Going back to school can naturally be a stressful time for kids. They may be unsure about adjusting to new environments, teachers, subject matters and classmates. What’s talked about less is how rattling the back-to-school season can be for parents.
A survey conducted by OnePoll found that nearly 60% of parents of school-age children (ages 5-18) claim back-to-school time to be the most stressful part of the year. The survey discovered that parent’s stresses result from the worry of their child making friends at school to their child's academic success. Some of the other concerns parents have during the back-to-school season include:
- If their child will have good teachers (50%)
- If their child is eating healthy foods at school (44%)
- Cost of buying supplies for the new school year (42%)
- Child’s safety while attending classes (40%)
- If their child will make friends at school (40%)
There are ways you can reduce your stress level to help you embrace your child’s back-to-school transition and, ultimately, help your child. Keeping to discover some of the best strategies to help reduce back-to-school stress for parents.
5 Reasons Why Back to School Can Be a Stressful Time for Parents
It can be helpful to understand that your concerns may be shared by other parents sending their kids to school. The following are a few common worries shared by parents.
1. Concerns About Your Child’s Emotional Needs
You may be concerned that teachers and administrators won’t know how to deal with your child’s unique emotional needs properly or that they won’t have the bandwidth to give your kid suitable attention. This can be a particular worry if your child has been subject to bullying in the past.
Social-emotional (SEL) has been a major focus for the American public schooling system over the past few years. In fact, 90% of K-12 district leaders claim to have already invested in social and emotional learning products or plan to do so during the 2019-20 school year, according to a 2018 survey conducted by Education Week.
Contacting the school to express your concerns may help the school align on strategies to best teach your child.
2. Rearranging Your Daily Schedule
If you work full time, you are probably familiar with the stress that can come from balancing your job with your child’s school days and after-school activities like helping them with their homework.
While it may be difficult, creating a daily schedule that accommodates your whole family can ease some of your stress. For example, after-school activities are important for child development, but often they conflict with the parent’s work schedule. Coordinating a pickup plan with someone you trust may help.
3. Preparing Your Child Properly
Preparing your kids for the school year means buying the requested school supplies, filling out any needed paperwork, getting them school uniforms or clothes that fit and much more.
Generally, schools request the same basic supplies year after year. With that knowledge handy, you can go shopping for each one piece by piece. Before the back-to-school season officially starts, big box stores like Walmart and Target often offer great deals on school supplies.
4. Wondering if You Provided Your Child With Good Memories
You may have great memories from your own childhood of family time vacations or other school break events and want your children to have the same. Budget or time limitations may have prevented you from providing those experiences. School is a great time for kids to create their own positive experiences.
5. Separation Anxiety
Many parents naturally feel a form of separation anxiety once their child goes back to spending most of their day at school. This can be felt especially by parents who are taking their child to school for the first time.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Stress
When you have a child, your personal needs should take a backseat. However, ignoring your mental health for too long may lead to serious issues down the road. The risk of burnout or other serious health-related issues is far greater than the reward. We know that the effect of chronic or severe stress can be damaging to our well-being. Stress is a very taxing process on the body and may lead to issues including:
- Mood disorders
- Chronic fatigue
- Insomnia
- Burnout
- A weakened immune system
- Digestive ailments
- Migraines and tension headaches
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes
- Inflammatory disorders
Supporting Your Body’s Natural Stress-Regulating System
Parents should take a step back and check in with their mental health, especially around the beginning of the school year. Fortunately, there are plenty of methods to help bring down stress levels. The following methods focus on holistic approaches to regulating our stress levels by supporting the nervous system.
Mindfulness
One of the best ways to bring down stress levels is to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is a mental state of mind where you can focus on the present moment while acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts and physical emotions. Some of the key aspects of mindfulness include awareness, focus, acceptance and observation.
Mindfulness has been studied for plenty of years. Recent research found mindfulness can have several benefits for our mental and physical health. Reducing stress is one of the key benefits by leading to less intense stress responses. Additionally, mindfulness may lower your overall blood pressure and strengthen your immune system.
There are numerous mindfulness techniques. Here are some of the most common techniques you can do throughout the day.
- Mindful breathing: One of the easiest ways to achieve mindfulness is through practicing mindful breathing. All you need to do is spend a couple of minutes focusing your attention on the movement of your thoughts and breath as you breathe in and out. It’s important not to adjust your thoughts in any way.
- Mindful eating: This exercise can help your mental and physical health. Make sure you are eating healthy foods during this technique. Mindful eating requires you to eat significantly slower than you normally would. It’s important to focus on the sensations of holding the item, tasting, smelling, chewing and swallowing.
- Loving-kindness meditation: In this mindfulness exercise, you’ll direct positive thoughts to yourself first, then to your family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances.
Nutritional Adjustments
Your diet has an enormous effect on your stress levels. You’ve probably heard the saying “you are what you eat,” and it reigns very true when discussing physical and mental health. Consuming less sugar can help our adrenal glands function more efficiently. Making sure to consume vitamins B and D, along with minerals like magnesium, can make us less reactive to stress.
Getting More and Better Sleep
Sleep is one of the most important aspects of living a healthy life. Unfortunately, the demands of everyday life, especially parents of young children, struggle to get enough sleep per night. While the average adult should get around eight hours of sleep per night, the majority of adults struggle to get seven hours each night, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Failing to get an adequate amount of sleep can have you feeling groggy all day, resulting in higher stress levels.
CBD for Stress: Why This Natural Compound is Worth Exploring
Then, there is cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is the dominant compound found in the hemp plant, and it’s been shown in studies to have unique regulatory effects on CB1 receptors in the nervous system that balance, among other things, our mood and stress levels. Many people report that CBD has a soothing effect that makes them feel more capable of handling the day’s demands. Because it’s non-toxic and non-psychoactive, it’s something that humans can take daily as part of a wellness routine.
Researchers have demonstrated for years that cannabidiol may work directly with receptors in the brain that manage the release of cortisol, the “fight or flight” hormone that can overwhelm the nervous systems and make us feel edgy and anxious. Therefore, it’s easy to see why so many parents have chosen to incorporate hemp into their regimens. CBD can be taken in all kinds of forms, but we find that many parents prefer CBD capsules, as they’re easy to take, less likely to appeal to children and gentle on the body while offering up to several hours of activation.
Sky Wellness CBD Products
At Sky Wellness, we offer a generous variety of CBD products in various forms, including tinctures, vapes, edibles and more. Our CBD Daily Softgels are particularly popular among those feeling stressed out regularly. These capsules are easy on the digestive system and easy to swallow. They contain only pure, natural broad-spectrum hemp extract, which contains zero THC but is rich in CBD and other cannabinoids, plus terpenes and nutrients that work together to provide a wide array of valuable properties to the body and mind.
Try our CBD Daily Softgels today to get ahead of the stress of “back to school” time that’s right around the corner.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer. All opinions expressed in this blog post are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Sky Wellness or its brands/affiliates.
