Find an audio version of this post on my YouTube channel here.
What if the best way of addressing student stress and anxiety was for parents to address their own stress and anxiety? What if the best way to help your kid feel happier was for you to feel happier?
If this sounds ineffective, irresponsible, or selfish, you may be delighted to find out that it’s anything but.
Student Stress
Students today are under a lot of stress.
This comes in part from the cultural weather we're all experiencing—the anxiety about the well-being of our planet, an especially polarized political climate, and the pressure and distraction of social media.
It also comes from the academic pressure to excel and achieve. Kids often feel over-scheduled, as—on top of going to school—they try to fit in homework, athletics, clubs, drama, volunteering, and other activities.
Parents Role in Reducing Anxiety
Many parents want to help their children manage academic anxiety. And very often they focus on the child’s anxiety. Well, duh. That seems logical. It’s the child that’s feeling stress after all!
But what about you?
You are very likely also feeling stress—both because you want to help your kid and because of whatever’s going on in your life.
Isn’t It My Job to Worry?
It seems to many parents like it’s their job to worry about their kids—as if that’s the responsible and caring thing to do. Isn’t the role of parents in stress management to get in there and manage that stress? Not if taking on that role causes you stress. That’s not helping kids handle stress and anxiety. That’s doing the opposite.
When a kid feels that their parents are worried about them, it feels like a vote of no confidence. It feels like a parent doesn’t believe in them. Your worry increases your student’s worry.
That decreases their confidence. And the lower their confidence, the less a student feels like trying to succeed.
If you’re feeling anxious and stressed, does it help to have an anxious and stressed person try to soothe you? Do you go on Youtube looking for anxious, hyper people to help you relax? Of course not. That’s like throwing gas on the flames.
You Can’t Fake It
Likewise, you can’t really help your kid feel better unless you really feel better. Forcing calmness just doesn’t work. No matter how many nice words we say, how we’re really feeling underneath those words is what comes through. That is what your child is registering.
We feel the calmest around calmest people. Calm emanates authentically from a calm person, like perfume emanates from a flower. And it is a fundamental condition of calmness that is most powerful in helping your child feel calm.
It is also from a condition of calmness that you can best offer suggestions to your child. We get the best ideas when we’re calm and happy. That goes for both you and your kid. Everybody does better in life when they operate from a calm foundation. We bring more focus to what we’re doing, we get better ideas, and we make better choices.
The Best of the Coping Techniques for Parents of Stressed Students
So my advice is to focus on your own fundamental feeling of calm as much as you can.
If you’re feeling overworked or too busy to take care for yourself—to exercise, say, or do whatever activities you enjoy—look for ways to give yourself more of those things. Give yourself permission to relax a little more. You’ll feel better and so will your kid. It’s just like on an airplane where parents are told to put on their own oxygen mask and then help their children.
And if you have trouble giving yourself permission, give me a call and I’ll give you it for no extra charge. 😊
Some Perspective on Academic Stress
I understand that it’s not necessarily easy to just stop worrying. Just do your best to minimize it and soothe yourself. The good news is that once you start taking even small steps—a ten-minute walk here, a five-minute meditation there—you’ll soon notice results.
It can also help to hear some larger perspective on it all from someone who’s been around the block with hundreds of students over the years.
I’ve worked with parents and kids for more than 30 years, both as a schoolteacher and a private tutor. I’ve sat in many a parent-teacher meeting about a “problem” kid and had hundreds of conversations with parents of my tutor students.
I’ve often felt the worry of many parents, as they imagine impending disaster befalling their child. What if my kid is the one who ends up living in a ditch somewhere!
And often there’s an idea that either the parent or the kid will make one big mistake that will send them down the path to ruin: If they fail this one test or class, or whatever the crisis of the moment seems to be.
But of course, this almost never happens. Invariably, every kid finds their way forward into adulthood somehow.
Over and over, I’ve seen students go through periods where they don’t seem to care much about school and then at some later point suddenly become motivated and turn things around.
One-Size-Fits-None
The uniformity of schools reinforces a false idea that all kids should progress at the same “normal,” or “healthy” rate. But this just isn’t how humans are. Just as everybody has their own talents and preferences, so too everybody has their rhythm and pace. You can help reduce your student’s anxiety by trusting they will find their own unique path—and indeed are already somehow on it.
There are so many options and pathways to success—especially nowadays. Our society’s current one-size-fits-all approach to education is actually not optimal for most kids. I call it a one-size-fits-none approach.
It’s not natural to expect all human beings to thrive in our conventional academic setting, sitting in chairs six hours a day, marching along in all subjects at the officially-mandated pace. Some teens adapt better than others.
Keeping this perspective on our educational system can help both you and your teen. It may seem counterintuitive, but by recognizing the flaws in the system itself, students are able to succeed within that system.
Find an audio version of this post on my YouTube channel here.
Please let me know if this was helpful and reach out if you have any questions about your particular situation and tutoring needs.