Show Notes

UNCERTAINTY AND ANXIETY

The school year is upon us. If your kids aren’t already in school, they will be soon. It’s a return to school like we’ve never experienced before, and there’s so much uncertainty. Masks or no masks? How long will we stay in person? Are they going to take everything virtual again? And if you have a child starting middle school, that’s ON TOP of all the other anxiety they may have, like:

Will I have classes with my friends? Who will I sit with at lunch? Will my teachers be mean? Are classes going to be harder? Am I going to get lost going to class? Will I be the tallest/shortest in my grade? Will anyone laugh at me?

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

And sometimes, in the face of our kids’ anxiety, it’s hard to know what to say or how to help. Especially if they’ve already hit the stage where what you share with them has less and less validity.

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOUR KID’S ANXIETY?

So how CAN you help?

Don’t ever discount the impact you have on your kiddos. Regardless of how they respond (or don’t respond) to your attempts to connect and help, they are listening. Your job is to figure out when and where their ‘windows’ are. That’s something I talk about in Episode 5 if you’d like to know more about it.

But, I digress. Back to helping your kids with their anxiety about Middle School.

3 KEYS TO BUSTING ANXIETY ABOUT MIDDLE SCHOOL

There are 3 key ways you can help your kids face middle school with confidence.

Start Conversations

Ask open-ended questions to get your child’s brain working. Even if they can’t (or won’t) voice it right now, their minds will continue to search for answers. Discussing things like how their friendships might change, how to set boundaries with friends, and how to talk to teachers can go a long way toward relieving anxiety.

A couple of words of warning here. One, make sure to check yourself – are you asking to help them move forward or because of your ‘need to know.’ Sometimes, it needs to be enough just to plant the question.

Two, make sure your open-ended questions stay far, far away from “why.” It implies judgment and tends to be a word that shuts kids down rather than inviting them to open up.

Demystify the Unknown

Oftentimes, information and a good plan can help alleviate anxiety. If at all possible, arrange for your child to set up their locker and walk their schedule before school starts. I know in many areas, they have orientations for incoming students that provide that opportunity – make sure you know what the dates and times are.

Another option is to find an older kid to talk to your child about their middle school experience. It doesn’t have to be anything formal or cringy. Older siblings of your child’s friends are always great resources.

Plan for the things you can, AND help your child understand that there will always be unknown factors that come up. The more they can have an open, flexible mindset, the better.

Reframe the Brain

This leads to the 3^rd key to helping alleviate their anxiety – reframing their brains. Adopting a growth versus a fixed mindset can make a huge difference in your child’s middle school experience. The difference boils down to this: you win some, you lose some vs. you win some, you learn some. Being able to reframe unwanted outcomes and results as lessons builds resiliency in our kids.

Along those lines, being able to identify their emotions is a crucial social-emotional skill that is worth discussing with your child. There is a great resource, the emotion wheel, that gives words that go beyond “angry” or “sad” or “happy” to really dive deeper into what’s going on in your kids’ feels.

Lastly, if your child is struggling with a thought that’s not serving them, I encourage you to check out the thought model. I talk about it a lot in Episode 56 and Episode 57. With the thought model, you slow down and really think about your thinking. In those episodes, I walk you through the process of how to identify your thoughts and feelings around a circumstance, and how to choose a different thought or emotion that you want to experience instead. It’s a super-powerful exercise, and I’ve included a link to a free resource that I offer to walk you through that process as well. It’s called The Thought Model, and you can find it in the Referenced in This Episode section below.

IF IT’S BIGGER THAN YOU

If you find that your child’s anxiety cannot be relieved or lessened by the strategies we’ve talked about today, please, please, please get help. A good counselor will be able to help your child in ways that you can’t. Run, don’t walk, to find someone your child can talk to – the sooner, the better.

READY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL?

If you want a more detailed resource to alleviate anxiety and set your child up for a successful start in middle school,  I encourage you to pick up my latest guide “Is My Child Ready for Middle School.” It’s a practical tool to help you start a conversation with your kids about how to structure and organize at school and at home, so they can start middle school with confidence and courage.

EPISODES REFERENCED