Schools Are Accommodating Student Anxiety — and Making It Worse

Schools Are Accommodating Student Anxiety — and Making It Worse



Removing stressors robs students of growth opportunities, writes TC's Ben Lovett and his co-author Alex Jordan


Jacob is terrified of oral reports he’s expected to give in his 10th-grade history class this school year. A therapist’s note recommends he be excused, and the school agrees. This scenario is playing out nationwide. The individuals and institutions involved are well intentioned and trying to help students feel more comfortable. But as psychologists who’ve studied and treated anxiety for decades, we believe that this approach — eliminating whatever makes students nervous — is making the problem worse. Here’s
why: Anxiety feeds on avoidance.

According to a 2022 study, the average anxious student receives 20 school-based supports, many of them avoidance-based, such as extra time for tests, separate rooms to work in, and lighter workloads.

Academic accommodations for anxiety convey two harmful messages. First, they imply that the feared situation is truly dangerous. Public speaking, testing, or lunch with classmates are too risky for a student. Second, they suggest that the student can’t withstand the distress. Those messages increase anxiety.

By contrast, when students take on what they’d rather avoid, they learn that worst-case scenarios rarely materialize, that discomfort is survivable, and that anxiety diminishes with practice. Indeed, purposely facing fears is the core of exposure therapy, the gold standard treatment for anxiety disorders for over half a century.

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