How to cope with back to school stress

The new school year is full of stress for the family.  Some school things you’ll know about, some things you won’t know about.  What makes this a challenging time for parents is that stress is contagious. Children pick up on your feelings and you pick up on theirs!  You know what to put in their lunchbox and what uniform to buy, but how can you cope with stress and help your child deal with their anxieties about going back to school for a new year? 

The answer is to have some emotional freedom techniques on hand and say to the kids “You have Superpowers in your fingers!” -

• Explain to your children that it is normal to feel anxious or nervous, you sometimes feel like this too but you can show them how to feel better

• Ask your children to tell you the biggest emotion they are feeling about going back to school e.g. fear or worry and get them to describe where they feel this most in their body

• Talk to your children how they want to feel about going back to school e.g. calm or confident

• Start doing breathing exercises together - breathe in deeply and have one hand with the palm upwards. With the other hand use three fingers to tap gently on the middle area of your wrist about two fingertips width down from the bottom of your hand.

• Breathe in positive feelings like calmness and breathe out negative emotions like stress.

• Stress headache too? A quick way to help a headache (and stress) is to rub the pad of the thumb with your other hand.

Using Emotional Freedom Techniques, also called Tapping Therapy can help shift and reduce unhelpful emotions until you or your child feel calmer. If you’re watching sport on the television, you’ll often notice many athletes ‘tapping’ to control emotions, now you can too wherever you are.