Social Anxiety | How To Help Your Child With School

Does your child have social anxiety? Does your child have school anxiety?

School is right around the corner, how do you help your child handle their social anxiety when school starts?

Butterflies are common on the first day of school, panic attacks are not.

Children with social anxiety have it twice as hard on the first day of school as children without social anxiety.

If your child suffers from social anxiety or severe anxiety, don’t brush it off, by telling them, “It’ll be ok” because they won’t believe you.

Your child “knows” it won’t be ok because their negative thoughts are telling them it won’t be.

They “know” they’ll get on the wrong bus, they’ll go to the wrong classroom, and a million other things that will embarrass them.

How To Help Your Social Anxiety Child With School

Children with social anxiety need to turn off the negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones just as adults with social anxiety need to do.

Do they have certain “school friends” they’ve missed? Have them concentrate on finding this friend and inviting him over after school.

Whether it’s big or small, if your child has one thing they like about school or something they miss about school, or something they are looking forward to, have them focus on that.

If there’s absolutely nothing, invent something. For younger children, you could make a bet that their teacher will be wearing blue, or their desk will have a stapler, or something that will occupy their thoughts.

I’m not a professional, but I have suffered from social anxiety since I was very young. I do know the worst thing you can say is, “It’ll be ok” because I “knew” for a fact it wouldn’t.