Whether you’re soothing back-to-school jitters or conquering a severe case of test-taking panic, helping your child cope with school anxiety can frazzle even the most unflappable parent.

Just ask Cassy Gemelli. A 44-year-old social worker from Portland, Oregon, who spends her days helping mentally ill patients in the throes of panic attacks and paranoia, Gemelli considers herself battle-ready for most childhood crisis situations. But when her 11-year-old son Nathaniel came home from fifth grade one day and announced that he didn’t want to go back to school, Gemelli found herself wondering what she’d missed.

“That wasn’t like him,” Gemelli says of her normally upbeat, straight-A student. “He had felt anxious before the school year started, because he didn’t know his new teacher and the class was going to be different for him, but we had come through that … he had never said he didn’t want to go to school before, so I knew something wasn’t right.”

A few conversations later, Gemelli and her husband, Bob Shaffer, realized that a classmate was bullying their son throughout the day and excluding him during recess. The situation was obviously putting a huge amount of stress on Nathaniel, and Gemelli found that her normal ways of dealing with her son’s back-to-school worries — which included distraction, lots of positive talk and visualizing what the new year might be like — weren’t going to be enough to cut through this type of school refusal.

“It’s difficult stuff,” Gemelli says of helping her son deal with his school anxiety. “I didn’t want to be a helicopter parent, but I did want to give him guidance to help him navigate through these tough social situations that even adults have trouble dealing with.”

Nathaniel’s father, also a social worker, agrees. “We wanted to confront the bullying problem and give the school, the teacher and the kids a chance to work it out,” Shaffer says. “But we also wanted to teach him that he doesn’t have to give the bully so much power, that he can stand up for himself.”

In the end, the family decided to talk to Nathaniel’s teacher, ask that Nathaniel be moved to a desk further away from the taunting classmate, and talked at length about ways of dealing with the bullying behavior. A few weeks later, Gemelli reported that Nathaniel was feeling much better.

“Changing seats helped,” she says. “But, also, Nathaniel went out of his way to be nice to this other kid who had been calling him names … and now (the bully) doesn’t really know what to think, so she’s being better to him. I think the teacher may have talked to her, too. Recess has gotten better. All I know is that he’s excited to go to school again.”

Most school anxiety situations have equally happy endings, but getting there can be tricky. Here are a few tips for helping your child reduce their school anxiety:

Don’t cave to your child’s refusal to go to school

Allowing your child to skip school isn’t going to solve the problem, and it may actually prolong the anxiety. In fact, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “missing school reinforces anxiety rather than alleviating it.”

Instead, listen to your child’s worries and fears about school and let them know that this type of anxiety is normal. Then, accentuate the positives. Does he love his after-school chess team? Is she looking forward to completing her sculpture in art class? Remind them of what they love most about the school day and focus on the good instead of dwelling on the bad.

Stem back-to-school anxiety by being prepared

If your child becomes anxious before big transitions — starting a new school year, moving to a new school, or returning to school after a long winter break — help quell their worries by planning ahead.

“Parents can help their children (and the rest of the family) manage [school transitions] by planning ahead, being realistic and maintaining a positive attitude,” says Ted Feinberg and Katherine Cowan, authors of the National Association of School Psychologists’ (NASP) guide to making smooth back-to-school transitions. “If your child is young or in a new school, visit the school with your child. Meeting the teacher, locating their classroom, locker, lunchroom, etc., will help ease pre-school anxieties and also allow your child to ask questions about the new environment.”

The NASP also recommends getting organized in the weeks before school starts by buying supplies early, marking your calendar with important school dates and planning ahead for conflicts with your work schedule, school events and childcare. Re-establish bedtime routines, prep for lunches, talk to your child about when and where they’ll do their homework after school, plan ahead for breakfast, and leave extra time in the morning so your child doesn’t feel completely rushed during those first few weeks back to school.

Don’t overreact

It is natural to want to protect your child from the evils that are causing him such anguish, but the National Association of School Psychologists experts say remaining calm is the best strategy for dealing with school-related anxiety.

“Children absorb their parent’s anxiety, so model optimism and confidence for your child,” say Feinberg and Cowan in their school anxiety guide, “Back-to-School Transitions: Tips for Parents.” “If the first few days are a little rough, try not to overreact. If you drop them off, try not to linger. Reassure them that you love them, will think of them during the day and will be back.”

Teach coping techniques

After you’ve listened to your child’s worries, reassured them that things will be OK and emphasized the positives, the best thing you can do to alleviate their school anxiety is give them the tools they need to cope with these types of stressful situations for the rest of their lives.

“It’s important to realize that there are some things you can control and some things you can’t,” write Wendy Moss and Robin DeLuca-Acconi, authors of the book, School Made Easier: A Kid’s Guide to Study Strategies and Anxiety-Busting Tools. “Even when you can’t control or change the pressures you feel at school or from schoolwork, you can change how you react to your stress.”

Teach your child simple, on-the-spot stress-busting techniques such as taking deep breaths, visualizing themselves in a safe and comfortable space (maybe their bedroom at home or in their favorite camping spot), and tensing then relaxing their muscles.

For a detailed, comprehensive list of coping techniques you can do at home to help relieve your child’s anxiety, visit the Students FIRST Project and review this nonprofit’s Quick Fact Sheet of strategies for addressing anxiety in the classroom and at home.

Deflect and refocus your child’s attention

Sometimes, the best way to cope with normal school anxiety is to focus on something else.

“Structure your home/family time so your child does not have time to dwell on [the anxiety],” advises the Students FIRST Project’s guide to coping with school anxiety. “Provide additional household responsibilities (errands, caring for a pet, etc.) to keep your child’s mind off of [the anxiety].”

For Cassy Gemelli, the Portland, Oregon, mother who helped her son get through bully-related anxiety as well as back-to-school anxiety this year, deflecting her son’s attention and refocusing his energy on more positive adventures helped tremendously.

“We tried to go out and get his mind off of school,” Gemelli says. “We would go swimming or go out to dinner with friends or go visit his grandpa. It helped him to go out and have fun and forget about his worries for a while.”

Three months later, Nathaniel barely remembers feeling distressed about the beginning of the school year. “When I think about summer, I remember playing with my friends and going to the pool,” he says. “I was a little bit nervous about going back to school because I didn’t know my new teacher and most of my friends weren’t going to be in my class, but it turned out OK.”

So take a deep breath, parents. Don’t overreact. Help your child figure out coping techniques, deflect their attention away from the stressful situation, concentrate on the positives and know that, like Nathaniel’s case, in the end, it will turn out OK.