Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Welcome to Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast presented by Rady Children's Health. I'm Melanie Cole. And today, we're going to give you some simple ways to help your child cope with school pressure. And as we know, going back to school is not easy for any of our kiddos. While we may be psyched about it, as parents, there's always a little bit of stress when the kids go back to school. It's exciting. But it's also a little bit scary. There's the unknown. You're not sure. You're changing grades and teachers and new friends and there's a lot. So, we are going to learn how to help our kiddos go back to school in the healthiest way that they can. And joining me is Dr. Sarah Gubara. She's a pediatric psychologist with Rady Children's Health of Orange County.

Dr. Gubara, thank you so much for joining us. So, what are some of the most common sources of school-related stress in our kids? And when they're just going back to school, what are we looking for?

Sarah Gubara, PhD: Oh, everything. Everything can be related to school stress for kids. So, the academic demands, the social dynamics, the performance expectations, transitions, uncertainty, and then stressors that you may not notice that may impact one kid but not another. So, there's quite a bit of changes in some of the things that you mentioned. New faces, new teachers especially the transition from elementary and primary school to middle school to high school. Lots of changes with the start of the school year, and that's where, as a psychologist, sometimes I'm the busiest is after that transition period.

Melanie Cole, MS: So, there's a lot to tackle in this episode we're discussing today. There's avoidance and why they're doing that. So, why don't we start with if the kids are nervous to go back to school, what are we looking for where they say, "I don't want to start school again." And we know that some of it's just they want to sleep late. They've been in the great summer routine. They got to stay up later. The sun is out later. But when it's really time to go back, what are we looking for?

Sarah Gubara, PhD: So, the first thing you are going to do as a parent is practice validation. Validation doesn't mean that you agree with the reason for not wanting to go or their stressors, but it means that you can respond to the emotion that they're telling you. If they are really scared about, "I don't think anyone's going to like me," or "I don't feel good about how I look," or "I'm worried I'm going to be judged, or I've struggled at math last year and I don't want to have that experience again," you are going to validate that fear, that anxiety, that frustration like, "Wow, I would be scared to go back to math, but here's the plan that we've got. This is what we can do. What is helpful for you? What are three things that you feel like you need to have a successful school year?" So, we're going to start out with validating, and then there are a couple of other behavioral interventions or strategies that we can use that we can dive into.

Melanie Cole, MS: Well, let's dive into those because I think that's where we really want to go with this, is what do we do?

Sarah Gubara, PhD: My college had a study consultant as something that we could take advantage of as students, and it made the biggest difference for me. And so, I really recommend that for parents. Being a study consultant means that you are going to help them, help your child create a visual schedule. You're not going to do it for them. You are going to do it with them so that they understand how to use this as a strategy. So, we'll build out a visual schedule, map out where their classes are, what their activities are, any big projects that are coming up, and then you're going to help them break them down into tiny pieces. Because if someone tells you, "Hey, write a 40-page paper on X, Y, Z," it is really difficult as a child sometimes to just do that, especially if anxiety and stress are at play. So, maybe mom or dad can be really helpful by saying, "okay, so one month from this, we're going to build out an outline. And then one week from this, we're going to do a fiveparagraph draft."

Whatever it is, you are going to help your child break down tasks into smaller bits and pieces. And this is an undertaking. But once you learn this recipe for success, it will become so much easier every year to teach your child, "Let's develop a visual schedule. Let's break down things into smaller tasks." And then, you don't have to worry about missed assignments and cramming the night before, because you've already anticipated that routine and you've reversed engineered a strategy for your child to have success.

Melanie Cole, MS: What great advice that is, because it is so overwhelming and the amount of homework and things that they have to do can be just—comes at them in such a barrage and it can be so overwhelming. That was really great advice. Now, as we think of putting things into smaller and compartmentalizing these things, that's schoolwork. Now there's social life, drama, things going on at school. And of course, the kids want a social life, but that also taxes that actual school work that they have to do. How do we balance that?

Sarah Gubara, PhD: So the first thing you want to do is, notice what's happening with your child. Because if there's peer pressure issues with bullying or fitting in friendship conflicts that will activate their limbic system, they will start to be emotional and less likely to pay attention in class, which is where we see academic concerns come up, but they're overloaded with that emotional experience with their peers.

So, you want to look out for signs that it is too much for them, signs that they are suddenly isolating, frequent changes in friend groups, if they're letting you know, "I don't talk to that person anymore or dread about going to school." And this is where you want to employ support from your school counselor, your school psychologist or an outside therapist to support your child.

The second thing you want to do is set realistic expectations. So many kids are overscheduled today. You want to have at least a few afternoons free each week where you can revisit activities that feel fun versus draining and like a secondary responsibility for your child.

Melanie Cole, MS: Wow. Yeah. There's so much to think about here. At school themselves,. There's a lot going on. Can we involve ourselves in that? Do we involve ourselves in that? Do we leave it up to the teachers? As parents, how helicoptery should we be about if we notice that our kids are feeling this stress and maybe trying to avoid school, they don't want to go, or they don't want to sit in the lunchroom, they don't want to do whatever, how much involved should we be?

Sarah Gubara, PhD: First step is you want to encourage open check-ins with your child and get a better sense of where impacts on mood or stress or energy are coming from. Is it from athletics? Is it from peer relationships? Is it the academic load? And then, you want to create a support system where you are utilizing your school counselor, where you're advocating for your child. But if a child tells you, "I feel like my friends are learning things faster than I am, that it's harder for me to do the assignment than it is for my friends and I'm going to tutoring and I'm not making any progress." Sometimes kids will get told to just keep trying and that's where we see a lot of frustration. But we might need to take a step back and consider something like psychoeducational testing, right? Are there other learning difficulties or perhaps ADHD that's contributing to that? So, we want to make sure that we first encourage those check-ins, evaluate where it's possibly coming from, and then work with our team to develop a strategy of maybe we need to do this testing, maybe we need to take a season off for this sport, or maybe we need to just take a couple of weeks off. There's such a variety of ways that we can accommodate kids, and some schools are so fantastic at doing that and sometimes you just have to ask.

Melanie Cole, MS: Absolutely great advice. I mean, we're not always that good at asking, but I think that's so important that we know. And our schools are there to support our children, and that's really what it's all about. So, it's incumbent on us as parents to be able to ask and not be too helicoptery, but yet find that fine line, because we have to be able to help our kids so that it doesn't keep getting worse, or they don't keep getting more and more fearful of going to school and the stress becomes just too overwhelming. Best advice again, Dr. Gubara, I love to ask you for that because you always have so much great advice to give us. Best advice for back to school, stress, our kids school, all of it.

Sarah Gubara, PhD: Best advice for your kid going back to school is catch them being good. So, because there's so much overwhelm about, "I have these assignments," "I don't know if I'm going to perform, I'm not sure if I'm being judged." A lot of these questions sometimes kids can look for messages that reinforce those insecurities.

And so, what I recommend for parents to do is to catch them being good and being specific. I'll give you an example. "Hey, Melanie. I noticed that you printed out and highlighted all your syllabus and study guides. I love that you are working hard to make sure that you are prepared and ready for the school year. That's amazing that you have X, Y, Z quality." So, you want to be really specific and catch them being good and working towards success because we want to enable and empower them to be able to problem-solve alongside you as their parents.

Melanie Cole, MS: I love that, problem-solve alongside you. That's great because that is really what's going to teach our kids resilience. And being in school should be such a great time of life. It's so much fun. Adulting is not as much fun. So, thank you so much, Dr. Gubara, for joining us today, giving us all this really great information that you've done. These episodes are so important for parents to hear. And parents, please share these shows with your friends and your family on your social channels because we are all learning from the experts at Rady Children's Health together.

Thank you so much for tuning into Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast, brought to you by Rady Children's Health. Together, we can keep kids happy, healthy, and thriving. And If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider downloading, subscribing, rating, and reviewing Long Live Childhood on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, or Pandora. Your support truly means a lot. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.