Social / Emotional · Anxiety & Depression

What is it?

Anxiety is a mental health issue that can lead to depression. Anxiety can vary from one extreme to the other, ranging from a simple fear of public speaking to a fear of speaking to another person altogether.

Anxiety can be manifested in a variety of ways such as:

• Stress
• Phobia
• Panic disorders
• Post-traumatic stress
• Obsessive compulsive disorder

What causes it?

Anxiety is something that is unique to each individual. The following issues have been identified as potential causes:

• Family history of mental health
• Ongoing stressful events
• Physical health problems
• Substance abuse
• Personality factors

Incidence

Approximately 1 in 5 teens will experience depression by age 18, and 1 in 10 will experience anxiety.

Medical Considerations

Some common symptoms include:

• hot and cold flushes
• racing heart
• tightening of the chest
• snowballing worries
• obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviour

Characteristics

Anxiety is characterised as when a sufferer experiences anxious feelings which feel like they never subside, making daily life quite difficult to deal with. The symptoms of anxiety are sometimes not all that obvious as they often develop gradually.

Support

Treatments for anxiety can often vary. Trained professionals can provide assistance to sufferers by helping them deal with their anxious feeling. Medication can also be used to alleviate symptoms.

Further Information

Depression - Headspace

Lesson Preparation & Materials

• Incorporate choice to cater for student strengths and interests.
• Provide explicit instructions and examples to reduce anxiety.
• Adopt a familiar layout to handouts to avoid confusion. Routine can reduce anxiety.
• Include suggested time limits and working space so that students can match effort to expectation.

Teaching Strategies

• Promote effort over accuracy where appropriate.
• Performance anxiety may affect some students. Provide tasks in sections, preferably one at a time.
• Try to approach the student from the front when speaking in order to reduce a startle response.
• Discrete signals may need to be rehearsed prior to lessons so that the classroom disruption is minimised if the student experiences an episode of anxiety.

Feedback & Assessment

• Adjust assignments according to the student's level of distress. Reduce threatening tasks to within the student's comfort zone.
• Help students to avoid unrealistic expectations for themselves (e.g., 80% on an exam might be an excellent mark; few students get 100%).
• Incorporate revision into lessons for students who are anxious about performance. Other students will benefit too.
• Develop realistic goals with students and chart progress. Help the student to accept and prepare for setbacks.
• Develop trust with the student and provide opportunities to discuss anxieties.

Classroom Management

• Provide a routine, predictable learning environment. Give the student advanced notice when there will be a change in the schedule or routine (e.g., school assembly or fire drill).
• Be flexible with allocating positions in the classroom. Seating plans which work one day may not suit the next.
• Watch for behavioural cues that indicate the student may be getting anxious. These may include refusing tasks, frequent requests to go to the bathroom or attendance problems. Track these behaviours to look for a pattern to help identify situations that produce the most anxiety for the student.
• Allow physical movement breaks within or outside the classroom (e.g., going for a walk, running an errand, moving his or her desk).
• Use distractions and engaging activities to refocus a student's anxiety.
• Teach positive self-talk. Work with the student to choose positive words and phrases he or she can use in a variety of situations. These may be available if the student is undergoing counselling or if parents have found useful strategies.
• Work with the student to choose strategies for reducing anxiety. Strategies may include such things as moving to a quiet place, relaxation exercises, visualisation exercises (e.g., imagining both the anxiety-producing situation and a solution) or focusing on a sensory input like a squeeze ball.

Peers & SLSOs

• Allocate students to groups to avoid exclusion.
• Unstructured times in the day may induce anxiety. Peer supports or playground supervision may be required.

Have I...

• Arranged for special provisions in assessment tasks –separate supervision?

• Discussed successful strategies with the Learning Support Team?

• Broken tasks down into smaller, manageable steps?

• Incorporated frequent revision activities and study notes?

• Included suggested time limits for sections of activities?