What to Do About School Stress? – 4 Tips for a More Relaxed School Day

Making friends and learning exciting things. Discovering individual talents, being creative and having a lot of fun. This is what school can look like – when everything is going well.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. In Germany, almost half of all children and adolescents feel pressured by school and learning. 

This is the finding of the DAK health insurance company, which surveys children and adolescents every year about their stress levels. [1] [1] Prevention study: Children's and youth health in schools  The result is always very similar. Many students suffer from stress-related stomach aches, headaches or insomnia. There is also a lot of evidence that the pandemic has exacerbated the psychological burden on children and adolescents. [2] [2] DAK study: One in eight schoolchildren is unhappy

Fortunately, your child can learn to deal with school stress in a healthy way. The following tips can help them: 

1. A more relaxed approach to school grades

Let's be honest: Do you also have sleepless nights just before your child gets their report card? Do you and your child put a lot of pressure on yourselves regarding performance?

If you learn to deal with the topic of grades more calmly yourself, your child will also benefit from it. A study by Arizona State University compared children of parents who placed a particularly high value on performance and success with those for whom social skills were at least as important. Children from the second group were not only more confident and balanced: They were also more successful at school than the children whose parents put too much pressure on them. [3] [3] Parents should not put pressure on their children: Parents should avoid pressuring young children over grades

If your child brings home a bad grade, offer support instead of criticising them and blaming them. The following questions can help:

• How do you feel about this grade?
• Why was the biology test so difficult?
• What can you do to make it go better next time?
• How can I support you? 

This way, your child realises that you don't have to overcome difficulties alone and will never go home with a stomach ache because they got a bad report card.

In the midst of difficulties lie the possibilities. – Albert Einstein

2. Learning from mistakes with the right strategy

"I can't. I've never been able to. I never will be." This is how many children react to academic failure. But it can also go like this: "I made a few mistakes. They show me what I still need to work on. And if I try hard, it will surely go better next time." 

The psychologist Carol Dweck calls these two described mindsets fixed mindset and growth mindset. Growth mindset is the belief that you can improve your abilities through practice. Children with this attitude are not only more successful, but also feel less stressed. A study of students in their first year of high school comes to this conclusion. [4] [4] Less stress thanks to growth mindset: An Entity Theory of Intelligence Predicts Higher Cortisol Levels When High School Grades Are Declining 

Here are a few ideas to help your child develop a growth mindset and resilience and to approach school problems in a solution-oriented way:

• Show your child videos of their first attempts at walking, climbing, or riding a bike. This way, you can visually demonstrate to them that you have to fall a few times when learning a new skill before it works. 
• Encourage your child to try new learning strategies. Can't your child simply remember vocabulary words? Try flashcards or make up funny stories in which the words appear. Practise mental arithmetic by playing shop and geometry by measuring the furniture at home. 
• Is there someone your child admires? A famous actor, singer, or football star? Explain to your child that even world-famous people had to practise a lot and endure many setbacks before they could celebrate success.

By the way, the 6-Minute-Diary for Kids is specially designed to practise and reinforce this growth mindset every day. You will also find further tips and exercises in it. And, by the way, it also comes with a free e-book with everything else you wanted to know about growth mindset and how you can promote it. For example, how to praise your child in the right way.

A genius makes no mistakes. Their mistakes are gateways to new discoveries. – James Joyce

3. Free play instead of leisure stress

Aikido, jazz dance, chess, tennis, juggling, and photography. The selection of possible leisure activities seems unlimited today. As parents, we quickly come under pressure. Are we ruining our children's future if we don't send them to piano lessons at least twice a week, to French lessons on the weekend, and to a "Programming for Elementary Schoolers" workshop during the school holidays? After all, we should support them in all areas of their development, shouldn't we?

Fortunately, it can also be much easier and less stressful: simply let your child play as often as possible. Free play, without detailed instructions from adults, promotes, among other things, creative thinking, language and physical development, as well as social skills. It is also a great way to relieve stress – and not just for the little ones: If you join in, you can relax from the demands of everyday life between toy spaceships and the stuffed animal family and simply switch off. [5] [5] Age-appropriate play with parents reduces stress in children: The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children

Of course, there are also hobbies that can support your child's development and provide a good balance to everyday school life. But less is more. Instead of filling up the calendar, choose hobbies consciously and above all go by what your child enjoys. 

If you play enough when you are young, you carry treasures with you that you can draw on for your whole life later. – Astrid Lindgren

4. Well-rested children are relaxed children

Surely you have also experienced sleepy children at the breakfast table. Tears flow because you cut the sandwich into triangles instead of squares. Or an argument breaks out over who gets the blue and who gets the yellow cereal bowl. What many parents intuitively suspect, science has also been able to prove: children (and adults too), who do not get enough sleep, have difficulty regulating their emotions. [6] [6] Sleep helps regulate emotions: Sleep, Affect, and Social Competence from Preschool to Preadolescence: Distinct Pathways to Emotional and Social Adjustment for Boys and for Girls   Thus, sleep deprivation also makes you more susceptible to stress. Conversely, stressed people often cannot sleep well, and a vicious cycle is created. [7] [7] On the relationship between sleep and emotions: Emotion, emotion regulation and sleep: An intimate relationship

With these tips, you help your child sleep well again at night:

• Reduce the time your child spends in front of a screen, especially in the evenings. Studies have shown that there is a direct link between sleep problems and the use of smartphones, tablets, & co. [8] [8] The link between sleep problems and screen use: Youth screen media habits and sleep: sleep-friendly screen-behaviour recommendations for clinicians, educators, and parents    
• The argument with your best friend, the upcoming class trip, or the work the next day – a sleep meditation provides relief from rumination [9] [9] Meditation helps with rumination: Getting Out of Rumination: Comparison of Three Brief Interventions in a Sample of Youth   and lets your child fall asleep relaxed.
• Alternatively, you can help your child focus on the positive by having them list three things they are grateful for today. Studies with adults have shown that practising gratitude improves sleep. [10] [10] Gratitude can help with falling asleep: Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions   

In the end, it comes down to what parents model for their children. How about you yourself? Do you often feel overwhelmed and stressed? Be a good role model for your child and find ways to stay calmer in your own everyday life too. You can find ideas, for example, in our weekly 6-Minute-Newsletter.

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This post is by Maria Röckmann. While studying journalism in Down Under, she one day held a microphone up to a man's face, fell in love with him, and stayed there. When she is not roaming around the playgrounds in Brisbane with her children, she writes for the 6-Minuten-Verlag or works on her first novel.

Sources:

[1] Prevention study: Children's and youth health in schools

[2] DAK study: One in eight schoolchildren is unhappy

 [3] Parents should not put pressure on their children: Parents should avoid pressuring young children over grades 

[4] Less stress thanks to growth mindset: An Entity Theory of Intelligence Predicts Higher Cortisol Levels When High School Grades Are Declining 

[5] Age-appropriate play with parents reduces stress in children: The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children

[6] Sleep helps regulate emotions: Sleep, Affect, and Social Competence from Preschool to Preadolescence: Distinct Pathways to Emotional and Social Adjustment for Boys and for Girls

[7] On the relationship between sleep and emotions: Emotion, emotion regulation and sleep: An intimate relationship

[8] The link between sleep problems and screen use: Youth screen media habits and sleep: sleep-friendly screen-behaviour recommendations for clinicians, educators, and parents

 [9] Meditation helps with rumination: Getting Out of Rumination: Comparison of Three Brief Interventions in a Sample of Youth

[10] Gratitude can help with falling asleep: Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions