New School Year Anxiety: Why I Hope It’s Better But I’m Afraid It Will Be Worse
I’m standing at the kitchen counter at 8:17 PM the night before third grade, peeling the backing off a name tag for Leo’s math notebook, and the glue stick I bought two weeks ago is already dried out. My chipped coffee mug from the 2021 preschool fundraiser sweats next to my elbow, and Leo’s new neon sneakers are dumped by the fridge, laces tied perfectly in the knot he practiced for 20 minutes this afternoon. He leans in the doorway, twisting the hem of his new dinosaur hoodie, and says, “Do you think Mrs. Henderson will send me to the office if I forget my homework one time?”
I paste the name tag on crooked and don’t smooth it out. I tell him I don’t think that will happen, and it’s the truth. But as I reach for a new glue stick, the same thought bounces around my head: I hope this year is better. I’m so scared it’s going to get worse.
Last year started the same way, sort of. We had a new teacher, a fresh 504 plan for Leo’s ADHD, a drawer full of fidget toys and a schedule of pre-approved sensory breaks. By October, Leo was hiding under the dinner table crying every night, saying he didn’t want to go back. His teacher called me three times a month to say he was disruptive, that he wouldn’t sit still, that he needed to “try harder.” He got three detentions in one month for talking during silent reading, and by December he stopped mentioning any friends at all. We fought for a mid-year classroom switch, and by the end of May, things were finally looking up: he came home talking about playing tag at recess, he only had one meltdown a week instead of four, he even asked to do an extra art project for homework.
So this year, we did all the right small things. We toured the classroom three times this summer, so Leo wouldn’t get lost on the first day. We talked to Mrs. Henderson before the first day, and agreed on a non-verbal signal: if Leo feels his chest get tight and he needs a minute, he can put a blue magnet on the corner of his desk, and he can go get a drink of water for two minutes, no questions asked. No need to raise his hand, no need to explain himself, which was the biggest problem last year—he was too embarrassed to ask for a break after being called out for “making excuses” so many times. We picked out a soft silicone fidget that fits in his pocket, doesn’t make noise, won’t distract anyone. We taped a printed checklist to the inside of his front door: homework, lunch box, water bottle, fidget. He checks it himself every morning, and if he forgets something, I drop it off once a month max, no lecture. Natural consequences work better than any yelling I’ve ever done.
But I still have this knot in my stomach. Two years ago, second grade started out just like this. Six weeks of sunshine, Leo coming home every day saying it was the best year ever. Then the novelty wore off, the teacher got busy with testing, the extra check-ins stopped, and by October it was worse than first grade. The bigger the good start, the bigger the fall, it feels like. Third grade has harder math, more homework, bigger expectations for sitting still and being quiet. If this year falls apart too, it won’t just be another hard semester. Leo will start to believe the thing all the teachers have quietly implied since kindergarten: that he’s just the disruptive kid, the kid who can’t do school right. That’s what makes me scared it will be worse this time. The stakes feel higher.
I used to think I had to fix this feeling, that I had to think positively for Leo, that any fear I felt would rub off on him. I used to lie and say “it’s going to be great, don’t worry” when he asked me if things would be okay. That changed after a therapy appointment I went to alone last spring, when the therapist asked me what would happen if I stopped pushing the fear away. I tried something new last month, when Leo said he was scared too. I didn’t give him a pep talk. I just said, “I get it. I hope this year is really fun for you, and I’m a little scared it will be hard too. It’s okay to feel both things. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it together.” He just nodded, and went back to building his Minecraft castle. That was it. No big emotional talk, no crying, just saying the quiet thing out loud. It took a weight off both of us.
A lot of parenting writing tells you to get rid of the anxiety, to manifest a good year, to be positive. But that doesn’t work when you’ve already lived through the hard years. The fear isn’t a failure of parenting. It’s just paying attention. You know what your kid needs, and you know how easy it is for schools to get busy and forget the small accommodations that make all the difference.
Leo yells from the hallway that he’s done brushing his teeth, and he left his toothpaste cap on the bathroom counter like always. I wipe the glue residue off my hands, and I don’t pick up his sneakers from the kitchen floor. I’ll do it tomorrow, like I always do. We’ve done all the small, concrete things we can do to make this year easier. We have our signal, we have our checklist, we have our three-question nightly check-in: what was easy today, what was hard that we can fix tomorrow, who did you sit with at snack. No big open-ended “how was school” that he always answers with “fine.”
I still have the knot in my stomach. I still hope this year is better, and I’m still afraid it will be worse. That doesn’t mean anything is wrong. That just is what it is. Tomorrow we’ll walk to school, he’ll hang his backpack on the third hook from the door like he practiced, and we’ll take it one day at a time. Some things don’t need a neat resolution, right now. They just need to be lived.
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