Are you looking for strategies to help students who express concerns about home, school or personal relationships? If so, keep reading.
1. Talk about concerns with other professionals to ascertain if further investigation is warranted (e.g., abuse or neglect).
2. Record the number of times the student writes about fears or concerns regarding school, home, or personal situations to make the student aware of the frequency of their behavior.
3. Take the time to listen so the student realizes that your concern is genuine.
4. Explain that fears and concerns are not unusual for students (e.g., everyone worries about tests, grades, etc.).
5. Find persons the student may contact with their fears and concerns (e.g., guidance counselor, school nurse, social worker, school psychologist, etc.).
6. Talk about ways to practice self-improvement.
7. Give the student chances for social and academic success.
8. Separate the student from a peer who may be encouraging or stimulating fears or concerns about school, home, or personal situations.
9. Minimize the emphasis on competition. Repeated failure may result in anxiety about performance at school, home, and in personal situations.
10. Give parents appropriate information to help the student with homework and learning activities at home.
11. Make the necessary adjustments in their surroundings to prevent the student from experiencing stress, frustration, anxiety, etc.
12. Organize their surroundings so time does not allow time for the student to dwell on fears or concerns.
13. Give the student alternative approaches to testing (e.g., test the student orally, make the tests shorter, let the student respond orally, let the student the test in the resource room, etc.).
14. Get peers to invite the student to take part in extracurricular learning activities.
15. Place emphasis on individual differences and that everybody has strengths and weaknesses.
16. Minimize learning activities that might threaten the student (e.g., announcing test score ranges or test scores aloud in class, emphasizing the success of a particular student(s), etc.).
17. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
18. Consider using a socio-emotional learning app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
19. Consider using an emotional intelligence app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
20. Consider using a school counseling app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
