Sometimes anxiety is easy to identify — like when a child is feeling nervous before a test at school. Other times anxiety in the classroom can look like something else entirely — an upset stomach, disruptive or angry behavior, ADHD, or even a learning disorder.

There are many different kinds of anxiety, which is one of the reasons it can be hard to detect in the classroom. What they all have in common is that anxiety makes school hard for anxious kids.

When a child is squirming in his seat and not paying attention, we tend to think of ADHD, but anxiety could also be the cause. When kids are anxious in the classroom, they might have a hard time focusing on the lesson and ignoring the worried thoughts overtaking their brains.

Sometimes all it takes is a bathroom break or a trip to the guidance counselor for reassurance. Getting a teacher’s attention to escape from the anxiety is the first step and then explaining to the teacher why a break is needed. Non-verbal communication like our band is so much easier on the anxious student and also on the teacher who will know exactly what to do rather than having to decipher what is going on from a student struck with the onset of an anxiety attack.