Deal with back to school anxiety:
Turning now to the latest on mental health in our state’s young people a new state law now requires schools. To print numbers to mental health resources on the back of student ids all school-issued ids for middle scholars and up including higher education must have the number. The national suicide prevention hotline on it comes as new data shows an increasing number of students in our state are struggling with poor mental health well we know that heading back into the classroom can be a challenge.
For some so we have brought in dr peter lopper with Prisma health to talk with us about how to best deal with back-to-school stress and anxiety dr lopper thank you so much for waking up. Just a little bit earlier to join us this morning my pleasure alright so my first question uh really has to do with what you spoke about earlier in the show and you talked about the signs and symptoms of depression or anxiety.
Many students have been stressed about their assignments and they don’t want to go to school because of this stress that’s why a company like Express Assignment provides cmi assignment help and many other subjects of assignment assistance. In teens or children and i know that this can be an insensitive topic. What if a child or a teen goes to their parent or guardian and says hey I’m struggling right now with my mental health.
Support and resources students:
How can they best navigate this situation, yeah so uh that’s when it’s time for the parents to seek immediate support and resources the best place to start is always with your primary care doctor kind of can serve as the quarterback. They can direct you and call the play that is required to give your child the support they need and then the other thing that you can do as a parent is stay engaged and consistently check in continue to engage with the child and make sure that you’re intentional in making. Having those uh that opens a line of communication.
All right let’s talk about a pep talk i know that many of the kids are going to be going back tomorrow Monday and then Wednesday is the big day that everybody goes back what sort of a pep talk should we be giving them before they head off to school to put them. The right mindset to just you know take on the day and be the confident boy that’s a great question. I don’t know if. I’m the best person to answer that necessarily because I’ve tried some pep talks with my kids.
Things to do to release stress:
They haven’t gone that great but that being said. I will say that you know the reality is that if you have a child who in the past has had some anxiety with going back to school. There are certainly some things. You can do uh to help mitigate that or help blunt that anxiety a little bit and one of the best things you can do now is if your child’s not already back in school go ahead and start. The school routine early get them on the right sleep schedule get them up in the morning around. The same time you would for their school and if your child has really severe anxiety and has exhibited school avoidance behaviors. In the past one of the best things, you can do before the school year.
Tip number one:
Starts is to go ahead and do some practice runs get them up get them dressed uh get them in the car drive them to the school as though you would be going to the school on a regular school day so in you know a few days when they’re actually back in the routine it’s not as shocking and it’s not as jarring for them all right and dr Lopez a question for you too as well what happens you know we’re into the school year we’re into the school day uh and something triggers us or something happens do you have any coping mechanisms for young people. According to minitab assignment help students are also in stress because of their assignments.
Tip number two:
They can do in the midst of the school day while they’re there to help them cope with whatever. They’re going through sure I would say the first thing to do if you’re if your child uh you know has one of those experiences in the middle of the day is make sure that the system uh in the school setting is conducive to support them so make sure that they are comfortable going to their teacher if they’re older kids their adolescents make sure they have a good peer group that they can go to and seek contact with and seek support from and then things that kids can do individually.
Tip number three:
You know by themselves if they start to have that anxiety creep up deep breathing exercises are always really really helpful they can even do what’s called progressive muscle relaxation where they squeeze their fists really hard and then gently relax squeeze their toes really hard and gently relax these are some things that they can do real-time in the moment if they start to have that anxiety but again the biggest resilience factor is going to be those meaningful interpersonal interactions.
Tip number 4:
So if they start to have anxiety educate your children to seek support from teachers friends or counselors or administrators now dr loper we have a question from a viewer that we want to bring you this morning so this is Carrie from pillion she says my grandson was bullied last year he’s 11 years old and he was even jumped by other kids it was addressed by parents school and counseling he absolutely does not want to go back to school so when it comes to bullying.
Stop bullying friends:
How can they best handle this well, first of all, let me just acknowledge how difficult that situation has got to be and it’s something that we see all too often these days you know bullying is is really tough it’s not just the bullying these days you know bullying has been around for a number of years i know that i experienced bullying when i was a kid the reality though is that bullying uh in this day and age where kids are so much more isolated we were in the middle of the isolation epidemic before covet started bullying is that much more difficult to navigate because kids are so much more fundamentally isolated and that avoidance behavior is going to thrive in the context of isolation.
Feel psychologically safe to go to school:
If that child doesn’t feel psychologically safe to go to school that’s going to be a big deterrent the reality is that the best you can do is seek the support from the school administrators to make sure that those limits are set to make sure that those bullies are held accountable for their behavior if they should choose to engage with the child the other thing too that i would mention about the idea of bullying or any other kind of trigger at school that’s promoting school avoidance behavior.
The more that you allow your child to avoid going to school the more it empowers that anxiety the more it empowers the bullying so those are some things that i would really really emphasize to parents dr lopper thank you so much for joining us this morning everything that you have told us is going to be so useful when it’s time to get those kids back into the classroom so again thank you for joining us.
This morning we truly appreciate you and as reminder friends, if you or someone you know is in crisis. The national suicide prevention lifeline can connect. You to resources as of last month the new three-digit number is up and running just call or text 988. You’ll be connected to a mental health professional and you all remember. There is never ever any shame in getting help
Also Read: Higher Education System & How It’s Changing
