How has the return to school gone for your household? If it’s not been easy, you’re not alone. School anxiety, particularly after a return from summer, spring, or winter breaks, is very common. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to cope with. Mornings may become a battle, with tearful goodbyes, symptoms of physical illness, or even outright refusal to leave the house. Children and adolescents alike can experience school anxiety and parents usually don’t know what to do to help. The stress ripples through the entire household.
Parents often feel torn between comforting their child and pushing them to face their fears. They get frustrated because they need to leave the house to get to work. Then they feel guilty because they want their child to thrive. Many parents hope that therapy can provide relief, but this introduces another challenge: anxiety about starting the therapy itself. You’re already fighting with your child about going to school; you might not have the energy, will, or desire to fight with them about going to therapy too!
That’s where SPACE Therapy comes in, offering an innovative approach to help families navigate these difficulties. At Palo Alto Therapy, we are proud to have a group of therapists trained in SPACE Therapy, led by our clinical director, Deborah Brewer, who is one of only fifteen people in the United States fully certified. We have seen the results for families who are having a hard time with school anxiety, and we want to tell you more about it.
Ready to try SPACE Therapy for your child’s school anxiety?
Contact us today for an appointment.
What Causes Return-to-School Anxiety?
Return-to-school anxiety is common, often persisting long beyond the first day back to classes. Children and adolescents experience a range of concerns that contribute to this anxiety, which can impact their emotional and physical well-being. These include:
- Social challenges: School is a highly social environment, and navigating friendships or cliques can be daunting. Some children may fear rejection, have unresolved conflicts with peers, or worry about fitting in. For kids who have experienced bullying, the thought of returning to the same environment can be particularly overwhelming.
- Academic pressure: Many children feel the weight of academic expectations, whether it’s about maintaining good grades, handling large workloads, or meeting teacher expectations. This pressure can feel especially heavy for high-achieving students or those struggling with learning differences.
- Transition stress: New classes, new teachers, even just new topics coming up in the same classroom, can all be stressful for children who need for things to feel familiar. Even returning to familiar routines after the freedom of a break can feel jarring and require an emotional adjustment.
- Change of daily pace: The shift from the relaxed pace of holidays or vacations to the structured, demanding schedule of school can feel like a shock to the system. This change can leave some kids feeling disoriented and fatigued as they readjust.
- Separation anxiety: Younger children, in particular, may struggle with being apart from parents, siblings, or other caregivers after spending extended time together during breaks. This anxiety can manifest as clinginess, crying, or outright refusal to leave the house.
- Sensory overload: The school environment is often noisy, crowded, and fast-paced, which can be overwhelming for kids sensitive to sensory input. Hallway traffic, cafeteria chaos, and the general busyness of the day can leave them feeling overstimulated and anxious.
- Fear of the unknown: For many children, uncertainty about what lies ahead in the school year—new schedules, extracurricular activities, or upcoming challenges—can create a sense of unease. This fear is compounded when they lack the tools to manage or predict these changes.
What Does School Anxiety Look Like?
Some children are able to express their anxiety and the root of it clearly in words. Most, however, express it through behaviors. They may experience physical symptoms like stomachaches or headaches. You may notice behavioral changes such as irritability or clinginess. Outright refusal to attend school is not uncommon. These stressors can disrupt the entire family, as parents adjust their schedules or routines to accommodate their child’s needs. Unfortunately, these accommodations, while well-meaning can sometimes reinforce the anxiety, making it harder for children to cope. So what do you do? You might try therapy.
Types of Therapy for School Anxiety
Many types of therapy can effectively address school anxiety, but they typically require direct participation from the child. For children overwhelmed by anxiety, however, starting therapy can feel like an insurmountable task. New environments, social interaction with a therapist, or simply adding another commitment to their already stressful schedule can prevent progress before it even begins. This is where SPACE Therapy comes in as a game-changer. In SPACE Therapy, the child doesn’t have to attend the therapy sessions, and yet they do experience the results.
What Is SPACE Therapy?
SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) is a parental intervention, which means that it is therapy for parents. It was designed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center, specifically for addressing child and adolescent anxiety through working with the parents.
SPACE shifts the focus from the child to the parent, making it an ideal option for families whose child cannot or will not directly engage in therapy. The very symptoms of anxiety often make it difficult for children to engage in therapy, so it makes sense to find ways to help them that don’t further this anxiety. And yet, SPACE is rooted in an understanding that simply accommodating the child (“you don’t have to go to therapy” or “it’s okay if you don’t go to school”) doesn’t actually help the child at all.
At its core, SPACE helps parents systematically reduce family accommodations – the adjustments they make to alleviate their child’s anxiety. Whether it’s letting a child skip social events or providing constant reassurance, these accommodations, while comforting in the short term, can reinforce anxiety in the long run. SPACE empowers parents to take actionable steps, supported by a therapist, to reduce these behaviors while maintaining a supportive and empathetic stance toward their child.
How SPACE Therapy Eases Return-to-School Anxiety
For children struggling with return-to-school anxiety, SPACE provides a multi-faceted framework that addresses both parental behaviors and family dynamics. Here’s how it works:
- Reducing school-related accommodations: Parents often modify routines to help their child avoid anxiety triggers, such as letting them stay home from school or skip activities. In SPACE, parents learn how to gradually reduce these accommodations while maintaining a supportive stance, helping their child build resilience and face their fears incrementally.
- Fostering independence: SPACE emphasizes empowering parents to communicate confidence in their child’s ability to handle challenges. By consistently reinforcing messages like, “I know this is hard, but I believe you can do it,” parents model trust in their child’s capacity for growth.
- Creating consistency: Anxiety thrives in uncertainty. SPACE helps families establish predictable routines and boundaries, reducing morning battles or last-minute changes that can escalate stress. Consistency provides children with a sense of stability and control.
- Leveraging nonviolent resistance (NVR): One of the principles underlying SPACE is the use of NVR. This approach focuses on reducing escalation and avoiding direct confrontation. Instead of demanding behavioral changes from the child, SPACE shifts the focus to changes the parents can control, fostering a calm, supportive environment that encourages progress.
- Providing emotional support: SPACE teaches parents how to acknowledge and validate their child’s distress without amplifying it. Statements like, “I understand this feels overwhelming, but I’m here to support you,” balance empathy with encouragement, helping the child feel heard while fostering their ability to cope.
Through SPACE, parents gain the tools and confidence needed to break cycles of avoidance and create an environment where their child can gradually build the skills to manage anxiety. This approach has been transformative for countless families, empowering them to foster long-term resilience and well-being.
Beyond Return-to-School Anxiety: Other Uses for SPACE
While return-to-school anxiety is a common concern, SPACE Therapy is highly effective for addressing other challenges, many of which children with school anxiety might also experience. It can provide a way for parents to support children with other types of anxiety, OCD, and even eating difficulties.
For example, SPACE can help children build essential social skills, promoting their confidence to minimize the difficulties of their social anxiety. It can provide parents with strategies to empower children with separation anxiety, encouraging their independence while still remaining supportive.
SPACE has also been successfully applied to generalized anxiety, where persistent worries can interfere with a child’s daily life, both in and out of school. By identifying specific accommodations and creating targeted plans to reduce them, parents can help their children develop the tools they need to manage their fears.
Through the certification process and extensive work with families, our therapists have developed the expertise to address these diverse forms of anxiety. This experience ensures that SPACE Therapy is tailored to meet the unique needs of each family, providing effective, compassionate care.
Why Is SPACE So Effective?
SPACE stands out for its focus on the family system rather than centering the child’s need to change. It empowers parents to make changes that change everything. Therefore it relieves a child’s anxiety without the child seeing a therapist.
SPACE helps parents to understand:
- why the methods they’ve been trying at home haven’t been effective,
- identifying new methods that will be effective,
- and to support their child in meaningful ways that help resolve the underlying root issue.
After all, just making your child go to school isn’t the goal. Instead, parents really want to relieve their child’s anxiety so that they want to go to school. SPACE makes that possible.
Why Choose a Clinic with SPACE Therapy Expertise?
SPACE Therapy, like all specialized forms of therapy, requires therapists to undergo education and training in order to properly understand and be capable of utilizing its tools.
At Palo Alto Therapy, our team’s commitment to excellence in SPACE Therapy means families receive the highest standard of care. We offer a collaborative and expert-driven approach to helping children and families overcome anxiety and transform family dynamics.