiety feelings. 

So, I'd highly recommend that if you can identify any students who you think are likely to return to school with a preexisting anxiety concern, that you preload them with information that may be relevant to their specific concerns, even if it's creating a little word document that you send out to those particular students with “Okay, write down your top five worries. I'm going to get back to you with some responses to those top five worries and we are going to come up with some ideas or problem solving around those top five worries so that when you come back to school, you know that I've already thought this through with you and we've got some ideas on how we're going to manage those things”. 

So there are going to be definitely students who do arrive in those first couple of weeks or that first day even with some anxiety. And if we can pre- address some of those concerns, it's going to make life a lot easier for those kids, for those students. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And I guess if there's a parent listening to this as well, you could do the flip side of that and reach out to the school or the teacher if you know who it is and just say, my child has expressed these concerns, what do you suggest? How can we help? So, you're tackling it at home before you've started back at school, and then once school's even gone back, it's doesn't go away straight away. So, it's something that's constantly front of mind and you can all come together as a team, I guess, and work on it. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

And look one really simple strategy, and whether you do that at home or whether you do that with your whole class on day one, is get a piece of paper and fold it into thirds. And each third is its own list, if you will. So first one is, what do I know for sure is going to happen this year? 

So, I know that we are going to learn some English strategies. I know we're going to go on camp. I know we're going to do production. I don't know, whatever it's going to be.  

The middle third is what questions do I have? What unknowns do I have? So, I don't know which group I'm going to be in for reading, or I don't know what date camp is, or I don't know if I'm going to be able to cope with acts day, or I don't know how I'm going to manage during that presentation I heard about last year. So, what are the things that you don't know? What are the questions that you have? And then the third category are what solutions can I think of that are going to help me come up with the answers for column two?  

And so that can be, I can ask the teacher, or I can jump on Google and find out. I can ask a student that did this last year, whatever it might be. And what that does, is it clarifies for that student what they know, what they don't know, and also then how can they find out.  

So, it's a nice one page summary and it's also a wonderful thing to then reflect on later and go, hey, look, you had all these questions and these situations that were creating some anxiety for you and look, actually you were able to manage those really nicely by doing this column three.  

So, that's a nice strategy and you can do that at home and you can certainly do that at school. It would be a really lovely one to do, actually. And it can be done privately as well. It doesn't need to be done in a public forum. You don't need to share that with the rest of the class if you don't want to. But it's also really helpful information for the teacher to know. 

Just one other thing on that though, is I find that sometimes there's a really big emphasis for students, particularly when they return to school about all the things that are going to be different in a new year.  

And so for example, that I will focus on the fact that it's a different teacher, and a different class, and it's a different room, and it's different rules, and it's more work. And there's a really strong focus on all the things that are different. And I think sometimes as adults, we almost exacerbate that. We focus on the differences ourselves. 

One of the strategies I've found incredibly effective is actually to flip that and do the opposite, which is look at all the things that are going to be exactly the same. You're still going to get up and have brekky. You're still going to walk to school or drive to school, catch the bus or whatever it is that you do. You're still going to wear a uniform. You're still going to have a snack at snack time. You're still going to have the sick bay if you need it. You're still going to go home at 3:15 or 3:30 or whatever time it is. What are all the things that are exactly the same?  

There's still going to be a box of tissues in the corner. There's still going to be a random plant somewhere in the class. What are all the things that you can predict that are already going to be comfortable predictions for you that this is what will happen. And that can also reduce the anxiety, because it reduces that focus on new, on different, and brings it back to actually, there's heaps of things here that are really predictable for me. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And it's more likely that there's going to be stuff that is the same and predictable and not as much that's new and anxiety driven. That's really a good point. I think even as adults, we can take that on board. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Oh, I think so too, right? I mean, it's amazing how frequently we become worried about change and yet really, there's not much in our world that's so, so, so, so, so different. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah, there's so much that is the same when you take that step back and just change your perspective on it. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. You might have a new teacher for the year, but they'll still- 

Natalie Moutafis: 

You still might see your old teacher in the playground. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Absolutely. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And you'll still see friends. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah. Yeah. The office hasn't moved. The office lady is probably still the same lady. Do you know, there's probably lots that is still exactly the same. And so just to remember that and to focus on some of the things that are going to be exactly the same, or really similar. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So basically, we're thinking do less, expect less, be bland, and let's just manage those social expectations a little bit and think about maybe some smaller classroom work in those first few weeks to help everyone ease back into that chaotic feeling sometimes of having so many people around, especially when we've had potentially some quiet time at home with our families in our little secluded networks, I guess. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Those smaller safe groups, yeah. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah. Yeah. Let's just hope we all have a wonderful year ahead. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

Yeah, absolutely. And good luck for 2023 everyone. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Thanks so much Emma-Rose. 

Emma-Rose Parsons: 

No worries. 

Michael Broadstock: 

isPodcast is brought to you by Independent Schools Victoria. It's produced by Duncan MacLean and presented by Shane Green, Natalie Moutafis, and me, Michael Broadstock. Our podcast theme was composed and performed by Duncan. There are transcripts of our show with links to what we've discussed at podcast.iseducation.com.au. Please follow us wherever you get your favourite podcast, and while you're there, we'd love it if you could rate and review the show so more people can find us, just like you.