For some of us, the back-to-school season brings back happy memories of shopping for school supplies and planning the perfect first-day-of-school outfit. For others, this time of year can bring flashbacks to feeling awkward, pimply, and completely freaked out by the social and academic pressures of high school.
Although everything from slang to fashion choices may have shifted since most of us moms were in high school, it turns out that teenagers are still a lot like us — some happily looking forward to finding the perfect new planner and some totally anxious about heading back to the classroom.
Back-to-school anxiety is completely normal, especially for teens who are making the transition from middle school to high school or those who are starting to feel the college search pressure heat up. But just because it's normal doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help our teens cope with back-to-school anxiety!
So, we reached out to some experienced moms (including some with expert skills when it comes to working with teens) and got some real-world examples of what anxiety looked like for their teens and how they helped them cope. Read on for some smart suggestions from moms who've been through it.
More from CafeMom: Keep Your Teens Healthy With These Preventive Tips
Normalize it.
"A big thing we can all do is to just help normalize for our teens that being anxious sometimes is normal, especially during times of transition. I think they see people on social media who present these perfect, polished images of teenagers who are always pulled together with perfect make up and all the right clothes and stuff … it isn't real but they may not see it. I think it can be helpful to encourage them to take social media breaks and to know that everyone gets anxious sometimes." – Rebecca S., Iowa
Make them sleep.
"As a mom and a high school teacher (15 years of getting kids to care about history!) I can tell you one thing: Nearly all of them need more sleep. They are on their phones until all hours and they are exhausted when they have to roll into school by 7:45 a.m. When they are tired, EVERY emotion is heightened, including anxiety. With my own 15-year-old, I still enforce a bedtime and I have a rule about no phones in her room after 10 p.m.
"Her moods got a lot more manageable for both of us when I got more strict about this. She's in summer mode now, but I'll start getting her back closer to a normal sleep schedule in the two weeks before school starts. I'm telling you: SLEEP. Make them sleep." – Amy E., California
Lighten the load.
"My daughter is going into her senior year this year and she is so much less anxious than last year, it's wild. She had a major meltdown before the start of her junior year and we eventually figured out that she was super stressed about going back into school and having to juggle having a job, being in a bunch of clubs, being on the soccer team, doing AP classes. It was a lot. It was too much, honestly. I talked to a friend who works in college admissions and she told me that extracurriculars don't really actually matter all that much for getting into the colleges my daughter wants to go to and that lead to us having a whole conversation about what activities my daughter really wanted to do versus what she was doing because she thought she had to for college applications.
"She decided to drop a bunch of the clubs and we even scaled back on the AP classes (she switched to a regular math class). It helped a lot and I wish more parents knew that unless their kid is trying to get into Harvard, nobody is going to care how many clubs they really do. Their mental health matters more." – Katie K., Michigan
More from CafeMom: Why Parents Need To Chill Out About Their Kids Doing Extracurriculars
Eliminate an unknown element.
"My daughter's biggest anxiety was around switching from a small middle school to a pretty large high school. She was worried about getting lost, especially the first day, and getting in trouble for being late. Once she got her schedule, I called the school and they were fine with us coming in and doing a walkthrough of where all of her classes were in relation to her locker. We walked it several times and she realized that most of her classes were actually clustered in one wing so that helped. Sometimes just removing one unknown element can help, I think." – Patty S., Minnesota
Give them some tools.
"I can be a pretty anxious person too, especially during times of transition, so I get it. I've been working with my kiddo about ways to calm our nervous systems when we're getting anxious, and so we're working on some breathing exercises for when we are freaking out in public and meditation for when we're home. Gotta be honest with them that anxiety happens but also given them some real tools, too." – Marla R., Texas
Recognize the anxiety.
"A big thing I've learned after having three teenagers is that anxiety doesn't always look like anxiety. For one of my sons, it looked a lot like him being a real jerk and in a bad mood that just got worse and worse when school got closer. He was anxious, which made him irritable and snappy, and then I'd get mad at the attitude and yell at him and that just made it all worse. I think it helped to finally recognize that he was really nervous about the pressures of going back-to-school and to lighten up on him a little." – Sarah F., Arizona
More from CafeMom: 15 Moms on Why Parenting Teens Is Actually Pretty Great
Chill out, mom.
"School counselor and mom here — sometimes the problem isn't the kid! I see a lot of parents (mostly moms, tbh) who are so anxious about high school and the college search stuff that THEY are the ones making their kids more anxious. Moms need to chill out sometimes and stop putting so much pressure on their kids. Remember that they are still KIDS and they don't have to have a perfect college plan or have it all figured out in ninth grade." – Lauren D., Maryland
Think about movement.
"When my daughter hit high school, she tried out for the volleyball team and didn't make it, so that kind of ended her volleyball career. She also stopped doing rec league soccer because they don't have teams for her age. She also didn't have PE her freshman year and so, without us even realizing it, she went from doing stuff that moved her body (and released stress and was fun) almost every day to not really doing physical stuff at all.
"I think her anxiety overall got worse, not just around school stuff, though school was a big part of it. One thing I've done this summer is really encourage her to find ways to move her body every day and it's making a big difference for her mental health." – Shawnee T., New York
Therapy can help.
"As a therapist (and a mom to twin 16 year olds), I just want to call out that sometimes therapy might be a good option. There are normal back-to-school nerves and then there is anxiety that is more severe than that, which sometimes going back to school can trigger. If your kid is anxious to the point where it is effecting their sleeping or eating habits or if they are really struggling (crying, self-harm, unable to enjoy usually fun events), think about getting some extra support for them before school starts, if you can." – Ellie O., Minnesota
Throw some money at the problem.
"OK, this might sound bad, but … sometimes ya gotta throw some money at the problem! My daughter had a major growth spurt between the spring of ninth grade and the start of 10th grade. Like, she grew 4 inches and two cup sizes! She was anxious about going to school and having people notice that her body had changed so much, which I get.
"But I told her 'Look, you can't control if people look at you, but you can control how you feel about the way you look, so what would make you feel the most confident?', which led to us doing some shopping for some clothes that fit her new shape and a blowout before the first day of school. It might sound shallow, but it helped! I think, if you can afford it, having them get an outfit they feel really good about for the first day really does matter." – Jessica F., California
Encourage connections.
"My son is pretty introverted and has ADHD, so he kind of forgets that his friends exist when he doesn't see them every day (this is a real ADHD thing!) so sometimes his back-to-school anxiety was really around the social stuff and not knowing who'd he'd end up hanging out with at lunch. This year I've been really encouraging him to stay connected to his friends over the summer (I made 'text a friend' a daily to-do list item) so that he's feeling more socially connected at the start of the school year." – Mona C., Washington, DC
Find out about school resources.
"My kid came out as trans during the summer between ninth and 10th grade, so we had more back-to-school anxiety than usual last year, but I think I have a pretty universal suggestion: Find out about resources at the school if they have something specific they are anxious about! For my kid, talking to the school counselor about wanting to transition their name and pronouns was helpful from a logistics standpoint, but she also helped them get connected to the school's LGBTQ club and even helped facilitate an introduction to another family at the school who had a trans kid. It helped a lot." – name withheld by request
More from CafeMom: My Son Bullied a Gay Teen in His Class & My Ex Thinks My Reaction Was Too Strong
Give them some space.
"I've learned the hard lesson that sometimes I just need to give my son some space to zone out on his phone or play video games when he's feeling anxious or needs to decompress after school. I can get all up in his grill and it just makes it worse. He's more likely to confide in me or ask for help if I let him come to me and don't bug him about his feelings so much." – Olivia M., Florida
Find a solvable problem.
"Sometimes it helps to see if there is an actually solvable problem that is underlying the anxiety. Kids can sometimes get it in their heads that whatever they are nervous about is some impossible thing to fix, and often it isn't that big of a deal. My son, for example, was SUPER nervous going into ninth grade, partially because he is young for his grade and hadn't really hit puberty yet, so he was really small compared to some of the high schoolers.
"I couldn't fix that problem for him, but one of his other worries was that he'd be mistaken for a younger kid on the bus (the high school and the middle school share buses) and the bus driver would try to make him get off at the middle school. There was an easy solution – just ride his bike to school instead! But he really had a whole scenario about it in his head that totally had him freaking out, so I'm glad I questioned him enough to find out what he was really worried about." – Erin A., Kansas
Find the fun.
"Back-to-school time is kind of busy and intense but I try to make sure we have some fun traditions too, so we both have something to look forward too and not just stress about. For us, that's a big back-to-school shopping trip and then going out for an early breakfast at our favorite diner on the first day of school. I think those little fun traditions help ease the anxiety a bit." – Rhonda G., New Jersey
