School anxiety is becoming a MAJOR problem for teenagers. You can't keep avoiding it and expecting it to get better.
In Connecticut, where my therapy practice is physically based, and in many other states, you legally have to go to high school. Gone are the days of dropping out with your parent's permission before age 16.
So let's figure out how you can control your school anxiety together.
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Hi, I'm Mallory Grimste, I'm a mental health therapist and I'm here to share some of my best tips for controlling school anxiety so you can stop avoiding your problems and start creating a more positive mindset when it comes to school because let's be real- graduating high school with a diploma gives you more opportunities and choices to explore when it comes to earning a living for the life you want to live.
Let's get one thing clear from the start.
People want you to be Successful!
Your parents, your teachers, your friends, and everyone else who keeps telling you you have to go to school does NOT want you to be miserable.
In fact, it's the complete opposite. If someone is taking the effort to motivate or encourage you, they are doing so because they legitimately care.
If they didn't care they wouldn't even bother with the effort of trying to talk with you about their concerns and thoughts about how you can make things better.
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What's your Big Plan for life?
You need to know what you’re working towards as an anchor and as a guide for when you really, really, really want to avoid school.
I’m not talking about the career you want. I want you to get real and think about the type of lifestyle you’re working towards.
→ Do you want to be able to travel whenever you want?
→ Do you see yourself having a family or living the single life?
→ Do you want a life surrounded by art and music?
Now school may not be a direct path to any of these lifestyles, but it can certainly give you the opportunity to explore different life paths and interests.
To get you started, Reflect on these 3 Questions:
Who would you need to be in order to live the life you want?
What would you need to do?
What would you need to have?
These answers can offer a nice starter road map for the next step to managing your school anxiety:
Focus on making incremental upgrades
Oftentimes we want to jump straight to the final big results. Though that’s really not very realistic or sustainable. Plus there can be a ton of fun in the journey to getting there!
When you focus on making incremental upgrades in one or two areas at a time, you build sustainable growth and healthy habits. This makes a stronger foundation to work on the next upgrade on your path to that dream life you envision.
And if all goes well, one day you’ll wake up and realize that dream life actually IS your real life!
Don’t Forget:
Use Your Coping Skills!
The path to controlling your school anxiety is hella hard and will be filled with ups and downs along the way. Making sure you have at least 6-8 healthy coping skills in your back pocket can help you stay grounded and in control of your emotional experience.
Oh and just a gentle reminder that Coping Skills don’t necessarily solve the problem, but they can help you hang in there through the intensity of the uncomfortable experiences while you are working on the solution over time.
For school anxiety, I really like focusing on the IMPROVE the moment skills with the teens I work with in my counseling practice. These strategies focus on ways to shift your mindset of the experience to make it more tolerable and less stressful.
Want a deeper dive into these and the rest of the coping strategies??
The Coping Skills Crash Course was created just for teens like you!
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