K-State health expert says routines can help youth manage stress
By PAT MELGARES
K-State Research and Extension news service
There is, for sure, a lot of excitement associated with the beginning of another school year.
But Elaine Johannes, the Kansas Health Foundation’s Distinguished Professor of Community Health at Kansas State University, says parents should also be aware that their teenager may at the same time be coping with anxiety and stress.
“The way that middle school and high school students do school today is different from what I did many years ago, when it meant only that we were going to school physically,” Johannes said.
Listen to an interview by Jeff Wichman with Elaine Johannes on the weekly radio podcast, Sound Living
Today, she said, “many of our students have remote learning part of the day – maybe at home, but maybe even at school. And then some have a dual enrollment in which they are taking college courses, perhaps at the high school, maybe remotely, or they’re driving to a nearby college campus.”
Factor in friendships, academics, sports, extra-curricular activities, a side job (for some) and more, and the onset of school is not always an easy transition for teenagers.
“When we think about back-to-school as one generalized topic,” Johannes said, “there are a lot of things that can create anxiety and stress.”
To help their teenager adjust, Johannes suggests parents establish a solid foundation at home, including a routine of sleep, a healthy diet and appropriate physical activity.
“Another part of that foundation is practice,” Johannes said. “Practice getting up, getting to school on time, getting on the Internet. The basics of success – which includes good physical and mental health – can be helped through routine, consistency and communication.”
When picking up children from school, parents may also want to avoid bombarding them with questions that reflect achievement, such as test scores or how fast they ran the mile in gym class.
“Those are things that can create more stress, too,” Johannes said.
“As parents, we should be wise with our inquiry; it could be that the child has had to answer questions all day. They don’t want to say anything more. But maybe during the evening there is time for inquiry when parents can listen to their child’s response without judging it or putting an achievement indicator on it.”
Johannes pointed to a line of research known as mattering, which she says “aims to help young people know that they matter in our lives; they matter more than a test score or getting an assignment in.”
When asking youth about their school day, Johannes suggests asking open-ended questions, such as:
What did you learn?
What did you try that was different?
“You know, we're talking about young people whose brains are not yet fully formed,” Johannes said. “So we want to give them time to develop, and we want there to be kind of a rocky development, because that young person is testing who they are, and they may not figure that out for quite a while.”
“As parents,” she adds, “we watch, we wait and we support and we figure out if our child has a talent or interest, or they change their interests because of development. So there's a bunch of back and forth between children and parents, and we don't want to push too quickly to have the young person locked in to who they are.”
A longer discussion with Johannes is available on the weekly radio program, Sound Living, produced by K-State Research and Extension. More information on healthy living is also available from local extension offices in Kansas.