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Anxiety has been on the rise since the pandemic, yet teachers are often unsure how to help students with anxiety. Anxiety is characterized by rumination and negative or distracting thoughts, and teachers can help by changing those inaccurate thoughts. In this updated version of a November 2019 Kappan article, Jessica Minahan provides a series of practical strategies for helping students recognize their inaccurate negative thoughts and replace them with more accurate thoughts. For instance, teachers might help students see that only one part of a daunting task is actually difficult or that experiences students previously dreaded turned out to not be so bad. Over time, with the daily support of their teachers, students can learn to think more accurately, allowing them to develop anxiety-reducing strategies and fully engage in the classroom. [This is an updated version of an article originally published in the November 2019 issue of Phi Delta Kappan (EJ1233050).]

Anxiety, one of the most common underlying causes of challenging student behavior, typically goes undiscovered and unaddressed through school-based behavior supports. Jessica Minahan and Stuart Ablon combine their expertise as a behavior analyst and a psychologist to outline how best to support students whose anxiety leads to challenging behavior. They describe the role of anxiety in challenging behavior and introduce skill-building approaches that help students develop the skills they need to succeed. These approaches can help teachers analyze skill deficits in students with anxiety, identify strategies to prevent anxiety from escalating, and build skills by combining opportunities to practice problem solving with specific strategies to manage anxiety.

How can we reassure anxious students while teaching remotely--especially as educators, too, feel overwhelmed by stress and the need to educate kids while minimizing risk of infection by COVID? Minahan details concrete ways teachers can support and calm students with serious anxiety or trauma histories. She includes examples of "what to say" and links to communication and emotional-health apps and resources.

Almost a third of adolescents have struggled with an anxiety disorder during their childhood, yet teachers are often unsure how to help students with anxiety. Anxiety is characterized by rumination and negative or distracting thoughts, so teachers can help by disrupting those negative thoughts. Jessica Minahan provides a series of practical strategies for helping students recognize their inaccurate negative thoughts and replace them with more positive thoughts. For instance, teachers might help students see that only one part of a daunting task is actually difficult or that experiences students previously dreaded turned out to not be so bad. Over time, with the daily support of their teachers, students can learn to think more accurately, allowing them to develop a more positive self-concept and fully engage in the classroom.

Up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma, such as abuse, neglect, natural disaster, or experiencing or witnessing violence. Trauma is possibly the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019). Traumatized students are especially prone to difficulty in self-regulation, negative thinking, being on high alert, difficulty trusting adults, and inappropriate social interactions (Lacoe, 2013; Terrasi & de Galarce, 2017). They often haven't learned to express emotions healthily and instead show their distress through aggression, avoidance, shutting down, or other off-putting behaviors. These actions can feel antagonistic to teachers who don't understand the root cause of the student's behavior, which can lead to misunderstandings, ineffective interventions, and missed learning time. Neurobiologically, students can't learn if they don't feel safe, known, and cared for within their schools (Aupperle et al., 2012). When teachers are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from traumatic stress and make small changes in the classroom that foster a feeling of safety, it makes a huge difference in their ability to learn. This article presents eight examples.

Teachers today work in classrooms where a large proportion of students have mental health disorders. Yet, because these teachers lack training in mental health issues, they often react to these students in ways that cause them to shut down or escalate their aggressive behavior. Other teachers, however, seem to intuitively understand how to connect with these students. Behavioral analyst Jessica Minahan suggests that the strategies these teachers employ be treated as accommodations, similar to those provided for students with other special needs. Carefully articulating and writing down these interaction strategies will enable adults throughout the school to create personal connections that help students with mental health issues access the curriculum, instead of disengaging or being sent out of class for behavior they cannot control.

Students with anxiety are prone to giving up a difficult work assignment before they even start it. So how can teachers help these students develop skills to successfully start and finish assignments and succeed in school? Behavioral analyst Jessica Minahan offers some practical solutions that teachers can implement in the classroom to motivate and encourage students with work avoidance issues and get them on the right path to success.

When teachers strive to help a student with serious behavior challenges, they often feel at a loss and seek guidance from a problem-solving team of counselors, administrators, and other colleagues. But too often such team meetings fail to provide concrete ideas for things the teacher can do. Rather than simply discussing the mounting challenges, teams need to approach such situations with a "skill building lens," uncovering what weak social-emotional skills underlie a student's problematic behavior and empowering a teacher to strengthen those skills. The authors discuss eight skill areas that are often underdeveloped in students with problematic behavior and give suggestions for how teachers can strengthen them: self-regulation, social skills, executive functioning, positive thinking, flexible thinking, work initiation, persistence, and help seeking. They describe what an effective meeting might look like once a problem-solving team focuses on determining which key skills the student in question needs help with.

Teachers who understand anxiety and its effect on a student's learning and behavior, and use a few common strategies in different and more effective ways, will be less frustrated and more effective in their work with anxious or emotionally fragile students.

There is no definitive research on how many students display sexualized behavior in schools. Sexually inappropriate behavior includes using sexual language, gestures, or noises, engaging in pretend play that simulates sex, making sexual invitations to others, inappropriately touching another person, or masturbating in the classroom. These behaviors are relatively rare but can be very upsetting to teachers, who often do not know what to do, and can put the student on a fast track to a self-contained classroom or out-of-district placement because of understandable concerns about protecting other children. Students with sexualized behavior present many challenges to teachers, but when teachers have appropriate responses to such behaviors, they can help students learn to respect personal boundaries, form healthy relationships, and function better in school.

Traditional behavioral plans for children with Asperger syndrome often neglect what they need to learn to manage their anxiety and the underdeveloped skills that contribute to their anxiety. School personnel often identify a desirable target behavior and try to reinforce it through rewards (stickers, praise, etc.), which usually does not work. When educators do not recognize how anxiety prompts some behaviors, such as meltdowns or withdrawal, their responses can unintentionally exacerbate the students' inappropriate behavior and their anxiety. If students with Asperger are to succeed in school, they need a prescribed behavioral intervention plan that addresses anxiety, explicit instruction in underdeveloped skills leading to anxiety, which helps them learn alternative, more appropriate responses to use when they are flooded with anxiety, and includes accommodations that teachers can use while students learn their new skills. An effective behavior plan needs to avoid reward- and punishment-based consequences and focus instead on teaching the student to cope and to use alternative responses. Incorporating preventive strategies and self-monitoring systems, as part of an overall anxiety management approach to behavior intervention, is practical for school-based settings. (Contains 2 tables.)

When, despite their best efforts, teachers feel defeated by a disruptive student, it seems they're fighting a losing battle. These students often have trouble regulating their emotions, become inflexible and have outbursts, and leave teachers feeling exhausted and incompetent. Through their collaboration, the authors have developed an approach that helps teachers come up with practical interventions that can make a difference in students' day-to-day lives. It's built on the premise that teachers can only control a few variables--such as the classroom environment and their own behavior--in the lives of students with challenging behavior. Because of this, they must put preventative accommodations in place and recognize that how they respond to students' behavior has a huge impact. By understanding what the student is communicating, figuring out replacement behaviors, and building a strong relationship, teachers discover that seemingly intractable behavior can diminish and students can thrive. (Contains 1 figure and 2 endnotes.)