Meeting Back-to-School Jitters with Self-Compassion
Written by Kristi Yeh, LMFT
As many children return to school for the first time since COVID began, some are feeling nervous, anxious, scared, and more. Self-compassion is a helpful way to approach uncomfortable or painful emotions during the back-to-school transition. Kristin Neff, Ph.D. was the first person to measure self-compassion while she was doing her post-doctoral work at University of California Berkeley. Dr. Neff shifted the field of psychology to put more emphasis on self-compassion instead of self-esteem. Self-esteem depends on a person's assessment of their intelligence, appearance, athleticism, etc., whereas self-compassion is about connecting to our greater humanity and the belief that all people experience stress and pain, and people deserve compassion.
Self-compassion is about more than being kind to ourselves, although that is an important aspect. Here are the three components of self-compassion from Dr. Neff. You can read more at Self-Compassion.org.
Try these prompts to help your children learn the three elements of self-compassion, focusing on the example of back-to-school nerves.
Note: Your body language and tone of voice always communicate more than the actual words. Trust your instincts and adjust the scripts to represent how you would normally speak to your children.
It's never too early to plant the seeds of self-compassion with our children. Self-compassion is a skill that can be learned, and with practice it gets easier to be kind to ourselves. Another effective way to teach self-compassion is by modeling compassion for ourselves in front of our children. If you are interested in learning more, you can read my eBook, “The 3 Cs of Parental Well-Being: Curiosity, Compassion + Community.”
“If your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete.”
Access all of the self-compassion tips and resources in your free back-to-school download. Feel free to share with educators and parents. Take care parents, and I’m rooting us on as we all transition back-to-school this year.
