How to Reduce Back-to-School Stress

Video Transcript

DR. F. FELICIA FERRARA: Hello! I'm Doctor Felicia, the parent coach and I have been working with children and families for about twenty five years now. I'd like to share with you some important tips on how to prepare your child to go back to school. Every September every family faces this, in some states it's even August, but in any case the first day of school is always very anxious for most children. For one thing they're going to meet new students that they hadn't met before, for another thing they're going to meet a new teacher that they never met before and like all of us when you start with a new teacher you want to kind of test the guidelines, you don't know exactly what they're going to be like so it's a very anxious time for little children who have to follow the rules. For the elementary children, it's anxious but it's also very exciting because they're going to get to socialize again. For middle school children it's very difficult. Every transition year, for instance, when a child in elementary school and goes into middle school like it's usually between fifth and sixth grade, that's a big transition because you're usually changing schools, you're going to meet a whole new group of kids, your social world is going to widen. The same is true when you're going from eighth grade to ninth grade, when you enter high school. Ninth grade is a major transition so you want to prepare your children by walking the areas with them, perhaps calling other parents and getting two children together that might be in the same classroom so that they at least they have one friend, to make a difference. If your child happens to be a loner, this is very important. You do want to connect with another parent and maybe another student before school starts because it allows the child to have a safety place to go where they know that that child likes them. If your child has over anxiety about not going to sleep and things like that you might want to sit in their room and read with them a little bit or talk with them and discuss their fears before they fall asleep. So, please, make sure to keep an open communication with your children during these transition periods, it's very, very important. And, of course, like most kids they all want a new set of clothes for the first day of school so you might want to get them something that's really unique or special to them, it kind of builds the confidence. So by all means encourage your children to be happy during this time, to try to relax about it and remember don't cry either when your child's going on to the next stage because if they see you cry it will be much worse for them. And all in all we have to let our children go. So I wish you the best of luck. God bless.