Students across the Gulf Coast have been returning to classrooms this week, and for some, the transition back to school is bringing more than new supplies and schedules — it is bringing added anxiety. Mental health professionals say the start of a school year is one of the most common triggers for anxiety in children and teenagers, and the signs are not always obvious to the adults around them.
Anxiety in students can show up in a variety of ways and can affect how they function in the classroom, which is why professionals stress that parents should know when their child may need extra support. Amy Vaughn, a school-based therapist with AltaPointe Health, has been addressing the signs of anxiety in students and what parents can do to help as the new school year gets underway.
What anxiety looks like in students
Anxiety does not always announce itself with words. In younger children, it often appears as physical complaints — stomachaches, headaches and nausea that cluster on school mornings and ease on weekends. Parents may also notice sleep problems, trouble separating at drop-off, clinginess, tearfulness or tantrums that seem out of proportion to the situation. Because young children frequently lack the vocabulary to describe worry, their bodies and behavior do the talking for them.
Older children and teenagers tend to express anxiety differently. Irritability, withdrawal from family and friends, refusal to attend school, falling grades, restlessness and a constant need for reassurance are all common presentations. Some students become perfectionistic, spending hours on homework out of fear of failure, while others avoid assignments altogether. Changes in eating habits, loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy, and increased sensitivity to criticism can also signal that worry has moved from normal to problematic.
The timing of the complaints matters as much as the complaints themselves. A stomachache the night before a big test may pass, but a pattern of physical symptoms every Sunday evening, or a child who is repeatedly too sick to attend school with no clear medical cause, is worth a closer look. Professionals advise parents to track when symptoms appear and what is happening at those times, since that pattern helps distinguish everyday nerves from anxiety that is interfering with daily life.
Why back-to-school season is so hard
The return to school compresses a series of transitions into a few short weeks. Students face new teachers, new classmates, harder coursework and a sudden end to the looser routines of summer. For children who are changing schools — those entering kindergarten, middle school or high school — every familiar anchor disappears at once. The early weeks of the school year also bring social pressure as friend groups shift, and students who had a difficult year before often return carrying that history with them.
Family circumstances add another layer. Households dealing with a move, a divorce, a financial strain or the loss of a loved one send children back to school with more on their minds than homeroom assignments. Clinicians emphasize that anxiety is a normal, healthy response to stress in small doses — it is the brain’s alarm system doing its job — but when the alarm stays on, it drains a child’s energy and attention, and that is when support is needed.
How school-based therapy works
School-based therapists like Vaughn work where the problems show up, seeing students on campus during the school day rather than requiring families to arrange off-site appointments. That model removes two of the biggest barriers to children getting help: transportation and scheduling. A student can be seen without missing an entire day, and therapists can coordinate directly with teachers and school counselors about what they are observing in the classroom.
AltaPointe Health, headquartered in Mobile, is one of the largest behavioral health providers in Alabama, serving the Gulf Coast region with mental health, substance use and intellectual disability services. Its school-based programs place clinicians in partner schools to provide assessment, counseling and crisis support, working alongside educators and referring students to deeper services when needed. For many families, a school-based therapist is the first professional contact they have with the mental health system, and that early connection can shape everything that follows.
What parents can do right now
Professionals offer parents a consistent set of first steps. The most important is to listen without immediately fixing — a child who is asked open-ended questions about the school day, and who is heard without judgment, is more likely to keep talking. Parents are encouraged to validate feelings rather than dismiss them: saying a worry is understandable works better than saying there is nothing to worry about, which can make a child feel unheard and reluctant to raise concerns again.
Routine does much of the heavy lifting during a transition. Consistent bedtimes and wake-up times, regular meals and a predictable after-school rhythm give children a sense of stability while everything else feels new. Limiting late-night screen use helps protect sleep, and sleep in turn protects mood and attention. Parents can also rehearse the frightening parts of school in advance — visiting the campus, walking the route, talking through the first day — so the unknown becomes the familiar before classes begin.
Adults should also watch their own signals. Children take emotional cues from the grown-ups around them, and a parent who speaks calmly about the school year tends to raise a child who approaches it more calmly as well. That does not mean pretending everything is perfect; it means modeling how to handle worry out loud, showing that problems can be named, faced and worked through.
When to seek professional help
Clinicians suggest involving a professional when anxiety persists for weeks, worsens instead of improving, or begins to interfere with school attendance, friendships or family life. Warning signs that call for a prompt conversation with a school counselor, pediatrician or therapist include complete school refusal, panic symptoms, dramatic changes in mood or appetite, and any talk of self-harm, which should always be taken seriously and addressed immediately.
Parents who are unsure where to start can begin with their child’s school. Counselors can observe the student during the day, connect families with school-based services and make referrals. Pediatricians are another natural first call, since they can rule out medical causes for physical symptoms and point families toward qualified providers. In Alabama, AltaPointe and similar community mental health centers accept a range of insurance, including Medicaid, which matters in a region where cost is often the reason families delay getting help.
Why the school year is a community issue
Anxious students do not leave their anxiety at the classroom door. Worry drains working memory, disrupts attention and makes it harder to retain new material, so unaddressed anxiety shows up in grades and behavior before it shows up anywhere else. Teachers across the Gulf Coast report spending more classroom time on emotional needs than in past generations, which is why schools have expanded counseling staff and partnered with outside providers like AltaPointe to bring clinicians on campus.
The broader context is a documented rise in youth mental health needs nationwide, with pediatricians and school leaders describing increased demand for services since the pandemic reshaped children’s routines and social lives. Rural and lower-income communities face the steepest access challenges, making school-based programs — where the clinician comes to the child — an especially valuable model along the Gulf Coast, where long distances and provider shortages can put off-site therapy out of reach.
For parents navigating the first weeks of the school year, the message from professionals like Vaughn is ultimately an encouraging one: anxiety in students is common, recognizable and treatable. Watching for the signs, keeping routines steady, listening without judgment and reaching out early give children the best chance to walk into the year with their worries managed instead of their worries managing them.
Building resilience through the year
Getting through the opening weeks is only the first milestone. Mental health professionals note that the habits families build in August and September — talking about feelings, keeping routines, staying connected to teachers — are the same habits that carry students through the harder moments later in the year, whether that is exam season, a friendship falling apart or a disappointing report card. Resilience is not the absence of worry; it is the set of skills a child uses to move through it.
Parents can nurture those skills in small, everyday ways. Letting a child attempt something difficult without rescuing them at the first sign of frustration builds confidence that survives setbacks. Praising effort rather than outcomes teaches students that their value is not hostage to a grade. Encouraging one activity a child genuinely enjoys — a sport, music, art, a club — provides a reliable source of belonging and competence that buffers against stress elsewhere.
Community resources round out the family’s toolkit. Churches, recreation leagues, libraries and youth organizations across the Gulf Coast offer structured activities and adult mentors, and schools often publish lists of what is available. Families who want to learn more about children’s mental health can also ask a school-based therapist about resources for parents, since understanding what a child is experiencing often equips the whole household to handle it better.
The start of the school year will always bring some nerves, and that is healthy. The goal, clinicians say, is not to erase anxiety but to keep it in its place — a manageable feeling that alerts rather than overwhelms. With attentive parents, connected schools and services like those AltaPointe provides on campus, Gulf Coast students can get the support they need at the moment they need it most: right now, as the year begins.
