School Anxiety: How to Help Your Child
Does your child or teenager experience school anxiety? How can you encourage them to stay engaged in school without making their anxiety worse? Join our hosts, Ginger Nicholson and Jake Sparks, LMFT, as they discuss how to identify the signs of school anxiety and if your child’s nervous system is dysregulated. Jake advises on how to respond with empathy, provide emotional support, and co-regulate with your child.
Blogs for Parents:
https://bit.ly/fear-of-school-in-teens
https://bit.ly/teenager-refuses-to-go-to-school
https://bit.ly/teen-school-shooting-trauma
https://bit.ly/does-school-cause-depression
https://bit.ly/how-to-parent-a-teen-with-anxiety
Books for Parents:
https://monadelahooke.com/brain-body-parenting/
Videos for Parents:
Eating Disorders: Tips for Supporting Teens and Young Adults
How to Improve Teen Mental Health
Yoga for Teen and Adolescent Mental Health
About our Hosts:
Jake Sparks is a Marriage and Family Therapist who has spent the last decade working with often suicidal adolescents and their parents in their journey toward health and healing. During this time, Jake has been a clinician and Clinical Director of several adolescent programs, and is currently the Treatment Director at Embark BH, where he gets to work with the some of the nation’s best and brightest clinicians. Jake’s approach to therapy is centered on the role of relationship and attachment in the context of families. He believes that when authenticity and vulnerability are met with acceptance and empathy people thrive!
Ginger Nicholson, MBA, is the Director of Sales Enablement at Embark Behavioral Health. She is a parent to one 20-year-old daughter.
Connect with Embark on Social Media:
Have a question for our experts? We want to hear from you!
Submit your questions to: [email protected]
Transcript
Welcome to Roadmap to Joy. I'm Ginger, I'm coming to you from
Speaker:Arizona. I'm a parent and with me today is my counterpart,
Speaker:Jake.
Speaker:That's right. I'm Jake Sparks. I'm the Embark treatment
Speaker:director. I've been working with clients and their mostly
Speaker:adolescents and their families for about 12 years now, and
Speaker:really excited to be here
Speaker:being a parent. today. I'm really excited about this topic
Speaker:we're going to be talking about back to school anxiety. So I'm
Speaker:super excited to talk with you about this today.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it is back to school anxiety season.
Speaker:Which is not the most magical time of the year for students.
Speaker:And therefore, it's not the most magical time of the year for
Speaker:their parents. Yeah, very stressful for families. 31.9% of
Speaker:all school aged kids have some form of anxiety, two to 5% of
Speaker:those, that anxiety manifests as some form of school refusal, it
Speaker:really is fairly common. And it's it's something that we need
Speaker:to be aware of and understand the warning signs that we as
Speaker:parents, we know how to help our kids. And as teachers or mental
Speaker:health professionals, we are able to see it meet that.
Speaker:So when you say school refusal, like what would that look like
Speaker:in my daughter?
Speaker:How old's your daughter?
Speaker:Well, she's in her 20s. She's 20 right now.
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:So So the funny thing is, so as we talk, I always like to talk
Speaker:I don't know if you still make her go to school right now?
Speaker:about a small children. Because for some reason, as parents we
Speaker:have, it's really easy to have empathy for a small child. And
Speaker:the smaller the child easier they have empathy is when they
Speaker:get to look more like adults, it's easier to stop having as
Speaker:much empathy for them. So when you ask about what a school
Speaker:refusal usually look like, it can be a handful of things. So
Speaker:sometimes it's just outright refusal. I'm not going I'm not
Speaker:getting in the car. You can't make me go. Well, this is like
Speaker:the quintessential adolescent version.
Speaker:No, that's her choice.
Speaker:Okay. Fair enough. Oh, yes. So some more subtle types So we
Speaker:don't often see as clients with school anxiety, or students with
Speaker:school anxiety will show up. And they have a really difficult
Speaker:time paying attention. They have a really difficult time
Speaker:concentrating, they maybe they fall asleep. Maybe they go to
Speaker:school, and they can hold it together. And then they get
Speaker:home. And then their whole world just melts down. I have a six
Speaker:year old first grade. Yeah. And our teachers like she's such a
Speaker:great student, and she's so well behaved. But the second she
Speaker:walks in that door after school, it's like, all hell's broken,
Speaker:loose, sometimes. So it can look different based on age. But what
Speaker:is what is important for people to realize is where that anxiety
Speaker:is coming from, and what's happening physiologically, and
Speaker:when we say school anxiety, it's not necessarily like there's no
Speaker:like diagnosis. This is school anxiety. And school anxiety is
Speaker:not necessarily different than, like, home anxiety, or I don't
Speaker:want to go to grandma's house. So I have grandma's house
Speaker:anxiety, does that makes sense? It's not like a specific thing.
Speaker:Really, what we talked about school anxiety is this lump of
Speaker:emotions and feelings, and difficulty that just feels so
Speaker:yucky inside. And so we just couch that all together as
Speaker:anxiety. But really, there's so much more happening underneath
Speaker:the surface.
Speaker:What is some of those reasons that that would be happening?
Speaker:Yeah, great, great question. And that's, that's the right
Speaker:question to be asking is what's actually going on? Whenever I
Speaker:have a parent that's bringing their adolescent to me for
Speaker:therapy, and they say school refusal, I'll ask a parent,
Speaker:well, why are you bringing them in, and 99 times out of 100, I
Speaker:hear things like, well, they're refusing to go to school, they
Speaker:won't do their homework, they're skipping classes. They're
Speaker:oppositional, defiant to their teachers. And they start listing
Speaker:all these things. But if you notice about that list, all of
Speaker:those are behaviors. They're all just things the student or the
Speaker:child is doing. And the parent is like, I don't want you doing
Speaker:those things. So essentially, they're saying, where's the off
Speaker:button on my kid? Can I flip it to easy mode? And that's really
Speaker:what they want to do is like, oh, there's dysfunction is
Speaker:malfunctioning, can we just flip it to functioning, and that's
Speaker:what they want. But what parents are not realizing is now if you
Speaker:if you were to Google school anxiety, what you'll get is a
Speaker:list of tips and techniques and strategies that can help your
Speaker:kid however, there are almost always going to be wrong and
Speaker:almost always going to make the situation worse.
Speaker:And what do you mean by that like wrong?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what we have to understand is, our were the more the
Speaker:research when more we learn, the more we're seeing this, we
Speaker:talked about the brain body connection, and we used to talk
Speaker:about them as separate. I have my body and I have my brain.
Speaker:Well, now we realize that our brains actually exist inside of
Speaker:our bodies. Right, yeah, now the separation comes if I get an
Speaker:appendicitis, no amount of mental willpower or
Speaker:psychological energy is going to resolve that. appendicitis,
Speaker:right? and yeah, medical intervention. But what parents
Speaker:and even adolescents themselves or young children don't realize
Speaker:is all of the ways that their body is actually priming them
Speaker:for the anxiety. This comes out of decades of research from
Speaker:Bruce Perry, Steven Porges, Lisa Feldman-Barrett, you can Google
Speaker:all those names Dan Siegel, what we're learning is about how your
Speaker:body's nervous system response to stress. So you here in this
Speaker:room, you have what's called a neuro receptivity. Have you ever
Speaker:heard that term before? It's a new one, jot it down neuro
Speaker:receptivity, which is this idea that consciously or
Speaker:subconsciously, your body is able to identify and respond to
Speaker:threats? Okay, someone doesn't have to tell you. Yeah, you just
Speaker:can feel it. So if I sit here, and I start getting really
Speaker:weird, or awkward, or like, you're gonna be like, what's
Speaker:Jake doing his? Like, you'll feel my threat? Yeah. And you'll
Speaker:start having this anxiety? Yeah, thing that occurs, you're like,
Speaker:Yes, I'm having it now.
Speaker:That totally makes sense.
Speaker:So think about a brand new baby. There's no amount of like logic
Speaker:or reasoning or explanation you can give to a baby, the only way
Speaker:a baby learns about its environment is through all of
Speaker:these sensory inputs. How does it feel in here? How does it
Speaker:sound? What am I seeing all of those things, and none of those
Speaker:are factual words, cognition, right? It's just as to us, it's,
Speaker:what it actually is, is its central nervous system, and
Speaker:these other nervous systems to interpret what's happening. And
Speaker:when all of these nervous systems, when things are online,
Speaker:and they're safe, and they're good, that we say that body is
Speaker:fully integrated, they're able to use their resources, problems
Speaker:can arise, particularly with an anxiety when our body's
Speaker:responding to these threats, maybe even below our
Speaker:consciousness. And it's putting us in this activated state. So
Speaker:like panic flight, or fight mode. So if you think of a kid
Speaker:who's refusing to go to school, it's not that they have a bad
Speaker:attitude. And they're just too lazy, or it's none of that those
Speaker:that actually refusing to go to school is actually a very
Speaker:healthy adaptive response to panic and fear and stress.
Speaker:Right, so if your body, your central nervous system is
Speaker:activated, and you're in this constant state of you better
Speaker:fight for your life, that's no time to go sit in math class,
Speaker:that's this, this stimulus is harmful and scary, and I need to
Speaker:avoid it. So what parents sometimes do is they force their
Speaker:kid to go sit in that dangerous environment, it's not actually
Speaker:dangerous, but to the client to the student that can feel that
Speaker:way can feel shocking and scary. And or they'll give them tips or
Speaker:tricks or say, well, you're just too lazy, you need to work
Speaker:harder to start doing all of these things. But what they're
Speaker:not doing is recognizing physiologically, what's
Speaker:happening for their child. And so it's this total mismatch,
Speaker:where we're trying to actually your body's working excellently,
Speaker:that's when there's an alarm, you're supposed to have these
Speaker:warning signs, the warning signs are helpful, helpful, good
Speaker:things. They're just, they're just overactive. They're just
Speaker:responding to things that aren't actually actually dangerous.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah. Is there anything else in school you are aware of like
Speaker:that would be stressful for my child that we should be aware
Speaker:of some of the literature they talk about these body budgets?
Speaker:Okay, have you ever heard that term body budget, so what this
Speaker:is, is this relationship between all the things that are
Speaker:stressing you out is like a negative, like a withdrawal, and
Speaker:then all of the things that help bolster you up is like a
Speaker:deposit. Okay, so what scope things are going good and some
Speaker:things are going bad, and in theory is fear. Like in the
Speaker:past, plus, if you got money in the bank, you're going to be
Speaker:regulated, you'll be able to better adapt to life stresses,
Speaker:does that make sense? You're like, on good ground, it's when
Speaker:you get into the negative, there's too much the stress is,
Speaker:or the environment is too stressful, it has now exceeded
Speaker:your ability to cope. So now you're in the negative not so
Speaker:they say your body budgets negative. What school becomes
Speaker:particularly hard, especially for an adolescent is because
Speaker:there's so many various stressors, okay, so
Speaker:academically, it's like my full time job, I gotta show up, and I
Speaker:gotta get good grades, and I don't quite understand this
Speaker:material. So those are all withdrawals, withdrawals,
Speaker:withdrawals. And then I got to deal with my peers, my, my
Speaker:friends, and by my all the normal social interactions of
Speaker:being an adolescent. Those are all withdrawals, withdrawals,
Speaker:withdrawals. Yeah. And then I got to just sit and focus in a
Speaker:class all day when actually developmentally it might be more
Speaker:appropriate for me to be out are running and exercising or doing
Speaker:these at creativity, all these other outlets that maybe meet so
Speaker:those are all withdrawals, withdrawals, withdrawals, does
Speaker:that make sense? There's all these small little things. And
Speaker:if those are not met with deposits, then it's there, the
Speaker:stressors are going to exceed their ability to cope. And
Speaker:that's why if you Google like tips to help my team better
Speaker:manage their anxiety. Most people get it wrong. Because if
Speaker:you if I have if I have if I go to my six year old, and she's
Speaker:really stressed about school, and she's refusing to get out of
Speaker:the car and having these meltdowns, and I'm like, you
Speaker:just need to do some breathing exercise. Why don't you just
Speaker:breathe better? Is that gonna be a deposit? No, that's just one
Speaker:more expectation that she can't measure up to Yeah. And then
Speaker:maybe if I'm really dysregulated parent, I might say, You're just
Speaker:too lazy. You just don't want it. You don't want it enough? In
Speaker:my day, we did. Is that make sense? So just continuing to
Speaker:make those withdrawals.
Speaker:Yeah. So you're talking about withdrawal so much. So as a
Speaker:parent, what should I be doing then correctly? That would
Speaker:actually make a deposit that would make a difference? So
Speaker:like, relieve some of those things?
Speaker:Yeah. So the best well intentioned parents sometimes
Speaker:have the hardest time with this, because they want their kid to
Speaker:be successful, because they care so much. And they know what's at
Speaker:stake. So what they struggle with is seeing their child's
Speaker:behaviors appropriately. So what I mean by that is, I we always
Speaker:talk about behaviors are the like, the fire alarm, not the
Speaker:fire. Gotcha. So and that's can be really hard. I've worked with
Speaker:a family where like, yeah, my 15 year old, I say, hey, get to
Speaker:school, and they say, fu I'm never doing what you want me to
Speaker:do. That feels like a problem. And I'm saying no, that's
Speaker:actually not the problem. The problem is, their nervous system
Speaker:is so escalated, so activated, they can't tolerate school, your
Speaker:daughter saying, leave me alone, I don't want to go to school
Speaker:actually makes sense in the context of what's happening
Speaker:physiologically with so what we need to do is understand, on a
Speaker:on a nervous system level, what's actually happening
Speaker:organically for her, and then we can attune to that we always
Speaker:talk about the pyramid, or not the pyramid the iceberg. So the
Speaker:behavior is just the tip of the iceberg. And that's the thing
Speaker:that we can see. And that's the thing we want to intervene on,
Speaker:like stop that or build that up. But really, we need to pay
Speaker:attention to all this stuff happening below the surface. So
Speaker:really, your question is, what can parents do? It should be?
Speaker:Well, how do we the appropriate question is how do we use that
Speaker:behavior to recognize when something's going wrong, right?
Speaker:On a neurobiological nervous system level? And how do I as a
Speaker:parent, meet them and resolve that issue. And that's a process
Speaker:we call co regulation. In co regulation is all about if I
Speaker:have again, we empathize really easy with small children and I
Speaker:have small children at home. Yeah, so it's easy. So if I have
Speaker:this six year old, that's really panicked about school. And her
Speaker:nervous system is just fire, she's in flight or fight mode,
Speaker:there's no blood going to her frontal cortex, all of logic is
Speaker:out the window reasoning is out the window, cause cause and
Speaker:effect is out the window. So there's no amount of if you get
Speaker:in the car, I'll give you a cookie when you get home. That
Speaker:does not work. Gotcha. Right? Because that's like thinking and
Speaker:logic and reasoning. If I say, if you don't go to school, you
Speaker:won't get into a good college that has no meaning to her.
Speaker:Because that's again, logic and reasoning and future, I need to
Speaker:respond. So that CO regulation is me coming in, sitting by her
Speaker:and letting my dysregulated six year old utilize my centered,
Speaker:structured nervous system that's intact. So she's literally
Speaker:borrowing my healthy, centered, emotionally regulated. Wow.
Speaker:Yeah. And there's
Speaker:a sitting with them. It's as simple as that sometimes.
Speaker:Yeah, it's really it's not about the doing, it's about sitting
Speaker:and connecting and being there. And there's three examples that
Speaker:I always bring up because parents, especially great, well
Speaker:intentioned parents, they want to do something, they want to
Speaker:nip that behavior in the bud. Right? So three examples I
Speaker:always bring up is that CO regulation is bi directional. So
Speaker:communications happening both both ways. So one example I
Speaker:bring up, if you have a newborn baby, and a mother who's
Speaker:nursing, somehow, that mother's body is producing milk that is
Speaker:custom tailored to meet that needs of that baby, both in
Speaker:terms of quantity and nutrition value, right? Like there's
Speaker:something about the baby and the mom, they there's this like,
Speaker:invisible interaction that they're having and they can just
Speaker:sync up another example. They did a study that said newborns
Speaker:learn to cry at the exact frequency their parents find
Speaker:them Most annoying,
Speaker:right? Yeah, that is true.
Speaker:Yeah, you're gonna make sense because like, I really need my
Speaker:caregiver to respond to me. Yeah, so I'm gonna find that
Speaker:right pitch. So by the parents responded like there's this
Speaker:really great sync up that happens. A third example there
Speaker:is my my, I don't want to butcher butcher the details, but
Speaker:they gave these young children3, 4, 5 years old, put them in a
Speaker:room with a really complicated puzzle. And it was kind of
Speaker:impossible to solve. And they wanted to see how long how
Speaker:resilient the kids could be. And then they brought a caregiver
Speaker:and the parent usually and said, don't do anything, don't help
Speaker:them with the puzzle don't really interact, just be there.
Speaker:And they found that those small age children could stay with the
Speaker:task three to four times longer, three to four times more
Speaker:resilient, just with a safe caregiver sitting there. Didn't
Speaker:have to say or do anything just being there. So I always tell
Speaker:families, like your presence, it's like Bluetooth, like you
Speaker:just sync up to each other. And you just and so that's really
Speaker:what co regulation is about is just sitting there. It's not,
Speaker:you don't just sit there, but it's a process of letting that
Speaker:child utilize your internal resources. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker:And then as as you build these co regulatory process, that's
Speaker:the avenue for self regulation. Right? That's, that's ultimately
Speaker:where we want to go.
Speaker:Oh, it's so fascinating to me, just your presence alone. You
Speaker:know, what, what a power that is?
Speaker:Yeah. The trick to that is it. It only works if you can be
Speaker:present. not distracted, and not. So we talked about the
Speaker:child might be flipping her lid. And we actually use, you'll see
Speaker:us do this a lot. Have you seen this. So this is part of your
Speaker:this is actually a great model for your brain. So if you hold
Speaker:up your hand here, this is, this is like your brainstem. Okay,
Speaker:and what's so important to learn is that it grows from the bottom
Speaker:up. So here's your brainstem. And if you take your thumb here,
Speaker:this midsection is your midbrain. And this is your
Speaker:amygdala. And this is where all your emotion comes from. The
Speaker:brainstem is like, make sure your heart's beating, I'm sure
Speaker:your lungs work. And on top of that is build the hardware for
Speaker:emotion. And then on top of that is your top of your brain is
Speaker:logic reasoning, all of this more advanced kind of thinking,
Speaker:right? Does that make sense? When we get dysregulated,
Speaker:literally, the blood stops flowing to the top of our brain.
Speaker:So it comes offline, and then becomes disconnected. And now
Speaker:we're just acting on pure emotion. Yeah. So when a
Speaker:caregiver is regulated, they can come down and they can just be
Speaker:present. It's unregulated. But if I as a parent am not
Speaker:regulated, if my toddler is driving me nuts, and I'm
Speaker:enraged, because there's been screaming for 30 minutes about
Speaker:how the blue popsicles too blue, and they wanted the red, white
Speaker:or whatever, you know what I mean? And I, all of a sudden,
Speaker:now I'm flipped my ability to be a co regulating force. Is
Speaker:is? So that's what it means about being
Speaker:present. Yeah, you have to find a way to be regulated yourself.
Speaker:So if you're my mom, I can't borrow your working nervous
Speaker:system, if yours is offline, too. We're going to have to
Speaker:find someone else. Yeah.
Speaker:And your point is, cuz though, if if I'm dysregulated, they're
Speaker:gonna probably borrow that dysregulation. So yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, that's Yes, exactly. And that's actually what we see
Speaker:happen there are within our brain these what are called
Speaker:mirror neurons. So just like our nervous system can respond to
Speaker:threats. If you're in a room and someone walks in, everyone just
Speaker:looks over at who's Whoa, who's walking in that room, like, we
Speaker:just respond to all these, oh, this is happening, this is new.
Speaker:We just absorb that same thing with mirror neurons. I can walk
Speaker:home at night, and walk in the front door after work. And the
Speaker:energy that I bring into the room will greatly influence how
Speaker:my kids respond to me. So we can use that for our advantage. And
Speaker:when we're not intentional, we'll be using it for our
Speaker:disadvantage. Totally.
Speaker:Yeah. So thinking back to my daughter when she was younger,
Speaker:you know, these milestones when she would transition from like
Speaker:primary school to middle school, and like as a parent, how can I
Speaker:support like these big like transitions? Yeah, right. For
Speaker:like, from an anxiety perspective? Yeah.
Speaker:Great. So recognize, especially the smaller the kid the easier
Speaker:the more there are those called about those disruptors, those
Speaker:those withdrawals. So a big change in school, change in
Speaker:teacher, change in structure, if you move and have to go to a new
Speaker:school. Those are all really small, or maybe even big
Speaker:withdrawals. So what that means is the deposits will have to be
Speaker:able to mitigate the withdrawals. So some helpful
Speaker:things is when your child is in a regulated state, so a couple
Speaker:of weeks beforehand are used To start talking and prepping and
Speaker:saying, Hey, this is going to happen, this is will be, this
Speaker:will be tough. And here's how we'll mitigate. Does that make
Speaker:sense? Yeah, we'll try to help and coach and prepare
Speaker:emotionally for that knowing that there'll be some, some
Speaker:withdrawals. There are also lots of things that can be done to
Speaker:depending on the age of the kid, if I had a small I like going to
Speaker:kindergarten, or first grade, I might say, I'm gonna walk you to
Speaker:your teachers door. And I'm going to be with you and your
Speaker:teacher, and we're going to spend three minutes in a soft,
Speaker:calm place, I'll take your hand at the end of it, your teacher
Speaker:will take your and we'll just make that transition. I thought
Speaker:so you're painting a picture almost ahead of time, is that
Speaker:what you're saying? Yeah,
Speaker:you're painting, what we're trying to do is really, we're
Speaker:mitigating the withdrawals and amplifying the deposits. But if
Speaker:I know, Hey, she's got to go to a new school, this is gonna be a
Speaker:big withdrawal. I need to be able to afford that withdrawal.
Speaker:So what can I do to help build in deposits? Yeah, that's a lot
Speaker:of school students. Now, before your first day of first grade,
Speaker:come tour the school, come meet your teacher, come go through
Speaker:all those things. So when you get there to do it live in
Speaker:person for the first time, it's not as big of a withdrawal?
Speaker:What are the best questions as a parent that I could ask like my
Speaker:daughter, just around anxiety and any stressors that she's
Speaker:having at school? Just how can I like dig into that so that I
Speaker:support her the best way?
Speaker:Yeah. So the first thing I always say, so the behaviors
Speaker:that we see are really valuable indicators. So I would first
Speaker:want to be really aware of is she going to bed on time, if she
Speaker:waking up? How will I know if she comes home from school and
Speaker:she runs into her room and doesn't come out for two hours?
Speaker:I'm like, Oh, that's not like her. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Speaker:I might look for these behaviors to start to tell me I should be
Speaker:more curious. Yeah, I should be more curious. I should not be.
Speaker:If there's things that aren't specifically concerning to you,
Speaker:you're just wanting to know. We're always encouraged to find
Speaker:age appropriate ways to ask and talk. So for again, my six year
Speaker:old if I just say, how was your day, she's gonna say good,
Speaker:because the her day was just huge, giant thing. She doesn't
Speaker:even know how to break that down. But if I say, who was the
Speaker:person? Or what was the person sitting next to you eating for
Speaker:lunch? She'll be oh, I sat next to so and so. And he had this
Speaker:hot bologna sandwich or whatever it was right. So then if I give
Speaker:her that she can talk now if I have a 16 year old? That would
Speaker:probably not be the right question. Yeah. But I would
Speaker:still look for those behaviors and and look for, how is our
Speaker:body budget doing? How is she? Is there enough deposits to
Speaker:mitigate all of the withdrawals?
Speaker:So like for high school? Age, you know, is there anything that
Speaker:you recommend to make those deposits and engage those
Speaker:conversations with our high schoolers?
Speaker:Yeah, regular experience of Kim's all comes back to that CO
Speaker:regulation process? Because what, what we need to remember
Speaker:is that stress is actually great. Kids need stress that
Speaker:Yeah, I know, you're like, I must be doing awesome, then
Speaker:because of stress. Yeah. No, it is great. That's how we learn.
Speaker:And that's how we grow. So think about if you want to, like get
Speaker:stronger, the only real like physically, like I want to be a
Speaker:better runner, or I want to climb a mountain or whatever,
Speaker:the only way to do it is to do this exercise, which is going to
Speaker:stress out your body. Even on a cellular level, we know there's
Speaker:a process called hormesis work, or we talked about hormetic
Speaker:effects of a specific protocol or exercise, which is stressing
Speaker:out your body for short periods of time for the purpose of
Speaker:making them wrong. So stress is actually really good. We should
Speaker:encourage stress, if we're not in some level of stress, we're
Speaker:probably not growing. Now, most of us, we don't have the problem
Speaker:of not enough stress. Most of us just normal everyday life and
Speaker:expectation. But we do see this sometimes with kids, if they've
Speaker:not had the appropriate stressors, they might be
Speaker:developmentally behind because they haven't haven't been if I
Speaker:take my new brand new baby and I never let her touch the floor.
Speaker:She's never going to learn to sit up or crawl or walk right if
Speaker:I just always hold and carry her everywhere. She needs the stress
Speaker:of sitting on her belly and trying to find her way to to
Speaker:push up so she can learn to crawl. Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah. So where it becomes a problem is when our our level of
Speaker:stress exceeds our ability to cope. So as a parent, that's
Speaker:what you really need to be looking for is Is this an
Speaker:appropriate? And is this an appropriate level of stress of
Speaker:stress? And they're coping? In the thing I always talk about,
Speaker:again, is that CO regulation if I have a kid, or if my daughter
Speaker:comes home, and is stressed and she's telling me she's stressed,
Speaker:but we come home and we sit together and we can have this CO
Speaker:regulatory process and I know All that we're co regulating,
Speaker:then I feel like yeah, we're actually meeting that level of
Speaker:stress. It's when I'm not seeing indicators of poor regulation.
Speaker:Like she can't co-regulate, she's weighed her lid way too
Speaker:flipped. That means we've we're now exceeding, we're exceeding
Speaker:the level of stress that she, that becomes a problem.
Speaker:Gotcha. So how can I encourage my daughter to go to school be
Speaker:involved in school without like, increasing her anxiety around
Speaker:school? Does that make sense?
Speaker:Uh huh. Yeah. Like, if you're just like, you gotta go and be
Speaker:there.
Speaker:Yeah. But not amp up that anxiety? Yeah, we're
Speaker:not like, how do you not put all the pressure on? Yeah, I always
Speaker:believe that. Kids do well when they can. So what I mean by that
Speaker:is, I think this of all humans too, when we have the option to
Speaker:choose to for help, and healing and growth. That's what we
Speaker:choose. So most kids want, they don't love doing homework. And
Speaker:then I love being in class all day, I get those all those
Speaker:bummer things. But they have this inherent sense of growth, I
Speaker:do want to get better, I want to be, I want to be a human, I want
Speaker:to be responsible adult. And depending on what developmental
Speaker:they are developmentally advanced, they are delayed they
Speaker:are for their age that will come and go, in theory shouldn't be a
Speaker:parent's job to constantly nudge their kid to go to school.
Speaker:Right? There's, there's some level of they're left to their
Speaker:own devices. We want them to make healthy decisions on their
Speaker:own, not because their mom's, or their dad's waving a finger at
Speaker:them. Now all kids will need some help and some reminders and
Speaker:to have a structure built and did you do your homework not
Speaker:most kids don't like rush home to I can't wait. I'm self, self
Speaker:actualized human, I can't wait to do all my homework. The
Speaker:second I get home, most of us are not that way. Right? And
Speaker:that's okay. So what as long as we can, again, come back to
Speaker:experiences of CO regulation. Prior to the discussion, or
Speaker:parents, if you if you Google Online, that will be like talk
Speaker:to your kids. But if your kid'ss lid is flipped, and their
Speaker:nervous system's freaking out, and they're in flight or fight
Speaker:mode, and you're like, hey, go to school, or let's do this, or
Speaker:let's talk about it, you're just gonna freak them out more. So
Speaker:what our talking is great. Once they're here, can once you're
Speaker:both here, then you can sit and talk and like, how is it going?
Speaker:What is going on? What help do you need? So I realize we
Speaker:haven't said this is one of the questions that I get asked a lot
Speaker:is okay, co regulation, I get that anxiety is all this
Speaker:physical stuff. How do I know? If I'm correctly? How do I know
Speaker:if that process is working? Right? So there are five things
Speaker:to look for five indicators that your nervous system is helping
Speaker:manage your child's nervous system. So the first one is
Speaker:proximity, and you get close, and you sit by them. Or if
Speaker:you're like, Hey, come here, and they like run away. Or like I
Speaker:want to be left alone. Like don't even get close to me.
Speaker:That's a sign there. Let's flip but they allow you to get close.
Speaker:Second one. Safe touch. Are they okay? With the touch on the arm,
Speaker:if you put their arm they like wiggle away? There's a lot of
Speaker:shame happening. A lot of this. They're not able, they're not co
Speaker:regulating, can they make eye contact? If they won't look at
Speaker:you, their headis up, or they're all over, they're distressed. We
Speaker:say congruency have an effect, meaning does their face match
Speaker:their voice. So if you ask, Hey, how's it going? I'm fine.
Speaker:Everything's going great. Right? Okay. Is it really though? Yeah,
Speaker:or VISEART? We see this a lot of like, how was your day? Oh, it
Speaker:was only the worst day I've ever had in my whole life. Like, oh,
Speaker:okay, like, that's a pretty good indicator, they're flipped. And
Speaker:then the last one we look for is are they receptive to empathy?
Speaker:So when you express empathy to them, like, ah, tell me about
Speaker:it. That sounds that sounds so hard. If I'm you I'd be so I'd
Speaker:feel so abandoned, so alone, or I can't believe your friends
Speaker:that when you express empathy, can they receive that and soak
Speaker:into it? Or they're like, Well, you don't know me? You don't
Speaker:care? That's a pretty good sign that they're dysregulated. So I
Speaker:wouldn't try to do any poking or prodding, or why don't you go to
Speaker:school or what's going on here until I know I have those five
Speaker:markers of regulation, because again, there's the iceberg and
Speaker:there's all that stuff underneath and all this body
Speaker:stuffs going on. And we can't just peek at the iceberg and
Speaker:start chipping away at the top without understanding what's
Speaker:happening. Just as the brain develops from the bottom up, our
Speaker:interventions have to be developed from the bottom up.
Speaker:And if none of none of this is online, your logic and reasoning
Speaker:all of that's not connected. No amount of talk and logic and
Speaker:reasoning is really going to get to the issue. And what it
Speaker:actually does is it makes it worse because when we have a
Speaker:misattuned approach, I tell my daughter, why aren't you going
Speaker:to school you should be doing this. Don't you know that if you
Speaker:don't go to class, you're gonna not get into college and her lid
Speaker:is flipped? That's a total misattunement. I'm giving her
Speaker:logic and reasoning when she needs emotional support. And
Speaker:what I am actually doing is creating an experience of shame.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, she that could, potentially will provide her an
Speaker:opportunity to incorporate more shame into her schema, into
Speaker:herself. Conversely, when you can meet someone and co-regulate
Speaker:that is actually an antidote to shame.
Speaker:So, I always encourage parents to be careful. And when they
Speaker:Google like, it'll give you all the tips and tricks, have your
Speaker:child do breathing exercises, and this and this, and those are
Speaker:fine. Once we have the core regulation, once we know their
Speaker:nervous systems onboard, gotcha. Then we can start employing all
Speaker:those strategies.
Speaker:So at what point should I be concerned about, you know, my
Speaker:child and school around school anxiety and really get, you
Speaker:know, maybe some help from school? Or from the teacher or,
Speaker:you know, engage people outside of just me? You know, the
Speaker:parent? Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. So I don't think it's ever, I think you can always
Speaker:keep those options open and those lines of communication. So
Speaker:even if I have a seemingly healthy, happy, normal, love
Speaker:school, no school issues, I would still want to have some
Speaker:connection to her teachers, and to those resources,
Speaker:just communicating letting them know. Yes, seeing what they're
Speaker:seeing.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly. And then when something does happen, we're not
Speaker:so reactive, like, Oh, crap, what happened? Now? I got them.
Speaker:So you're asking them, what, what behaviors would I start to
Speaker:see that I'm like, okay, maybe I need to do more or beyond. So
Speaker:again, the behaviors are the warning sign that something's
Speaker:going on. So if we start to see the warning signs start to hear
Speaker:the fire alarm, absolutely that's the sign that we should
Speaker:be doing something. So again, some of the warning signs would
Speaker:be I saw my child come home. And if they can, if they can talk to
Speaker:me about I feel stressed, overwhelmed, I'm not getting
Speaker:these things done. I see major behavior changes, isolating in
Speaker:their room when they weren't before. They're spending a lot
Speaker:more time out of the house when they weren't before, or they're
Speaker:spending a lot more time in the house. When they weren't before
Speaker:they're not going out and being with their friends. So those
Speaker:major behavior changes would be concerning for me. The other
Speaker:great thing about many adolescents is that it's usually
Speaker:not domain specific. I don't want to go to football practice
Speaker:anymore. Like if relationships or school are tough, they're
Speaker:probably also tough at church, or Yeah, football camp, or what
Speaker:does that make sense? So you're gonna see this kind of more
Speaker:global change in their thinking, and the way they're acting? If
Speaker:it's not global, it's like, I feel great. But they you hear
Speaker:them complaining about their math teacher every day, they
Speaker:seem to be doing well, but what's going on in the math
Speaker:class? Let's see if we can target that. That might lead me
Speaker:to,
Speaker:do you think I need to get specific with any accommodations
Speaker:that the school that teachers that, you know, they should
Speaker:request? If I see a lot of anxiety, or what are your
Speaker:thoughts on that?
Speaker:Yeah, so certainly, our approach would always want to meet the
Speaker:meet, we always say meet the client where they are meet the
Speaker:student where they are. So we talked, we talked about stress
Speaker:is good. Too much is it's not good, right? So I always tell
Speaker:parents, yet we want to accommodate, but we don't want
Speaker:to over accommodate, right? So when, again, we have empathy for
Speaker:babies. So always use them, when you have a baby that likes to be
Speaker:held, but you never put them down and never let them go
Speaker:through the discomfort, then they never learned to walk. So
Speaker:we have to brush up against that challenge. Right? So I would not
Speaker:ever want to accommodate all things away. So some parents who
Speaker:said they really don't like going to school, so I'm just
Speaker:going to pull them out and homeschool. And maybe that's
Speaker:what each kid needs. Or maybe that's what this one kid needs.
Speaker:But that's can be dangerous, because now you've just removed
Speaker:the the stress for them to work on. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Speaker:they, they need something to brush up against so they can be
Speaker:in that growth zone. So there's your comfort zone growth zone.
Speaker:And then we say like the Oh crap, like panic zone. So we
Speaker:want to find ways to help them be in that growth zone. So
Speaker:accommodations can be helpful, depending on the underlying some
Speaker:of the underlying issues. One thing that we haven't talked
Speaker:about is some of the specific reasons why someone's might be
Speaker:dysregulated. So this is really where your accommodations
Speaker:question gets interesting, because if I have like a, maybe
Speaker:I have a learning disorder, dyslexia, so certain classes
Speaker:that were really difficult for me, and those were big
Speaker:withdrawals, so I might need some specific supports to manage
Speaker:my dyslexia or another learning disorder. We should understand
Speaker:that the CO regulation and the body, nervous system all of that
Speaker:still is in play, but we need To make sure we are understanding
Speaker:why those are stressing them, like what those stressors or
Speaker:withdrawals actually are, so that we can be targeted in
Speaker:ouraccommodation. Gotcha versus just a blanket accommodation?
Speaker:When should I consider seeking like therapy for my son or
Speaker:daughter? Regarding school anxiety? What At what point do
Speaker:you think I should really go to that outside help to a
Speaker:therapist.
Speaker:So I'm of the belief that most of us could benefit from some
Speaker:therapy, from time to time, I guess I'm biased as, as a
Speaker:therapist, so particularly when we see the level of stress,
Speaker:overwhelming their ability to cope. Okay, so we're continuing
Speaker:to see the same stressful behaviors. And then even once
Speaker:we've done some really basic accommodations, and we're still
Speaker:seeing that level of stress, that tells me that we probably
Speaker:need some outside help to mitigate the withdrawal,
Speaker:mitigate the stressors, and then to amplify and build the
Speaker:supports.
Speaker:And what would that look like? And, you know, my son or
Speaker:daughter, like, can you give me some, like specific examples of
Speaker:what that could look like, in terms of therapy?
Speaker:Now, in terms of like, what I should be looking for, you know,
Speaker:behavior wise, in order to seek, you know, like a therapist or an
Speaker:outside help for them. Does that make sense? Specific, maybe
Speaker:behaviors? Symptoms, if you will? Yeah, I would be seeing
Speaker:that I really should be like, ah, you know, maybe I need more
Speaker:help than just what I can provide? Yeah.
Speaker:Well, certainly, if we're starting to see more global
Speaker:mental health concern. So it's not just yeah, they're anxious
Speaker:about school, but they're also having a lot of depression.
Speaker:They're also have some global anxiety, maybe they're still a
Speaker:lot of separation anxiety. My 15 year old should want to go out
Speaker:with their friends. But it's hard for her to leave my side as
Speaker:a parent that does that make sense? So we start to look for
Speaker:those other things. There's ever instances of self harm,
Speaker:suicidal, suicidal thoughts, suicidal actions, those
Speaker:certainly would be red flags. This is not just school anxiety,
Speaker:there's a lot more mental health going on. The other thing I
Speaker:would say is, as a family, what is your ability to provide co
Speaker:regulatory experiences? And a lot of our families, we talked
Speaker:about this, and I'll ask like, when's the last time you two
Speaker:felt you could co-regulate together. And the mom, I've seen
Speaker:this where mom or dad just broke down in tears and say, the last
Speaker:time I held you, like the last time you were small enough to
Speaker:hold in my arms. And that's why sometimes we need a therapist,
Speaker:or we need someone else to how do we get our relationship back
Speaker:where parents aren't a liability, they can actually be
Speaker:the emotional asset they need to be and sometimes that requires a
Speaker:lot of therapy and communication. And more often
Speaker:than not, it's helping parents, as most of us everything I'm
Speaker:saying most of us were not raised this way. Right, right.
Speaker:This is they guessed that somewhere between 30 and 67% of
Speaker:anxiety is hereditablel, meaning it's like passed on
Speaker:generationally. But in the study, you can actually read it
Speaker:and says, it's really hard, though to separate. Is it that
Speaker:the mom, the parents are not able to provide co regulation
Speaker:because they themselves aren't co-regulated? Right? So it's not
Speaker:actually is it? purely genetic? Or is there all this
Speaker:environmental stuff? So you asked about therapy? I would,
Speaker:when I say when's the last time you were able to co-regulate?
Speaker:And then I'll ask the parents when's the last time you
Speaker:yourself could co-regulate with just with each other or with
Speaker:someone else in your life? And I'm like, Oh, actually, kind of
Speaker:always, like, my lid'ss always kind of flipped. Or maybe I'm
Speaker:like hanging on with two. Yeah, like, it's like ping, ping. And
Speaker:it's like falling off. So those certainly would be instances
Speaker:where I would want someone in therapy, if you're saying we're
Speaker:able to co-regulate, we have that, and we're making some
Speaker:accommodations, and we're seeing some growth, and we're able to
Speaker:manage stressors and the risks are low. Like we're not talking
Speaker:about self harm. We're not talking about suicidality, like
Speaker:we're just stumbling, kind of going through it. That's a good
Speaker:time to involve your support system. Gotcha. Everyone that
Speaker:you have. Gotcha.
Speaker:So when I'm looking for a therapist, for my son or
Speaker:daughter, you know, around school anxiety or anything in
Speaker:life, is there any tips you have on how to find like the best
Speaker:therapist for my son or daughter?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. So certainly, we at Embark have a lot of
Speaker:resources. So if we get help, we can help connect families to
Speaker:appropriate resources that meet their needs. We don't want to
Speaker:over intervene and we don't want to under intervene. I would also
Speaker:always encourage students to students or families to reach
Speaker:out to their local support network. So your high school has
Speaker:counselors, they have resources for people local in your area to
Speaker:get you connected to you also. I mean, look at the back of your
Speaker:insurance card. There's lots of ways to find the people what we
Speaker:Want to make sure as you can have a therapist that can help
Speaker:provide that safety and security relationally. A therapist that
Speaker:can understand the goal isn't to turn off the fire alarm. Right?
Speaker:So the behaviors are the fire alarm, we don't want someone
Speaker:that just turns off the fire alarm while the underground fire
Speaker:still burning. So we got to need to make sure we can really get
Speaker:to physiologically what's happening so that they're able
Speaker:to manage to have enough deposits manage all the
Speaker:withdrawals,
Speaker:are there any resources that you can recommend? You know, for me
Speaker:as a parent, when it comes to you know, just managing school
Speaker:anxiety or any, anything that I should be up to speed on with
Speaker:resources that can support my son or
Speaker:daughter? Yeah, of course, so against similar and so local
Speaker:agencies, your high school or other local health centers will
Speaker:have tips and things us at Embark we have, we can provide a
Speaker:lot of hope and a lot of support for a wide continuum of
Speaker:presenting issues and problems. And then all over the country.
Speaker:One book I always recommend is called Brain-Body Parenting by
Speaker:Mona Delahooke, who is a psychologist that talks a lot
Speaker:about what we've talked about today, done a lot of work again,
Speaker:with the last two decades of research around how our body
Speaker:creates and drives our emotion, and how we can mitigate our body
Speaker:sensations that drive our mental health.
Speaker:Is there any resources that you can recommend for my teenager,
Speaker:specifically, like books, websites, anything for that
Speaker:that's geared more? For them, that would be helpful,
Speaker:their biggest resource is going to be the people in their lives.
Speaker:So do they have coaches, church leaders, parents, neighbors, all
Speaker:of those other people, if they want to do some more research
Speaker:around specific health issues, or diagnoses or mental health
Speaker:concerns, I would encourage them or their parent to reach out to
Speaker:reach out to us here at Embark and we connect them to
Speaker:resources, local area, anxiety becomes such a just a catch all
Speaker:for everything. Yeah, I don't want to experience it feels so
Speaker:yucky. And so I'm stressed and I'm overwhelmed. I'm this. And
Speaker:what is important to remember is when we can find meaning and
Speaker:purpose in our struggles, our struggles become easier to
Speaker:overcome, we talk a lot about creating joy. Yeah, and it's
Speaker:actually a great opportunity to have these stressors, Stress
Speaker:makes us healthier, and makes us stronger. Too much stress can be
Speaker:difficult, but when I work with clients, and they can get to a
Speaker:point where they say, my brain is really fast, it's really
Speaker:overact...overreactive, my body's always hiding them always
Speaker:ready for something bad to happen. But that's been an
Speaker:incredible opportunity to to get to know myself. And I'm going to
Speaker:be a better student because of that, I'm going to be a better
Speaker:partner, I'm going to be a better parent, because of my
Speaker:opportunity to get to know myself. And I'm really excited
Speaker:for the next generation because there's a lot more of the youth
Speaker:of today that are doing this mental health work. Yeah, and
Speaker:knowing themselves better and finding joy and meaning and
Speaker:purpose in their difficulties, which I think really tremendous.
Speaker:I want everyone to know, if you're struggling with the
Speaker:anxiety, particularly around school, it's normal, you're not
Speaker:flawed, or broken. So to be nice to yourself, and make sure
Speaker:you're able to have people in your life that can be assets and
Speaker:help you and regulate with you to give you all the buffers that
Speaker:you love that.
Speaker:And is there any like quick tips tricks you have for me as a
Speaker:parent or even, you know, my teenager, my child to do to
Speaker:create joy? You know, is there any like easy, easy ways easy
Speaker:tips, tricks to create joy in our lives,
Speaker:one of the issues when your life becomes so symptomatic, like I'm
Speaker:stressed and I'm anxious, I'm worried about stuff and maybe
Speaker:doing these, like we just start running away from symptoms.
Speaker:That's all her life. Just keep that at bay. Just keep that
Speaker:away. And sometimes, well, well, we're always talking about is in
Speaker:order to find joy, it's that none of that's going to be joy
Speaker:even running away from it. Even if all that was gone, that's
Speaker:still not joy. Joy is about having purpose and meaning in
Speaker:your life. And I'll talk with a lot of a lot of students around
Speaker:even though you're anxious, what are you passionate about? And
Speaker:they'll say like, Well, I used to be really into astronomy.
Speaker:Yeah, but since my anxiety I can't and I said well, why can't
Speaker:you be anxious and have a strong? Do you have to get rid
Speaker:of all those symptoms in order to do the things that you love?
Speaker:Oh, I don't know to why. And then we start can start talking
Speaker:about well, I also want to be a great aunt. I want to be a great
Speaker:aunt, my nieces and nephews Okay, can you be anxious and a
Speaker:great aunt? Well, no. Okay, how come? Well, because I can't
Speaker:leave the house. Okay, so how can you be get you to be a great
Speaker:aunt what does that mean to you? And how do you get like, oh,
Speaker:actually, I can't, I can feel what I'm feeling and do what I
Speaker:want to do anyway. And kind of flipping that in their mind that
Speaker:I don't have to get rid of all these things I don't like about
Speaker:myself in order to live the life I want to live in actually, the
Speaker:more I just be who I want to be, regardless of my anxiety, or my
Speaker:fears, or my worries, the happier I am, and the joy and
Speaker:meaning and purpose I, I have the ultimate goal, we talk about
Speaker:co-regulation, the goal is to do self regulation, right, so kids
Speaker:learn to co-regulate with a parent, so they can be
Speaker:autonomous and launch into adulthood. But self regulation
Speaker:is not the actual goal. The actual goal is that you then
Speaker:become a co-regulator for other people. Hmm. Right, so that you
Speaker:can have friends. And you can be that strong, solid base that
Speaker:other people can come and lean to when when you're now the
Speaker:adult. And you're now the parent and you have your own kids. They
Speaker:can come and co-regulate you. That's the goal, where we are
Speaker:able to serve and create great meaning and purpose for the
Speaker:Yeah. Thank you, Jake. Thanks for joining us today on the
Speaker:people that mean the most.
Speaker:Roadmap to Joy and discussing back to school anxiety and tips
Speaker:and tricks as a parent that we can do to kind of navigate this
Speaker:these challenges. I would encourage everybody to be sure
Speaker:to subscribe to our podcast, and we appreciate you joining us
Speaker:today on this Roadmap to Joy. Thank you