How Parents Can Support Anxious Teens During the School Year
As the new school year comes into full swing, your teen may be on a wild emotional roller coaster. Reconnecting with friends, facing new challenges, and navigating the pressures of academics can stir up a range of emotions, from excitement and overwhelm to anxiety and stress.
And while it’s completely normal for teens to feel anxious and stressed during this transitional period, It’s important to keep an eye on when these emotions start taking a toll on your teen’s well-being and interfere with their performance and daily functioning.
As parents, we always desire the best for our children. We want them to thrive, feel happy, and approach the new school year with motivation and resilience. However, with the school demands and social pressures that often accompany this time, it's easy for stress and anxiety to have a hold on your teen. The good news is that there is a lot you can do to support them during this challenging period.
In this guide, we’ll explore practical tips and strategies to help you guide your teen toward a smooth, healthy, and successful school year.
Signs Your Teen Is Anxious and Stressed About School
Recognizing when your teen is struggling isn’t always easy as they tend to be masters at hiding their feelings. That’s why, before we dive into how you can support your teen, it’s important first to understand the signs of school anxiety and stress. This way, you’ll be better equipped to step in and offer the help they need:
Excessive worrying: Do you notice that your teen is constantly preoccupied with “what if” scenarios or fears about school, even when things seem to be going well? For example, you may repeatedly hear them say, “What if I fail school this year?” or “What if I don’t make friends?”
Irritability and short temper: Has your teen become more easily frustrated or prone to outbursts over small things, especially when school is mentioned?
Difficulty sleeping: Is your teen struggling to fall asleep, staying up late, or waking up tired despite getting enough sleep?
Self-criticism and negative self-talk: Do you hear your teen frequently putting themselves down, doubting their abilities, or being overly hard on themselves about school performance? For example, they may tell you they’re not looking forward to the new school year.
Difficulty concentrating: Is your teen having trouble staying focused on their schoolwork or zoning out more often than usual?
Changes in socialization: Is your teen withdrawing from friends, avoiding social situations, or showing less interest in activities they used to enjoy?
Physical symptoms: Does your teen often complain about headaches, stomachaches, or other physical symptoms, especially before school?
Reasons Your Teen Might Be Experiencing School Anxiety and Stress
School anxiety and stress often stem from a combination of factors. Research shows that there has been a steady increase in the number of severely anxious students, with causes varying based on each student’s unique circumstances and experience. Academic pressures, social dynamics, and personal expectations all play a role, and understanding what triggers your teen’s anxiety will help immensely in shaping how they cope.
Some common reasons your teen might be struggling with school anxiety and stress include:
Feeling lost and confused: As the new school year begins, your teen is navigating a transitional period. They are trying to figure out what to do and adjust to new routines, teachers, and classes. This can leave them feeling lost and confused which can easily escalate into stress and anxiety.
Pressure to fit in, socialize, and make friends: Socialization is a big part of your teen’s school life. The need to blend in, make friends, and be perceived in a certain way can be one of the greatest sources of anxiety and stress.
Pressure to perform well in school and meet expectations: Your teen might be anxious and stressed because of the high expectations placed on them, whether from teachers, peers, or themselves. This pressure to perform well and exceed expectations can lead your teen to feel overwhelmed and worried constantly.
Trauma response: Your teen’s school anxiety and stress can be a result of a traumatic experience they’ve gone through, such as bullying or academic failure. These experiences can trigger heightened levels of anxiety, stress, and a fight-or-flight response when your teen faces new or stressful situations, like starting the new school year.
10 Ways To Help Your Teen Navigate School Anxiety and Stress
Now that we’ve explored the common signs and reasons behind your teen’s school anxiety and stress, it’s time to shift our focus to what you can do as a parent to help them cope.
1 | Respond To Their Anxiety and Stress Effectively: Your Mindset Matters
Most parents aren’t sure what to do with their own anxiety. No one taught us how to process our emotions and have a healthy relationship with anxiety and stress. Instead, we’ve been conditioned to believe that feeling anxious is ‘bad’, and that feeling stressed about any situation means it’s dangerous or threatening. As a result, we often seek suppression and avoidance as the only way to cope.
The Role Of Leading By Example
Sometimes, the most effective way to support your teen through challenging emotions is by showing them how you manage your own. Kids look to their parents to know how to respond to situations. Research shows that while teens increasingly rely on their peers for social cues, they still consider their parents’ opinions and behaviors when forming their values, coping strategies, and responses to stress and they continue to model some of their emotional and behavioral responses after their parents.
This means that the way you handle your own anxiety and stress can set the stage for how your teen learns to cope. That’s why it's important to reflect on your approach and understand your role in influencing your teen’s emotional responses. You can start by asking yourself these questions:
How is my relationship with anxiety and stress?
How do I react when I feel overwhelmed and anxious?
How do I process difficult emotions?
How do I respond to anxiety and stress?
What are my go-to coping strategies when I feel anxious?
What example am I setting for my teen?
2 | Have Open, Heart-To-Heart Conversations With Your Teen About Their School Anxiety and Stress
Many parents struggle to get their teens to open up and share their feelings and problems. The thing is, talking about difficult emotions such as anxiety and stress is hard for everyone, but it’s especially harder for teens as they are still trying to make sense of their emotions and process them.
The key to having heart-to-heart conversations with your teen is to create an atmosphere of trust, understanding, and openness, where your teen feels safe to share their inner thoughts and struggles without fear of criticism or judgment. This can start by:
Listening Actively
The minute your teen starts talking about their school anxiety and stress, it’s tempting to jump in with advice. You instinctively want to make your teen’s life easier. In those moments, resist the urge to fix their anxiety and just lean in and listen to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Active listening helps build a trusting relationship with your teen and lets them know you’re genuinely interested in who they are and what they’re going through, not just in telling them what to do.
Asking Questions
Another way to show your teen that you value what they’re going through is by asking open-ended questions such as “How does school make you feel?” or “What do you think would help you feel more at ease during this period?” This not only encourages more meaningful dialogue and helps you get to the root of their school anxiety and stress, but also gives your teen the space to process their thoughts and emotions while feeling supported.
Conveying Empathy and Validating Their Emotions
Empathy is key when discussing your teen’s anxiety and stress. Phrases like “It sounds like you’ve been under a lot of pressure,” or “I can see why you feel anxious and overwhelmed,” can help validate their feelings and reassure them that their emotions aren’t something to be fixed or dismissed, but understood. By establishing a level of understanding with your teen through compassion and empathy, you encourage them to open up and work through their emotions with you.
Highlighting Their Strengths
It’s important to remind your teen of their strengths, especially when they’re feeling anxious or stressed. Acknowledging their efforts, skills, and past successes will empower and motivate them to navigate school challenges with a positive outlook.
Remember, Language Matters
The words you use when discussing your teen’s emotions can have a significant impact. Avoid using dismissive or minimizing language like “It’s not that big of a deal” or “Just get over it.” Instead, focus on loving language that helps your teen feel heard, supported, and empowered.
Here are some things to say to your teen to show them that you care:
You look anxious. Can you tell me more about that?
It’s okay to feel anxious. It’s a normal feeling.
I’m here for you and I’ll help you through this when you're ready to talk about it.
Let’s take a deep breath together and work through this.
We can come up with a plan to help you face this.
What would help you feel calmer about starting school?
I love you no matter what and we’ll get through this together.
3 | Focus On Connecting With Them
Connection builds through love and understanding, and where there is connection, there is trust, growth, and emotional safety. It’s in these moments of deep connection that we feel safe enough to open up and walk through our emotions. The same goes for your teen; when they feel connected, heard, and truly understood, they’ll be more inclined to let you in and accept your support. By creating this bond, you empower your teen to manage their stress and anxiety in a healthy way while reinforcing the message that they are valued, supported, and never alone in facing life’s difficulties.
Here are some tips to help you connect with your teen:
Always choose to parent them with love, not fear.
Offer guidance rather than control.
Welcome their emotions without judgment.
Give them space when needed.
Focus on small improvements and celebrate their small wins.
4 | Educate Your Teen About Anxiety and Stress
Educating your teen about their emotions, brain, and physical reactions can empower them to better understand their responses to anxiety and stress. By learning how their brain functions and why they feel certain emotions, they can start to view these feelings as normal physiological responses rather than overwhelming or scary experiences.
What Happens In The Brain When We Feel Anxious and Stressed?
When your teen feels anxious or stressed, their brain shifts into high alert. The prefrontal cortex (also known as the thinking brain) gets sidelined and overtaken by the amygdala (a part of the limbic system which is also known as the emotional brain.) When stress and anxiety hit, the amygdala senses threat and danger -whether it’s real or perceived- releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, and activates the fight-flight-freeze response. In a school setting, this could manifest as an urge to avoid anxiety-inducing situations, argue and rebel, or shut down emotionally.
Recognizing that all of this is a natural response can help your teen see that their body is trying to protect them.
Understanding Triggers
Triggers are events, thoughts, or situations that activate an emotional response. They can be external, like a school deadline or social situation, or internal, like negative thoughts, self-criticism, or memories.
Our thoughts play a key role in how we react to these triggers. That’s why, helping your teen identify what exactly triggers their school anxiety and stress can be the first step to developing healthier coping mechanisms.
5 | Help Your Teen Build Healthy Coping Skills
Coping skills are tools and strategies we use to help us work through uncomfortable emotions and navigate stressful situations. Teaching your teen healthy coping skills is essential for improving their emotional resilience and maintaining their mental well-being throughout the school year.
Here is a list of common anxiety and stress coping skills that can help your teen:
Breathing
Slow and controlled breathing signals the body to calm down, which can help lower anxiety and stress levels right away. There are so many ways to practice slow breathing, and here are the most common ones:
Diaphragmatic or belly breathing: Encourage your teen to sit or lie down, placing one hand on their belly and the other on their chest. As they breathe in deeply through their nose, their belly should rise while their chest remains still. Then, have them slowly exhale through their mouth, allowing their belly to fall.
Timed breathing: One way to help slow your teen’s breathing is to clock each breath, including how long they inhale, hold their breath, and exhale. They start with 5 seconds or counting to five for each step.
Box breathing: This technique involves inhaling for four counts, holding the breath for four counts, exhaling for four counts, and holding again for four counts.
The Three R’s of Anxiety Management
Another powerful technique to teach your teen is the three R’s of anxiety management. It refers to:
Recognize: This step is about identifying and acknowledging the feelings of anxiety and stress. It's about being aware of the physical and emotional signs of anxiety and understanding that it is a natural response to stress or perceived threats.
Relax: Once the anxiety is recognized, the next step is to relax or regulate. Techniques like deep breathing, grounding exercises, or mindfulness can help calm your teen’s nervous system and reduce anxiety symptoms.
Redirect: The final step is to shift the focus from the thoughts of anxiety to something else. If the cause of anxiety is out of your teen’s control, they can redirect it by engaging in a different activity or thought. If it is manageable, they can reframe the situation, develop a new plan to face the stressor or adjust their mindset to cope more effectively.
Help your teen transform negative self-talk into empowering, positive self-talk
For example, if they have the thought, "I'm so bad at public speaking," a kinder and more helpful thought replacement could be, "I'm not as skilled at public speaking as I am at other things, but I will set a goal for myself to practice and learn new techniques to improve.”
Here are some exercises they can do:
Write down five things they are grateful for or that are working well in their life.
Write down five things they like about themselves.
Use positive affirmations.
The 3-3-3 Rule of Anxiety
This rule can help your teen stop ruminating thoughts and bring them into the present moment. Whenever they feel anxious, tell them to look around the room and name three things they see, name three things they hear, and move three parts of their body.
Socratic questioning
It’s an exercise that involves asking a series of open-ended and thought-provoking questions designed to deeply reflect, assess the validity of our thoughts, and get to the root of our anxiety and stress. This technique can be used either in conversations with your teen or by teens themselves through journaling. Here are a few examples of Socratic questions:
What evidence supports your worrying thoughts?
Are your thoughts based on facts or feelings?
How likely is it that your fears will come true?
What would you tell a friend who was in your situation?
What’s most likely to happen?
If your fear or worries come true, will it still matter in a week? A month? A year?
6 | Encourage Your Teen To Build Emotional Resilience
Another way to help your teen manage school anxiety and stress is by encouraging them to be emotionally resilient. According to The American Psychological Association (APA), resilience is our ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, change, and stress. It’s not something we are born with; but something that everyone can learn and develop.
Resilience is shaped by several factors, but the most significant factor is having loving and supportive relationships that create a foundation of trust and emotional safety. Other factors that can contribute to your teen’s resilience are:
The ability to make and carry out realistic plans.
A positive view of themselves.
Confidence in their strengths.
Communication and problem-solving skills.
Capacity to manage strong impulses and feelings.
With your support, your teen can build emotional resilience and navigate school challenges with confidence. To do this, you can help them learn to:
Avoid seeing crises as unconquerable problems.
Accept that change is part of living.
Move toward their goal with determination.
Take decisive actions.
Always seek opportunities for growth and self-discovery.
Nurture a positive view of themselves.
Keep things in perspective.
Maintain a hopeful outlook on life.
Make/maintain meaningful connections.
Take care of themselves physically, emotionally, and mentally.
7 | Don’t Try To Talk Them Out Of Anxiety and Stress
Parents often make the mistake of instinctively trying to shield their children from anxiety or stress by helping them avoid it. For example, this might look like, “If giving a presentation makes you anxious, I’ll talk to your teacher and see if you can do an essay instead.”
If you’ve tried to help your teen avoid their anxiety or stress before, don’t blame yourself. It’s in our nature as parents to have this constant urge to protect our kids when they are in distress. Recognizing the long-term consequences of avoiding anxiety and stress can be the first step in helping your teen manage them more effectively.
The Anxiety Cycle
The anxiety cycle starts when we choose avoidance as a way to cope with anxiety-inducing situations. It comes in four stages:
Stage 1: Feeling anxious.
Stage 2: Attempting to avoid the situation.
Stage 3: Feeling a temporary sense of relief.
Stage 4: Feeling even more anxious.
The danger of this cycle lies in the fact that when we avoid the source of our anxiety, our brain reinforces the idea that avoidance is what keeps us safe. This reinforcement leads to increased anxiety and severe consequences. To prevent your teen from falling into the cycle of anxiety, you can help them:
Confront their school anxiety: Instead of rescuing your teen from feeling anxious and stressed, your job is to connect with them while they have those emotions and then walk with them on their journey to build a belief in themselves that they can face the challenges that come their way.
Problem-solve together: Your goal here is to work together as a team and create a healthy balance when trying to help your teen navigate their school anxiety and stress. This means giving your teen the space and freedom to process their emotions, form their opinions, and come up with their own solutions while also offering them your support and guidance.
8 | Use Healthy and Purposeful Distraction
An effective way to help your anxious teen is to let them engage in positive, constructive activities to temporarily shift their focus away from their thoughts. They’re called healthy distractions because they can help calm your teen’s mind, reduce their stress, regain emotional balance, and clear their perspective.
Here are some examples of activities that can be used as a healthy distraction. Feel free to try them together with your teen:
Listening to music
Dancing and exercising
Playing sports
Going for a walk
Cooking or baking
Talking to friends and family
Getting out in nature
Drawing, painting, or coloring
Laughing
Reading
Playing and cuddling with pets
Distraction can be a great way to take a break from overwhelming feelings. But too much distraction can become avoidance. So make sure your teen uses distraction as a break or a way to calm down, not to run away from their emotions.
9 | Help Your Teen Figure Out Their Plan For The New School Year
Sometimes, teens can feel anxious and stressed about the new school year because they don’t know what to expect or how to manage the different demands that come their way. This uncertainty can lead to feelings of overwhelm and stress. One effective way to tackle this is by helping your teen create a structured plan that gives them a sense of control and clarity.
The Power Of Creating a System
Encourage your teen to develop a system for staying organized and on top of their responsibilities. Whether it’s using a planner, an app, or even a simple notebook. Having a method to track school assignments, deadlines, and extracurricular activities can help them manage their workload more effectively and keep anxiety and stress under control.
Establish a Consistent Routine
Routine brings predictability, which can be comforting for teens dealing with school anxiety. So work with your teen to establish a consistent routine that includes time for schoolwork, downtime, and self-care. When your teen knows what to expect each day, they will feel more grounded and less anxious about school.
10 | Seek Professional Help
While it’s important for parents to support their teens through school anxiety and stress, there are times when professional help is necessary. If your teen’s anxiety is overwhelming, persistent, or starts to interfere significantly with their daily functioning, it may be time to seek help from a mental health professional. They can offer your teen evidence-based support and effective treatment such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
CBT is a widely used therapeutic approach that focuses primarily on identifying, challenging, and changing negative thought patterns and behaviors. By helping teens become more aware of their thoughts and the impact they have on their emotions, CBT equips them with tools to reframe their thinking and develop healthier coping strategies.
Teen Treatment at New Roots Counseling
If you find that your teen’s school anxiety is more that they, or you, can manage alone, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our office.
At New Roots Counseling, we guide teens and their families through challenging times. Our approach centers on providing personalized, evidence-based tools and strategies that treat a wide range of emotional and mental health challenges, including anxiety and stress.
