School’s out for the summer, but not all kids are heaving a sigh of relief. For some, the carefree summer is clouded by fears of returning to the classroom in August or September.
“School anxiety is pretty widespread,” says Mimi Ezray, a licensed clinical social worker at Parents Place, a program of S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services. “Students and their parents are always looking at the next step, whether it’s getting into the right preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school or college. This causes a lot of anxiety.”
In addition to concerns over academic success, social tensions are a common source of school phobia. Students may get bullied or have difficulty forming friendships.
Parents Place offers workshops and other assistance at during the summer to help students and their parents adjust to preschool and kindergarten, or to help older children overcome school anxiety.
Signs of school phobias or social anxiety include a refusal or reluctance to go to school, headaches and stomach aches, clinginess, failure to do homework or, conversely, an overdedication to homework. Children may bite their nails, have trouble sleeping, or eat too little or too much.
Ezray advises frank communication and advocacy. “Talk to your children openly,” she says. “Find out what’s bothering them. If there’s a social situation at the school, talk to administrators and teachers.”
If your kids are afraid of going to a new school, make an appointment to tour the building with them before the semester starts and perhaps meet their teachers and principal. “By the time the first day of school starts,” says Ezray, “they will have fewer concerns about entering a new environment.”
Information on Parents Place programs in the Bay Area can be found at www.parentsplaceonline.org.