Understanding the Connection Between Going Back to School and Adolescent Anxiety

As summer winds down and returning to school becomes an unavoidable reality, many teenagers are experiencing a rush of varied emotions. Some teens enjoy school and are eager to trade their dull summer jobs for daily intellectual enrichment. Others find school intolerable and wish that the steamy summer months would carry on forever. A third set sees the first day of school as a landmark of dread and anxiety and spend most of August worrying about whether they’ll get along with their new teachers, whether they’ll be able to keep their grades up, and whether they’ll be able to continue navigating the at times treacherous waters of adolescent sociality. When Butterflies Turn into Something More A certain amount of school-related trepidation is normal — especially if a teenager has recently moved or is starting middle or high school — but where is the line between “a case of the butterflies” and serious clinical anxiety? The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 25% of 13- to 18-year-olds struggle with some sort of anxiety disorder at some point during their adolescence. Not all of these cases are directly related to school, but educational environments play such a dominant role in young people’s intellectual, emotional, and social development that incidents at or related to school often underlie many adolescents’ mental health struggles. In the initial weeks of the school year, teens’ most imposing anxieties tend to be social. The avera...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Anxiety Children and Teens General Motivation and Inspiration Parenting Psychology School Issues Self-Help Stress Students Adolescence back to school bullying Communication making friends Peer pressure school anxiety scho Source Type: news