Back to School Can Be Exciting and Stressful for Children
Wakefield Offers Mental Health Tips to Help Children Return to the Classroom
For many children, heading back to school each year can be an exciting experience marked by entering a new grade or school, buying the latest clothes and catching up with friends. To others, the switch to the classroom is a time of stress and anxiety, especially with the increased chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic.
βI think it's really important to know how your child tends to respond to transitions,β Sarah Mallard Wakefield, M.D., said. βIf they get really excited, that can be great. You can talk to them about how exciting it is to go back to school and seeing their friends and things like that. But if you see that your child is one who has some difficulty with transitions and tends to be more anxious, then I think that's a sign to do a little bit more preparation.β