Starting School and Coping with Stress:

Many schools started this week. This can be a fairly stressful experience for kids.  It is often helpful to teach kids how to recognize the stress and how to use some coping strategies to reduce that stress. Here are some that parents can try. 

1)  Do a run through of the day and what to expect.  Seeing new faces, a new classroom, the course schedule, what will happen at lunch time, who will pick him up and where.

2) Practice calming techniques.  Imagine yourself walking into a new building, is your heart racing, are your muscles tense?  Breathe and relax your shoulders as you visualize walking in.

3)  Do a calming activity that is unrelated to the stressor such as a puzzle or drawing to take the child's mind off the anticipated stress and/or possible obession with an upcoming event.

  

YouthCare's social competence/social skills groups utilze these strategies and much more to help our kids cope with many anxiety producing situations.