Mindfulness tips for calming back-to-school anxiety

From guest blogger Natalie Von Teichman of miindfully

School is fast approaching (um, where did the summer go?!). Even if we’re looking forward to a little more structure, the change in routine can cause feelings of unease and anxiety for our kids.

According to the 2022-2023 Annual Ontario School Survey (AOSS), principals reported increased behavioural issues and challenges with self-regulation. The same study showed that a staggering 95 percent of schools need support for students' mental health and that 59 percent of students feel depressed about the future.

With back to school on the horizon, we need to bring more awareness to our children's mental fitness as they embark on this new school year.

Mental fitness?

Let me explain: We’re all familiar with physical fitness, and we’re familiar with being proactive about it. With physical fitness, you wouldn’t start training for a marathon the night before the race. You would proactively start your program weeks (even months before).
 
The same goes for mental fitness and training your children’s minds to prepare for events like the first day back to school. We want to build our children’s mental muscles to be agile, flexible and strong before game-time! That means priming their minds to feel ready, calm and safe to handle all sorts of feelings when that first day of school arrives.
 
So it makes sense that we'd want to be proactive (not reactive) about mental fitness too. Here are four mindfulness tips for calming school anxiety. 

Mindful Mondays

Start the week off right by dedicating 10 minutes to the concept of mindfulness by listening to a meditation app (miindfully.com has child-focused meditation content!) or swapping out a bedtime story for a meditation.

Why do this? 

When we “prime” the brain to feel calm, we’re helping it switch from a sympathetic (fight or flight) to a parasympathetic (rest and digest) state. This is like doing push-ups in your mind! Mindful Mondays are a great way to start bringing mental fitness practices into your home, and you’ll be surprised how much kids truly love feeling calm! Preparing the brain to deal with stress means practicing what it feels like to go from calm to stress and back again.

Shape-tracing

Before going to school, have your child draw a square on a piece of paper or hand. Have them use slow inhales and exhales as they trace their finger along the sides of the shape. Inhaling down one side, holding their breath across the bottom, exhaling up the other side and holding their breath along the top. They can also do triangle, star, and infinity-8 shape tracing, too!

Why do this? 

Deep belly breaths are simply magical! Teaching your kids that they can control their own breath (which goes hand in hand with their heart rate) is a beautiful way for them to take a role in recovering from meltdowns or feelings of anxiety. It’s important to remind them that they have their breath with them at all times and that they always have access to it. One of the best skills that we can teach our kids is how to shorten the refractory period after a meltdown.

Fun fact: The Navy Seals are taught box breathing (tracing a square) to feel calm and focused when under extreme stress!

Count the exhales

When at school (and faced with something that is causing stress), teach your child to count their inhales and exhales. Take a deep breath in for the count of four, and exhale longer than the inhale (to the count of six).

Why do this? 

Longer exhales than inhales stimulate the vagus nerve, which is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It’s also responsible for engaging the parasympathetic nervous system and, therefore, a feeling of calm, relaxation and safety throughout the body. A calm mind and body means that children are more able to take on stressful situations with focus, confidence and a growth mindset.

Play the “Rose, Thorn, Bud, Stem” game

We love this game. Go around the table and have everyone in the family give an answer for each of the items: 

• ROSE: something they loved about the day
• THORN: something they did not like so much about the day
• BUD: something they learned
• STEM: something they’re looking forward to

Why do this? 

This practises listening skills, public speaking, critical thinking and most importantly, you get a lot of information from your child about what they encountered during their day and how it impacted them. Chat with them about what feelings are associated with the things they loved or the things they didn't like.

Something to try: Have your child teach a friend how to play when they come over for a playdate! Being a teacher creates a whole new level of understanding and helps them come at the game from a different perspective.

Remember, practising mental fitness with your kids is not another thing for your to-do list. Teaching our kids about their mental agility, flexibility and strength will give them some control over the way they react in situations and boost their confidence, self-control, focus and emotional resilience.

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Natalie von Teichman, is the founder of MIINDFULLY™, a brand responsible for creating the very first meditation stuffie for kids that offers a multi-sensory experience. She is a ertified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher from the School of Positive Transformation, is a trained Crisis Responder for Kids Help Phone, has a diploma in Children’s Mindfulness from the Centre of Excellence, and has her CPD certificate in Mindfulness in Children.