Help! It’s School Anxiety!

Today I was talking to my friend who has a child in fourth grade. I worked with him all summer in my young author’s workshop. He is extremely gifted and wildly creative. She was telling me how he didn’t sleep the whole first week of school and yesterday she had to go pick him up because he was stomach sick. Sound familiar?

I have been a teacher for 35 years and have seen this behavior in many gifted children. It’s school anxiety. Parents always ask me why their child behaves this way because he/she is so smart and accomplished that school should be no problem for them.

Many times it’s not the school, class, friends, or the teacher that is the problem. It’s the child and the pressure they put on themselves to be perfect in their work and fit in with their friends. A gifted child understands a lot about the world and magnifies “doing well” to being perfect without flaw and spends an inordinate amount of time both consciously and unconsciously worrying about it. The art of relaxing is a major issue for them.

With a gifted child I have always advised parents to sit down and talk about anxiety as a very real thing with them. Often this in itself will help alleviate the problem because the child is a natural learner and enjoys learning about themselves. A few other helpful hints is to tell them they have to learn to manage this anxiety so the “getting sick” stops. Suggest physical activities and exercise after school. Reading quietly away from everyone else. Writing in a private journal they are sure no one will ever read is a great release for children of all levels. If they can manage to “get lost” in a creative activity this relaxes both conscious and subconscious worry leading to stomach upset.

Don’t worry if what you say to your child seems not to be “taken in” during your talk. Children store the info away and return to it when they need it. We, as parents and teachers, have a responsibility to “set things around” children in our words and actions, and let the child “pick it up and use it” when they think we’re not looking.

You have a tremendously talented intelligent child – trust them enough to both talk to them and give them the chance to listen to you. For them, it’s another interesting phenomenon of life to learn about.

And so, as another day goes by, I wish all parents, children and teachers another successful school year, and….I have written.

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