The end of the summer holidays is a busy time for parents, 87% of whom admit to being stressed by the start of the school year. Between the structural organization of the coming year and the unreassuring situation in the school world, the mental load of parents is high on the eve of the start of the 2022 school year.
French parents among the most involved in Europe in the education of their children
It’s a passage that the French have trouble living serenely, and yet, every year it’s the same thing: the start of the school year brings its share of upheavals. A particularly stressful period for parents in France, 87% of whom experience a peak in anxiety at this time of year. This is revealed by the study carried out jointly by the companies GoStudent and Kantar on this subject, stating that the French turn out to be the parents most involved in the education of their children in Europe, ahead of the Spaniards and the Italians. . Back to school is even then for 7% of them a source of great stress.
What are the reasons for this back-to-school stress?
The first reason for this back-to-school stress is none other than the change of level and passage to a higher class. 33% of the adults questioned are thus worried about the advancement of schooling, all the more so when it comes to the symbolic passages of the passage in CP, sixth or second. And according to the study, parents are concerned about the abilities of their little ones from the very beginning of the school year, at the start of the new school year: ” Will my child be at the level? Will he make up for his shortcomings in math this year? Anxiety linked to the child’s academic success resurfaced among parents in September” she specifies.
Second source of anxiety, back-to-school organization. With the holidays, the end of homework and the end of extra-curricular activities, parents have been able to take a breather… Getting back into the deep end of everyday life at a thousand an hour can then seem anxiety-provoking: running supplies, various registrations and administrative procedures, including any new behaviors to teach children (travel to school alone, new management of the school bag in 6th grade, preparation of clothes the day before, etc.) parental mental burden is making a resounding comeback, all the more so in the case of single-parent families.
Finally, the last cause of concern for parents: the deficits from which public schools suffer, in particular the shortage of teachers. More than 4,000 positions are not filled on the eve of the start of the new school year, and the idea of a closed class, with the chaotic management of a child to have to babysit (or have babysat) can torment parents, after two years at manage sudden interruptions to classes during the Covid pandemic.
How to reduce your stress at the start of the school year?
From the reasons that cause stress at the start of the school year, the researchers have also pushed the study to the solutions that can remedy them. For half of the parents questioned, it is clear: the help of a private teacher is the key to alleviating their anxieties, and removing the pressure of homework, which can often be a tense moment between exhausted parents, little teachers, and angry children.