Supporting School-Aged Kids: Stress, Social Media, and Building Resilience
School-aged children and teens face plenty of challenges as they grow. Academic responsibilities, friendships, extracurricular activities, social media, and everyday changes can all affect a young person's mental health.
Some stress is a normal part of growing up, but when it becomes overwhelming, it can affect a child's mood, behavior, sleep, relationships, and ability to function at school and home.
Parents, caregivers, and other trusted adults can help children develop healthy ways to manage stress, navigate the digital world, and build resilience.
Helping Kids Manage Stress and Anxiety
School can be a major source of stress for children. Tests, grades, deadlines, friendships, and expectations can sometimes feel like too much.
Kids don't always say they're stressed. Instead, it may show up as irritability, trouble concentrating, changes in sleep, avoiding schoolwork, or becoming more emotional than usual.
Help Them Identify the Problem
Start by helping your child figure out what's actually causing the stress. Is it an upcoming test? A friendship problem? Too many activities? Feeling pressure to meet expectations?
Once you know what's behind the stress, you can work together on what might help.
Break Big Problems into Smaller Steps
A large assignment or difficult situation can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once. Help your child focus on one manageable step at a time.
Instead of asking, "How are you going to get all of this done?" try, "What's the first thing we can do?"
Practice Coping Skills
Deep breathing, grounding, mindfulness, and other coping strategies can help children manage stressful moments. Practice these skills when your child is calm so they have familiar tools to use when they're overwhelmed.
For more ideas, check out LifeWays' Starting Your Coping Skills Toolbox.
More Stress and Anxiety Resources for Youth
You can also explore:
Child Mind Institute — Articles, videos, and guides on anxiety, self-regulation, behavior, and other childhood mental health topics.
Sesame Workshop: Emotional Well-Being — Kid-friendly activities and resources for understanding feelings and practicing coping skills.
Finally, don't overlook the basics. Sleep, physical activity, downtime, and time for fun are important parts of managing stress.
Helping Kids Develop a Healthy Relationship With Social Media
For many children and teens, social media is part of everyday life. It can help them connect with friends and explore their interests, but it can also create pressures that affect mental health.
Talk About Comparison
Social media often shows carefully selected versions of people's lives. Youth may see classmates' accomplishments, friendships, appearances, or activities without seeing everything happening behind the scenes.
Remind kids that what they see online isn't the whole story and that their worth isn't determined by how they compare to others.
Talk About Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying can follow children home and happen around the clock. Make sure kids know they can come to a trusted adult if something happens online. It can be a good idea to sit down with your child and explain to them how to identify trusted adults and have them make a list.
Talk about blocking and reporting harmful behavior and saving evidence when appropriate.
StopBullying.gov's Digital Awareness for Parents offers additional guidance on cyberbullying, privacy, and online safety.
Create Boundaries Together
Instead of focusing only on how much time children spend online, talk about how social media makes them feel.
Do they feel anxious after scrolling? Are they staying up late checking notifications? Do certain accounts consistently make them feel bad about themselves?
Families can create boundaries around when devices are used, where phones are kept at night and what types of content or behavior are appropriate.
The American Academy of Pediatrics Family Media Plan is a free tool that helps families create personalized guidelines for media use, online safety and screen-free times and places.
The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate social media. It's to help kids develop a relationship with technology that supports their well-being.
Helping Kids Build Emotional Resilience
Resilience isn't about never struggling. It's about learning how to handle challenges, adapt to change, and move forward with support.
Children develop resilience through everyday experiences where they learn that difficult feelings can be managed, mistakes can be repaired, and setbacks don't define them.
Let Kids Work Through Age-Appropriate Challenges
It's natural to want to protect children from disappointment, but solving every problem for them can make it harder for them to develop confidence in their own abilities.
When appropriate, give kids space to work through problems while staying available to support them.
Try asking, "What do you think you could do?" rather than immediately offering a solution.
Practice Self-Compassion
Kids can be incredibly hard on themselves. Help them separate what happened from who they are.
A disappointing grade doesn't mean they're not smart. Losing a game doesn't make them a failure. Making a mistake with a friend doesn't make them a bad friend.
Learning to respond to setbacks with patience and understanding is an important part of resilience.
Build Strong Relationships
Resilience doesn't mean children have to handle difficult experiences alone. Knowing they have people they can turn to is an important part of emotional well-being.
Encourage kids to build relationships with parents, caregivers, friends, teachers, coaches and other trusted adults.
For more ideas:
Sesame Workshop: Emotional Well-Being — Activities and videos that help younger children practice emotional skills and resilience.
Child Mind Institute — Resources for parents and older children on self-regulation, anxiety, friendships and other challenges.
Knowing When Your Child Needs More Support
Parents and caregivers don't have to solve every problem on their own.
If stress, anxiety, sadness, or other concerns are interfering with a child's school, relationships, sleep, activities, or daily life, consider reaching out to a pediatrician, school counselor, or mental health professional.
Supporting children's mental health isn't about preventing every difficult experience. It's about giving kids the skills, relationships and support they need to navigate those experiences. It also means helping them know when it's okay to ask for help.
More Resources for Kids and Families
Looking for more ideas? Start here:
LifeWays: Starting Your Coping Skills Toolbox — Practical coping strategies to try at home.
Child Mind Institute — Children's mental health resources for parents, kids and teens.
Sesame Workshop: Emotional Well-Being — Kid-friendly activities and videos for understanding emotions and building resilience.
AAP Family Media Plan — A customizable tool for creating healthy technology and social media boundaries.
StopBullying.gov — Information about cyberbullying and online safety.
These resources are a starting point and aren't a substitute for professional mental health care. For immediate mental health crisis support, LifeWays' 24/7 Crisis Line is available at 1 (800) 284-8288.