With new school year just 2 weeks away, expert shares tips for helping anxious kids

For many students, the last couple of weeks of summer vacation are filled with largely positive anticipation and excitement. But for kids who suffer from intense school-based anxiety, psychologist Brent Macdonald says this is the ideal time to start communicating with children — and their schools.

"There's a bit of a scale there that ranges from that level of anticipation to a more anxious anticipation, which is a lot of 'what if' questions," said Macdonald, who works with students and schools in Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Yukon.

"What if I don't have friends? What if my friends aren't in my class? What if I get a teacher who I don't get along with or a number of teachers I don't get along with, perhaps what happens if I don't make the sports team? What happens if I ... go to the lunchroom and there's no one to sit with?"

Macdonald says the last two weeks of August are the perfect time to start an open conversation with kids about any worries they may have about school.

"Not leaving it until September comes around and then everyone's anxious — there's no time, everyone's in a panic and there's no really no time to discuss things," said Macdonald.

But he said it's important not to let those discussions eclipse the rest of summer vacation.

"We want to make sure we're also not dwelling on things too much either because we still have two weeks or so of summer, you know, we want to enjoy that too. So we don't want it all to be tied into anxiety about the school year because that could be unhealthy as well."

Macdonald said it's important for parents and caregivers of kids with intense school-based anxiety to connect with schools in advance so that teachers have time to come up with a plan — from sending the student a friendly email to having them come in for a tour of the classroom before the first day.

And he said the same is true for students who require special learning supports. The adults in their lives have to become advocates for them before the school year gets underway.

"We don't start advocating once things are already out of control — schools need to know as soon as possible ... what kind of needs that are going to be coming into their classroom ... English-language students, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism or neurodiverse-spectrum kind of conditions."

And Macdonald says teachers need to know in advance when kids have suffered traumatic experiences.

"We see a lot of new Canadians coming in who have lived through war zones and that sort of thing. It's not very wise for those students to enter the classroom ... and school have no idea what's going on," he said.

"The more we know ahead of time as educators, the better we can plan. The better we can plan, the more success we're going to have."

Macdonald says one of the big issues he sees as a psychologist is when students tell their parents or caregivers that they're simply too anxious to go to school on the first day of class, and they go home.