With Sarasota-area students returning to class in under a week, the annual wave of back-to-school anxiety is here. Backpacks are packed and alarms are set, but for many kids, the transition brings real stress. Local child and adolescent psychotherapist Ethan Weiss has spent years helping families navigate this exact moment, and he’s sharing three straightforward strategies to make the first week smoother for everyone.
Weiss’s first piece of advice might be the toughest to hear: don’t let your child skip school, even in the early days. He warns that a single absence in the first week can set a precedent that’s hard to reverse. Instead, he recommends building predictable morning and evening routines. When kids know what to expect, their anxiety levels drop significantly. Finally, he advises caregivers to pause before responding to complaints or sudden ailments. That Sunday-night stomachache might be real, but a calm, firm boundary gives your child the space to regulate and often helps the problem disappear by Monday morning.
The key takeaway is consistency and follow-through from day one. It’s not about being harsh; it’s about being steady. For more tips and resources from Ethan Weiss, visit yesandtherapysrq.com. What’s your best trick for a stress-free school morning? Share it with us in the comments below.
