And Ideas for Parents and Educators on Ways to Manage It

By Erin Lillie-McMains

When you think of the topic, “coping with anxiety,” what comes to mind?  Perhaps you think of tried and true techniques such as deep breathing, visualization, or cognitive reframing.  Or maybe you think of less clinical but still highly effective coping strategies such as laughing with a friend over a cup of coffee, going for a jog, or listening to a curated playlist that brings a sense of calm and peace. Coping strategies are many and varied, and often highly specific to the person using them.  

As a middle school social worker and parent of two teens and a pre-teen, I really can’t think of a topic that comes up more frequently than anxiety.  The changes that accompany adolescent development; physical, cognitive, emotional, and social cause even the most “typical” middle schooler to experience periods of heightened anxiety.  If you factor in those students who have experienced trauma, learning challenges, mental health diagnoses, economic stress, or recent immigration, the anxiety numbers continue to climb.  Top all of this off with a global pandemic and well, it’s no wonder we are seeing anxiety at never-before-seen rates.  

As with any crisis, the opportunity for imagination, innovation, and problem solving is rich and many schools, mental health practitioners, and parents have stepped up.  It’s rather commonplace in many middle schools for twelve-year-olds to recognize they are feeling anxious before a test and to know at least three breathing techniques they can use before starting the test.  I’ve had numerous students explain to me the neurological phenomenon of fight, flight, or freeze and be able to tell me which of the three affect them the most.  They’ve learned all about mental health and the brain in their Health classes.  We have homerooms that practice mindfulness, multiple ways for students to reach out to school mental health staff if they need assistance calming anxious thoughts, and parent newsletters and special speakers to help families know how to support their anxious adolescent.  Schools and families are doing remarkable things and trying in earnest to help our kids experience more calm.  

However, in the last few years, I’ve found myself wondering about something that, at first glance, may not seem related to anxiety at all.  It is the ever increasing use of digital education platforms with the capability to provide near-instant feedback about grades.  To be clear, the platforms themselves are not necessarily the problem.  They are amazing tools that help teachers organize loads of educational data and carefully track students’ progress.  Thankfully, it is far less likely than it used to be for a teacher to not notice that a student is failing Science until the end of the term. Teachers can conference with students early in the decline process and help them make adjustments and get back on track. 

In fact, as with so many modern phenomena, education platforms with rapid evaluative feedback came along and seemed like the antidote to anxiety.  Are you worried about your child’s grades?  Just log on to Infinite Campus at midnight and check.  Anxious that your child might not be learning Algebra well enough to progress to Geometry?  You can check Power School and see every score on every Algebra assessment throughout the months of January and February.  If you’re a 7th grader and really want to make high honor roll, you can calculate your grade at any point in time and know exactly what score you need to get on tomorrow’s quiz in order to maintain your “A.”  It’s all accessible at the click of a mouse or the tap of an iPhone screen. So easy! So stress free! Or is it?  

One of the most powerful anxiety buffers during adolescent development is a sense of agency.  As children emerge from elementary school, they start to become more abstract and critical thinkers. They are less intent on pleasing teachers and adults, and they definitely have their own opinions…on everything.  Yes, they meant to style their hair that way.  Yes, those mismatched socks look good with Crocks. Why would you even question it? (massive eye roll).  They need to differentiate themselves from their family of origin.  They need to seek new adventures in asserting their independence.  They need to call the shots in their own life.  Of course, they are far from ready to call all the shots and still need a tremendous amount of careful guidance. This is what makes parenting adolescents so hard at times.  They want you near and often want your advice, but when you offer it, they sharply reject it and go a different route.  But that rejection is more about them testing out their newfound sense of agency than a reflection on our best advice, and it is 100% NORMAL.  My concern is that online education platforms that provide rapid evaluative feedback to students and parents take away a good amount of student agency.  This, in turn, may quite unintentionally be contributing to student (and parent!) anxiety.  

I’m going to show my age here, but remember back in the day when you did lousy on a quiz or test and your parents had no idea?  First of all, you didn’t even get the quiz or test back for a week because well, all those red ballpoint pen comments take a while. Secondly, by the time you got it back, your parents had completely forgotten you took it.  I remember a lot of dinner table conversations with my parents that included the question, “Well, I know you don’t know the results yet, but how do you think you did?”  Maybe I thought it went amazingly well and told them so.  Maybe I thought it went terribly but still told them it went amazingly well.  The point is, I had a lot of control and autonomy in that conversation to decide how much or how little to share, and they were going to forget about it in a few days anyway.  I’d get my quiz back and choose whether or not to bring it up again.  They really had zero knowledge of my individual performance on daily assignments, book reports, quizzes, and tests unless a teacher called them.  They simply saw a black and white printed report card four times a year and figured that all those individual grades along the way were calculated correctly and life went on.  

By sharp contrast, middle and high schoolers today know every score on every piece of work submitted during the quarter and their parents do as well. Not only do they know the score, they often know it within an hour of it being completed. The cycle goes something like this: The teen turns in a quiz.  The teacher uses plan time an hour later to grade and input the score into the educational platform. The student, now in 5th period Language Arts, briefly wanders off task (I mean, their Chromebook is open anyway so who really knows if they are working on the assigned essay or checking grades?)  The student sees they got a “D” and immediately starts feeling anxious, thinking about how this conversation is going to go with their parents after school and about the total point value so far this quarter and how many points they will have to recover in order to finish the quarter with an “A.” (By the way, the essay is no longer happening due to a lack of concentration caused by anxiety so that’s another homework task for this evening post soccer, violin, and SAT prep class).  Meanwhile, the parent is working from home and gets a cheery “ping!” telling them that a grade has been inputted in the educational platform, so they briefly wander away from work and check on the grade.  Seeing it’s a “C,” their anxiety level spikes and they immediately start thinking about the conversation they are going to have with their teen that evening and wondering what could have possibly gone wrong on this quiz.  Although the parent knows they should return to work and handle this later, curiosity takes over and their anxiety coupled with the anxiety that they know their child is probably now feeling while sitting in 5th period causes them to email the teacher.  “Is there any way this quiz was graded incorrectly?”  “Can she retake the quiz tomorrow at lunch or after school?”  “Do you think we need to hire a Math tutor?”  The teacher receives this email just before his lunch break and although he knows this is his downtime and it is important to unplug and relax a little (after all, the principal just talked about professional boundaries and burnout prevention at the last staff meeting), he also knows this is just another task he’ll have to do after school so he decides to reply to the email now.  

We could keep going with this exercise, but honestly if you’ve followed it this far I’m impressed.  Dare I ask…are you feeling anxious? The point is that while digital education platforms are incredible in their ability to hold and organize data and to communicate numeric scores with students and parents, we must help students and families use them in beneficial ways.  I fear that when they are used with no guardrails and no parent guidance, they take away that sense of control and agency many adolescents need.  Rather than lower student anxiety levels they actually raise them.  My high schooler tells me some of her friends get super stressed when their parents text them during the school day asking about an assignment that just got flagged as “missing”.  I’ve worked with students at my middle school going through extreme emotional hardship and adjustment issues.  Despite caring teachers telling them not to worry about specific grades, these students compulsively check the education platform twenty times a day to calculate points and averages.  They feel defeated every time they see a low score.  Students who suffer with anxiety, obsessive thoughts, or perfectionism also tend to over-focus on scores and points, checking the platform every five minutes until that last lab score has been entered and they can be assured they will maintain their “A+.”  Even students who are fairly high functioning and emotionally healthy are prone to getting overly focused on scores and points, which takes away from the joy, adventure, healthy risk-taking, and the resulting failure that should be involved in the learning process.  

So what can be done to bring about some healthy boundaries when using digital education platforms that provide rapid feedback?  As with most challenges, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.  Children are different.  Families are different. Circumstances are different.  Let’s explore a few possibilities.

1. Engage parents in conversations not only about the nuts and bolts of using the digital education platform, but also about how often to check their student’s grades. Schools can offer emotionally supportive guidance on how to bring up tough topics such as missing assignments and low grades with their child.  Schools can look for natural times that parents are in the building such as Back-to-school nights, Curriculum Nights, Parent-Teacher Conferences, Principal Coffees, or PTA meetings and have handouts prepared.  Maybe when parents stop by the tech help desk to figure out how to reset their password, they can also get a tip sheet that prompts them to think about the best boundaries for their child.  Perhaps when Chromebooks are issued, the forms sent home to parents include this tip sheet so that right from the beginning, parents are thinking about their individual child and what boundaries would work best.  

2. Some schools have started to limit online platform access, actually turning it off during certain hours. This requires a good deal of collaboration between school communities, parents, and technology teams, but it’s an interesting idea that’s worth considering.  Perhaps a district decides the platform will not be accessible after 9:00pm or before 7:00am.  Maybe the platform is shut down on Saturdays.  It could even be shut down during the majority of school hours so as not to serve as a distraction to students who need to focus deeply on their learning.  

3. Parents can consider their notification settings and adjust them to what brings a sense of healthy boundaries.  If you know you are a worrier and have difficulty focusing on anything other than the “D” you just saw pop up on your child’s grade report, consider turning those notifications off.  Many families have successfully navigated this territory by setting aside one day a week with their child to log onto the platform together and check grades.  Maybe it’s a Friday night ritual.  Celebrate the successes of the week and check for any missing work that could be addressed over the weekend. 

4. Parents can plan ahead emotionally and behaviorally for how they want to handle a low grade or missing assignment.  I had parents ask, “How do I keep my own anxiety in check when I look at those missing assignments?” First of all – breathe. Remember: You were a teenager at one time too.  You bombed quizzes and forgot to turn in assignments.  What would your mental state have been like if your parents saw every assignment, quiz, or test grade every day?  Be aware of your emotional reaction to the notifications.  If you just saw a missing assignment pop up on your phone and then your son walks through the door five minutes later, is now the best time to address it?  Are you calm enough? It’s also helpful to just ask your child, “Hey, if I see something concerning about a missing assignment, how do you want me to bring it up? I want to help you stay on track, but I don’t want to stress you out.” 

5. Finally, adolescents should be part of the solution!  I’ve seen a huge shift in recent years as students start to learn more about their own mental health through Tier 1 social and emotional learning (SEL) curricula and excellent Health and Wellness classes.  I’ve had precious moments in my office with teary sixth graders saying, “ I know I’m probably feeling more emotional right now because of puberty and my changing brain.”  Teens understand their emotions and brains in a way my generation certainly never did, so why not educate them on the effect of checking their grades ten times a day and how to set healthy boundaries?  They are already having similar conversations about their phone use and Social Media, so this would just be a natural extension of those familiar topics.  

We are making good progress in the area of anxiety and there are passionate, dedicated, and thoughtful educators and parents committed to continuing this improvement.  In addition to stress balls, deep breathing, and mindfulness meditations, we need to have difficult and nuanced conversations about the benefits and disadvantages of rapid performance feedback on educational platforms and how we can empower all involved to use them to their fullest potential while also setting healthy boundaries.

Erin Lillie-McMains is an L.C.S.W. and middle school social worker in the greater Chicagoland area.  She has worked with adolescents for twenty-four years and helped a school based team implement Social Emotional Learning curricula. Most importantly, she is a parent of two high schoolers and one middle schooler.