When Worry Shows Up at School: A Primer for Educators, Administrators, and Counselors

Even in the most supportive of classrooms, anxiety enters on the heels of approximately 1 in 5 children, making it difficult for them to interact with teachers and/or peers and to fully access the curriculum. 

Anxiety shows up as stomachaches, tearfulness, perfectionism, refusal to participate and more, holding not only the child but sometimes entire classroom hostage. Anxious children need reassurance and accommodations, which teachers who are already stretched thin try to give. Yet sadly, the anxiety often remains stubbornly in place. Fearfulness and avoidance, for some children, become the norm.

It doesn’t need to be that way.

There is a paradox about worry: that the more we fight it, the more it holds on. It turns out that the best way to get rid of anxiety is to stop trying to get rid of anxiety. This paradox flies in the face of many of the interventions made by well-meaning adults who inadvertently collude with young worriers in an attempt to get rid of the worry, thereby locking it in place. Oftentimes school-based accommodations do this, too.

In this 90-minute recording, educators, administrators and school counsellors will learn a new way of thinking about anxiety, and a new way of responding to it, a way that supports the anxious child without inadvertently supporting their anxiety. Practical, effective, school-based techniques will be highlighted with the aim of helping children – and the school-based adults who care about them – break free from the grip of worry.