Back to School, Mental Health, and a Growth Mindset
As our kids and teens head back to school, there’s a lot of work put in by parents and teachers to get them ready for a new year. We want to make sure they’re as prepared as possible with new supplies, getting a good night’s sleep, and meeting teachers at back-to-school night. With each passing year, the focus is less on crayons and reading first day of schoolbooks, and more on schedules and academic performance. Along with these new expectations, students also need a heightened focus on their mental health as these school years increase in intensity.
Students can benefit from a lot of small tweaks that add up to a great impact on their emotional wellbeing. Physical health has a strong impact on mental health, such as students eating enough before and during school, getting adequate sleep for their age, and getting some exercise and fresh air mixed into their day. Students can also benefit from having some periods of time to de-stress, such as facetiming friends, game night with family, playing basketball outside, or doing calming activities like drawing or journaling. Students are more than just academic beings- they also have physical, emotional, and social needs that deserve continued fulfillment to live a whole life and feel like a whole person. Encouraging your child to spend time in other enjoyable activities will help decrease stress, which has a circular effect of improving their ability to work hard at school as well.
Students also can benefit from a growth mindset, which is the idea that if they don’t know something, they can learn and grow. This is opposed to a fixed mindset, which makes a student feel like their intelligence and traits are unchangeable and stuck. A fixed mindset can make a student feel like they’re stupid and hopeless if they get a bad grade or don’t understand a concept, which is incredibly challenging. Focusing on a growth mindset can sound like “I can see that you worked really hard at understanding long division,” which focuses on effort, versus a fixed mindset of “you’re so smart in math” which can focus on a trait.
When students have a growth mindset, they can face challenges, receive feedback, and try new things. However, when students have a fixed mindset, they stick with what they’re good at, are terrified of failure, and struggle to engage in things that are a challenge. A growth mindset can be invaluable as students face higher math classes, new subjects, and other tests of their capabilities where they have to work, grow, struggle, and learn in order to succeed. As parents, one of the greatest things you can foster in your student is a desire to persevere in challenges and a knowledge that they are known, loved, and valued regardless of their grades. This internal anchor can do wonders for a student’s self-efficacy and mental health.