Back to school anxiety is a topic that comes up in my practice every year around August/September. However, this year it is a stronger theme than ever and affecting parents and teachers as well as children.
For minor nerves, I suggest some remedies to try yourself. If anxiety is taking over though, an appointment would be advisable.
So many worries!
Some examples of worries people have mentioned this year:
How will school be in September?
Will I be split from my friends?
How will drop off work?
What about the bus?
What happens if someone gets Covid-19 symptoms?
Will it be safe for my child / for me / for our wider family?
If worry has been building over days and weeks:
For parents and teachers, the anxiety may be escalating as the big day approaches and thinking about it may be becoming all consuming.
For some children too, the worry about returning to school after a long gap and all the changes of 2020 may be overwhelming already. Symptoms can include behavioural problems such as aggression or clinginess, digestive upsets, headaches and problems sleeping, sometimes with nightmares.
If you or your child is feeling like this, treatment from a professional homeopath could make a big difference. It could help with handling the stress in a more balanced way and make the run up to the first day feel much less daunting for the whole family.
Minor Nerves
You can use homeopathic remedies yourself to help with minor anxiety a day or two before starting school. To choose the best remedy, you need to take into account the individual characteristics of your child, or yourself. Here are just a few remedies with a description of the sort of child for which each might be useful. If anxiety starts to mount, try a dose in 30c potency. .
Argentum nitricum: someone needing this remedy is hurried, with lots of fears and anxieties, always asking “what if….?” Physical symptoms may include loud wind, diarrhoea and twitchiness.
Lycopodium: this person lacks confidence and doesn’t like doing new things at the best of times. At home, however, they can be assertive and bossy. Physical symptoms include bloating, eating little and often, and heartburn with sour burping.
Gelsemium: if this is the remedy needed, you or your child will feel weak, wobbly and very frightened before an event they are worried about. Legs feel like jelly and they forget what they are supposed to say or do.
Arsenicum: think of this remedy if anxiety about health is marked and you struggle with feeling out of control and not knowing exactly how things will be.
Pulsatilla: this is a major remedy for separation anxiety in young children. The child needing pulsatilla is clingy and tearful. They need lots of reassurance before they head into school, be it for the first time or for the new term.
You can buy these remedies from a homeopathic pharmacy, such as Helios.
Treatment from a Homeopath
A homeopath can prescribe a much wider range of remedies. If you are unsure which remedy is most suitable, if anxiety started well ahead of the new term or persists beyond the first week of term, I would suggest you book an appointment and I would be pleased to try and help you or your child.