Anxiety

How to make your classroom developmentally

appropriate for students with anxiety

Caroline, Emma, Brittany, Olivia

 Brain Dump!
What do you think of when you think of anxiety?
Anxiety?
● Worry, unease, or nervousness about an event with unknown outcomes
● 5 types: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic
Disorder, PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder
● According to the CDC, 7.1% of children aged 3-17 years (approximately 4.4
million) have diagnosed anxiety
What does anxiety look like?
In the Classroom:

● Crying or excessive anger

● Playing alone
● Physical signs
● Opposition/Denial
● Longing to go home
● Not doing work
● Going to the bathroom to avoid work
How does anxiety show in the brain?
Bronfenbrenner
Different ways anxiety commonly affects classrooms
● Separation Anxiety
● Test Anxiety
● Anxiety surrounding math
● Schedule disruptions
● Fire Alarms or loud noises
● Anxiety around new people
Video about separation anxiety and what it is
How to help your child overcome anxiety about going
to school?
● 10 days for a normally developing child to settle into a routine
● Visit the school before hand
● Let children bring a piece of comfort from home if they need it and it is
allowed in school policy
● Read books to help prepare them for school
● Role play and ask questions that you think they might have before hand
Trauma-Informed Care
● Ensures the physical and emotional safety of a child
● 5 principles
○ Safety
○ Transparency and trustworthiness
○ Choice
○ Collaboration and Mutuality
○ Empowerment
● Involves working with a child and family to understand a child’s triggers and
providing them with the best, developmentally appropriate education with it in
consideration
Coping with Trauma or Tragedy
● Encourage them to talk, draw, or role play feelings or anxiety
● Try to maintain daily routines
● Children need to be comforted
● Reassure them
○ Offer no false reassurances
How to make your classroom DAP
● Work with child to create an individual plan to help them calm down
● Make classroom set-up adaptable to allow children to change environment to
meet different people’s needs at different points of the day
● Allow students to advocate for themselves and say what they are and are not
capable of on any given day
● Validate emotion of students
● Have books in your classroom that address anxiety or have characters with
anxiety
● Social Emotional curriculum, teach students to identify emotions and that it is
completely okay to feel them
● Visual schedules can show exactly what will happen at different classroom
times and decrease students’ worries about what to expect in the day.
Resources
● Talk to parents if possible
○ Anxiety is hereditary
○ Know the signs of anxiety in children so parents/teachers can catch it early
● Talk to your school counselor
○ They will have more time to meet individually with students and can relay information to you
○ They have curriculum for small group meetings
■ Ex. Worry Warriors
● YouTube channels: TeenMentalHealth.org (Animated Series Playlist) & CWP
service
○ Has cartoons that help children understand what they are feeling
● Julia Cook’s books
○ Ex. The Worst Day of My Life Ever
Calm Down Stations
Let’s Do An Activity!
We will be creating calm down sticks so you can use them in your classroom! So
get ready to cut and glue down the different emotions onto popsicle sticks. Ready
set, go!
Scenario
Ben, a student in your first grade class, has not concentrated all morning. You tell
him to sit down in his seat as you are about to pass out a test. He screams at you,
throws his pencil, and hides under his desk. You try to talk to him, but he will not
stop screaming.

What would you do as his teacher?