As COVID-19 continues to interrupt our everyday lives, I wanted to raise the subject of anxieties in September when schools, colleges and universities will start to reopen their doors to pupils and students of all ages. Let’s talk about the worries that maybe around for everyone.

I have already been asked to go into a school and have sessions with staff around their anxieties when they have to not only teach the children, but try to maintain a safe social distance, worry about hygiene and rethink activities. All on top of their normal teaching roles.

Some teaching staff have already told me the sense of responsibility they feel in keeping the children they are responsible for safe during school hours is overwhelming.

Others are worried that some of their children who have been affected by COVID-19 and experienced loss will need more patience, and support to transition effectively back into a learning environment. Sadly, we have already seen evidence of deteriorating mental health in children and young people.

So what do children feel? How will parents cope when they drop their child off at school (putting their trust in the teaching staff to maintain safety levels for the day)? How will young people respond returning to college or perhaps going to university for the first time?

One girl aged 11, when asked if she had any worries about returning to school in September, said “I worry that I won’t be able go near people and they won’t be able to come near me if I have a problem or need help”. This child also has the additional worry of starting secondary school in September.

One parent commented that “it will be hard dropping my children off at the gates and trusting the staff to do what is necessary to keep our children safe”.

The Mental Health Foundation talks about our “limited experience and evidence in responding to a situation like this magnitude, the evidence we do have suggests that when schools reopen, the need for pastoral support, safeguarding and wellbeing services will be high”.

We all have our part to play in supporting each other and particularly the most vulnerable, as evidence shows working collectively to achieve good outcomes is always the best way forward.

In order to help us and those we love with anxiety, let’s look at some useful tips and tools that people find can help. Most people who experience anxiety feel it is something they can’t control but the reality is you can control it and help your children to also.

When I speak to clients about breathing techniques quite often I get responses like “I would feel silly doing that” but with practice you can use this technique in a room full of people and they wouldn’t even notice!!

So here goes all you adults reading this, it’s really simple!

Take a deep breath in, then an exaggerated blow out, slowly and controlled and repeat. You will notice your tummy muscles contracting upwards, this will then push all the anxiety ‘energy’ up and out. This is the aim.
The idea around this is that it shifts your focus from feelings of anxiousness to your breathing, your breathing will start to regulate your body causing your anxiety to ease.

What’s important is that you practice this every day for around 30 seconds so that it becomes second nature to you.

For children and adolescents ask a few simple questions

1. What things will be the same? What things will have changed? When did you cope with something you weren’t expecting well? What did you learn about yourself?

2. Name the main worry in your head right now? Let’s break it down and see if your worry is 100% correct. Are you fortune telling believing you can see into the future? Could you be filling in the gaps? Now that we understand that worry thought let’s acknowledge it but let it go where it belongs – into the sky. Mindfulness can help us cope with ‘sticky’ thoughts. https://justb.org.uk/wordpress/hear-to-help-community-support-during-covid19/mindfullness-for-children-and-young-people/
Worry kits for children can really help. The breathing exercise is one but get your child to imagine blowing up a big balloon, as big as they can, and then blow all the air out. This helps them to shift their focus to making the balloon their priority NOT their anxiety. Put a self-help box together – favourite photos of family, friend, times when they had good experiences, positive memories about when they did well at school/college, a smell they find calming, a toy, ball, piece of fabric they like to touch, words to a song, a favourite book.

I have worked with children and adolescents for 28 years. Experience tells me that facing something like this head on is the best thing, talking about our anxieties is one of the most effective ways in managing them. Normalising that we as adults also have feelings of anxiety when we are doing something we haven’t done for a long while, or doing something for the first time.

For more information please took a look at the links below and feel free to have a conversation with us about how we can help.

https://www.rcot.co.uk/preparing-your-child-returning-school
https://www.psycom.net/bookstore.anxiety.html
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/coronavirus/coming-out-of-lockdown

Andrea Whittaker-Ward
Counsellor and Trainer
Email: wellness-consultancy@outlook.com