Helping Children Through Worry and Uncertainty

Pete Moore · September 2026

The start of a school year is full of excitement. New teachers, new classmates, new experiences, and the chance to see old friends again. After many years in schools, I still love the energy that comes with welcoming everyone back.

Alongside that excitement, there can be worry. Will I like my teacher? Will my friends be in my class? Will the work be too hard? Where will I sit at lunch? What if I don’t know anyone?

One thing we can help our children understand is that these feelings don’t cancel each other out. They can be excited about coming back to school and nervous about the year ahead. Both things can be true.

As an educator and a parent, I’ve found that a helpful place to start. We don’t have to talk children out of one feeling to make room for the other.

Understanding the worry

One of the most helpful things I’ve learned about anxiety is that our goal isn’t always to get rid of it.

Dr. Lisa Damour, one of my favorite writers on child and adolescent development, describes anxiety as a normal and often protective part of being human. It works like an internal alarm, drawing our attention to possible danger. It becomes more of a concern when the alarm goes off without a real threat, or when the reaction is much bigger than the situation. She explains this difference in her discussion of healthy and unhealthy anxiety.

Her book Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls helped me think about this more clearly. Much of her work focuses on girls and young women, but I have found it very helpful in my work with all young people.

Knowing that some anxiety is normal changes how I support children. Feeling nervous about something new doesn’t mean something is wrong.

The trap of avoidance

Psychotherapist Lynn Lyons has also shaped my thinking a great deal. She wrote Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous & Independent Children with Reid Wilson.

One idea I took from Lyons’s work is that some of the things we do out of love for our children can actually feed their anxiety. Constant reassurance and avoidance can become ways of managing worry that leave children less able to handle uncertainty. Lyons talks about these patterns in this conversation about returning to school.

Our child is worried, so we promise everything will be okay. They’re scared to do something, so we let them skip it. Something makes them uncomfortable, so we rearrange things to make the discomfort go away.

In the moment, that works. The child feels better, and so do we. I understand that instinct. It’s hard to watch someone you love struggle when you think you could make it easier.

What I value in Lyons’s approach is the focus on helping children live with uncertainty, solve problems, and work through uncomfortable feelings. The message I hope children take in is simple. I don’t know exactly how this is going to go, but I can handle it.

They’re watching us

What has stayed with me most is the reminder that our children are watching how we handle worry, uncertainty, and stress.

I grew up with a family member who was very anxious, and I saw how that anxiety shaped the way our family sometimes experienced the world. When I became a parent, I wanted to understand that better. I wanted to break some of those patterns in my own parenting, and I wanted to better support the young people I’ve worked with throughout my career.

We don’t need to hide our stress from children or pretend we’re never worried. They can learn a lot from watching us feel worried and keep going anyway.

We might say, “I’m feeling a little nervous about this, but I’ll figure it out.” Or, “I don’t know what’s going to happen yet. Let’s see.” When something goes wrong, we can name it. “That didn’t go the way I hoped. I’ll work out what to do next.”

Those are the words we want our children to hear from the adults around them. We can be honest about uncertainty without treating it as something we always have to escape.

Staying beside them

Every school year has moments when children feel nervous, disappointed, unsure, frustrated, or overwhelmed. As parents and educators, our instinct is often to make those feelings go away as quickly as we can.

Sometimes children do need us to solve a problem. Sometimes they need extra support. If worry is getting in the way of school, friendships, activities, or everyday life, reaching out to a school counselor or a qualified mental health professional is an important step.

But sometimes what children need most is for us to stay beside them while they discover they can get through something hard on their own.

As a parent and a school leader, I’m still working out that balance. When should I step in? When should I offer support and give a child room to figure it out? Caring deeply about children doesn’t make those calls any easier.

As a new school year begins, one of the best things we can give our children is the confidence that they can handle hard things, with support when they need it. They can look forward to what’s ahead and feel a little worried too. Both things can be true.

Pete Moore has worked in schools for more than 25 years, as a teacher, division head, and Head of School. Read more about Pete or get in touch.