10 steps to avoiding back to school anxiety

Be prepared

Get everything prepared well in advance of your child starting school: get her involved in sticking name labels on her pencil case, lunchbox and drinking bottle, and make sure all her uniform is properly labelled, right down to her shoes and socks.

You’ll be amazed how quickly things can get mislaid, and -unless they’re marked - how hard it can be to get them back!

Being ready ahead of schedule will make you and your child feel less anxious than if you’re scrabbling around the night before her big day, trying to find all the relevant bits and pieces.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Get the timings right

Get the timings right on the first day: if you arrive too early your child will have plenty of time to become clingy and try to persuade you why he can’t go to school that day; leave it too late and your panic will transfer to your child.

Similarly, don’t prolong the goodbyes. Give him a kiss, tell him to have a lovely time (in your cheeriest voice and with a big smile on your face), then say goodbye and leave.

Don’t get too upset if he tries to cling on to you or sobs all the way inside: the teaching staff are well used to this happening and will have some clever strategies for settling upset children. Chances are he’ll come running out at the end of the day, full of excitement and waving his first painting in his hand!

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Help out with friend-making

If your child isn’t too adept at making friends, give her a helping hand. It’ll help if you can make friends with some of the other mums at the school gates, and perhaps ask one or two back with their children for tea after school to discover who she gets on best with.

Avoid one-to-ones at first, which she might feel awkward – unless, of course, she suggest it first.

Let your child’s teacher know if she’s very shy: there are lots of things the staff can do to foster new friendships and socialise reluctant children.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Take a step back

Expect a bit of regression when your ‘baby’ starts school for the first time. He’ll be expected to behave in a more grown-up way than he’s used to all day, and may not be able to keep it up once he’s home where he feels safe and unconditionally loved.

Be prepared to baby him a bit with lots of cuddles and reassurances. He might enjoy curling up with one of his favourite toddler books or watching a much-loved DVD together.

On the downside, he may start wetting the bed at night again, sucking his thumb or wanting his old comforter back. Bear with him, don’t make a fuss, treat him with sympathy and allow him to find his way forward again in his own time.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Grant them independence

Making the move to high school is a really big step for most children, but also heralds the beginning of new-found independence.

If your child wants to make her own way to school, practice the journey with her several times over the summer holidays, and if she is going to be using public transport, give her some contingency arrangements for if services are cancelled or delayed.

Suggest coming with her (or trailing her from a distance if she prefers!) the first day or so, or see if someone she knows will be taking the same journey so they can go together.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Help out with homework

With high school comes homework – and usually plenty of it. Help your child to keep on top of it by providing him with a wipe-clean weekly planning board. This way he can write up what needs doing and when by, then rub things out as he completes them.

It’ll help him feel more organised as well as giving him a sense of achievement each time the list gets smaller. If he’s finding it hard to cope with the volume of work at first, consider undertaking some of the less learning-based tasks yourself, such as finding a newspaper story; doing a little internet research; colouring in a chart or cutting and pasting.

He’ll soon pick up the pace and want to do things for himself.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

Be positive

If your child finds herself in a new class where she’s separated from all her good friends, as does happen in some schools, approach things with a positive attitude: it’s an opportunity for your child to make more friends amongst her year group; it’ll mean she’s not as easily distracted (at least at first!) and you can assure her that you’ll make more opportunities for her to see her old crowd outside of school – so really it’s a winning situation all round!

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

After-school clubs

If you’re moving to a new school in a new area, your child is going to have to make friends from scratch.

See if you can find out what after-school activities there are in the area and whether some of his new schoolmates attend any of them. You could join him up to one or two so he sees the kids he likes best more often and in other contexts than just school, and this might help him make friendships more quickly.

Keep in touch with his old group and encourage him to invite people for weekends if he wants to.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?

In it together

After a long school holiday, your child may be a bit reluctant or tearful about going back to school. A new year means a new teacher – or teachers – and a different classroom environment, so a few nerves are perfectly normal, plus she’s been used to being around you all the time and enjoying long, lazy days.

Reassure her that all her friends will be in the same boat, and start getting her back into more of a term-time bedtime routine a little in advance of the first day of term so she’s not out of her routine or over-tired before she even starts.

Line up a few treats for the first couple of weekends so she has something to look forward to.

See also:

• Do you praise your child too much?
   
• Are you a tiger mother?