Starting School Creates Stress

New Research Shows Signs of Stress Up To 6 Months in Advance

Sep 24, 2007

The hormone cortisol was measured three to six months prior to school starting and six months later. The effect on children?

University of Bath Study

Dr. Julie Turner-Cobb from the University of Bath, in Bath, UK, and fellow researchers studied the effect school starting had on children. They expected cortisol levels to jump when children entered school. To their surprise, cortisol levels were already high far in advance of school beginning.

"This suggests that stress levels in anticipation of starting school begin to rise much earlier than we expected," says Dr. Turner-Cobb. Researchers wondered why such young children would be anxious about entering preschool. The cause is unknown but researchers wonder if the anxieties parents have about children leaving home and entering school are not passed on to the children.[sciencedaily.com, August 31, 2007]

Who Is More Anxious?

The first thought would be that shy children would be more anxious about entering school. However, the opposite is true. The extroverted children seemed more anxious about starting school. "More extroverted children had consistently higher levels of cortisol and their levels tended to remain high throughout the day, possibly because their more impulsive nature gets them into more confrontational situations," says Dr. Turner-Cobb.[sciencedaily.com, August 31, 2007]

High Cortisol

High levels of cortisol are blamed for many health issues. One issue is weight gain. Being constantly stressed raises levels of cortisol and leads to weight gain. High levels of cortisol may also lower the immune system. Ironically, the children in the study with higher levels of cortisol were less likely to miss school. When they did get ill, they tended to miss fewer days of school. This makes the researchers wonder if higher levels of cortisol may provide protection from colds and other illnesses. These children tended to get ill during vacations instead of school days.

It is easy to think small children don’t understand the world around them. Many think they are oblivious to stress in their world. This study seems to disprove that. Parents need to be aware of stress in children and try and reduce the anxiety they may have about changes coming.

The Stats

While this study was limited to 105 children, it involved parents keeping diaries of children’s behaviors and measuring cortisol levels before, during and after school began.

Source: The Social Experience of Transition to School: Learning and Health Outcomes. It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Researchers were Dr. Julie Turner-Cobb and Ms. Lorna Rixon at the Department of Psychology, University of Bath. [sciencedaily.com, August 31, 2007]

The copyright of the article Starting School Creates Stress in Student Health Issues is owned by Barbara Pytel. Permission to republish Starting School Creates Stress in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.