Mentally preparing yourself for the decision to send your kid back to school or not

As you are preparing to send your child off to school in the middle of a pandemic, it’s not only weighing on you mentally but it can weigh on your children as well.

It’s tough as a parent as they are worried about making the right decision to send their child to school or learn virtually.

And anxious about their health, there are some coping techniques to stay mentally at ease and make good decisions.

Tiffany Jurkowski is about to make the very tough decision to send her 11-year old son back to class or learn from home.

‘I am mentally challenged about taking him to school right now because it is just bad. I don’t know how to feel about it,” Jurkowski said.

It’s causing Tiffany great anxiety with all the information and misinformation swirling around about how safe her son T.J. will be in school.

Tiffany Scott with Elite DNA Therapy says try your best to not let your mind wander.

“Not going too far back and not racing too far into the future,” Scott said.

Take deep breaths and stay away from what she calls historical anxiety.

“If their mind keeps running on the historical anxiety it is going to keep their system kicked up into an anxiety state. It will affect them focusing and their ability to do stuff here and now in the present,” Scott said.

And mentally preparing your children is also crucial. They will be the ones living with all the new protocols in the classroom.

“Try to stray away from talking about the virus in a way that will make them overly scared and overly anxious,” Scott said.

Tiffany plans to just re-focus on what her 11-year-old can control.

“Keep his hands washed, don’t touch your face, the same thing I have been training him to do,” Jurkowski said.

And when it comes to helping your teens through this, the best advice that counselor gave Is to get them involved in the problem solving and actively listen to their thoughts and feelings on going back to school.