The backpack is packed. The first-day photo is taken. And your kid still won't get out of the car.

If the last few weeks of summer felt easier than the first few weeks of school, you're not imagining it. New teachers, new classmates, new routines, new expectations, all at once, all in the same week. For a lot of kids, that's not just an adjustment. It's genuinely stressful, and it shows up in ways that don't always look like "worry."

Why This Transition Hits Kids Harder Than It Looks

Adults tend to measure "hard" by how big the change is. Kids don't work that way. A change that looks small to you (a new seating chart, a substitute teacher, a friend who's in a different class this year) can genuinely destabilize a kid's sense of the world making sense. Younger kids don't yet have the words for "I feel anxious," so it comes out as a stomachache, a meltdown over the wrong socks, or suddenly needing you to tuck them in again after months of doing it themselves. Older kids and teens are more likely to go quiet, get irritable, or say they're "fine" while quietly dreading Monday.

None of that means something is wrong with your kid. It means their nervous system is doing exactly what nervous systems do with uncertainty. It's just uncomfortable to watch, especially when you can't fix it for them.

What Actually Helps

A few things make a real difference, and none of them require you to talk your kid out of feeling anxious (which, for what it's worth, rarely works anyway).

Name it before you fix it. "You seem nervous about tomorrow" lands very differently than "There's nothing to worry about." The first tells your kid you see them. The second tells them their feeling is wrong, which usually just makes them work harder to hide it from you next time.

Keep the goodbye boring. Long, emotional goodbyes at drop-off can accidentally teach a child's brain that this moment is dangerous enough to need extra reassurance. A short, warm, predictable goodbye (same words, same routine, every day) actually helps anxious kids settle faster than a longer one does.

Let them do the hard thing. It's tempting to email the teacher, smooth over the friend conflict, or let them stay home "just this once" when a kid is anxious about school. Sometimes that's the right call. But when it becomes the pattern, kids learn that avoidance is the way out of anxiety, and avoidance is what keeps anxiety in charge long-term. Small, supported doses of the hard thing (walking in themselves, sitting with the discomfort of a new lunch table) build the confidence that talking them out of it never quite does.

A parent and child sharing a warm conversation at home

A few minutes of real connection before the school day starts does more than any pep talk.

When It's More Than First-Day Jitters

Some anxiety in the first weeks of a new school year is expected. For most kids, it eases within two or three weeks as the routine becomes familiar. It's worth paying closer attention if you're seeing things like: persistent stomachaches or headaches with no medical cause, real difficulty separating from you well past the first few weeks, avoidance that's escalating rather than easing, or a kid who seems to be shrinking (socially, academically, or just in general mood) as the year goes on.

That's not a sign you've done anything wrong. It's a sign your kid could use some extra support in building the skills to move through anxiety instead of around it, and that's exactly what child and teen therapy is for.

I work with kids and families navigating exactly this: school anxiety, big transitions, and the family systems around them, often through play therapy and practical, age-appropriate coping tools, drawing on my background in pediatric occupational therapy as well as counseling. If this sounds like your family right now, you can read more about my approach or reach out. We're happy to help you figure out whether now is the right time for extra support.