When Helping Students Avoid Anxiety Actually Makes It Worse

You're not a bad teacher for noticing this.

The student who needs to leave class every time there's group work. The one who gets unlimited deadline extensions because of "anxiety." The accommodations that started as support but now feel like... something else.

You've thought it. Maybe you've even said it quietly to a trusted colleague. But you definitely haven't said it out loud in a meeting because—what if someone thinks you don't care about mental health?

You're not wrong.

Before we go any further, it's important to acknowledge that determining the right balance between challenge and accommodation isn't easy. And that some students truly need accommodations. It's something I struggle with every day in my 8th-grade classroom.

I do know that real growth only comes from wrestling with challenges. Growth becomes slow if we remove too many of them.

Have We Confused Accommodation with Avoidance

When we accommodate student anxiety by removing every uncomfortable situation, we might actually be reinforcing it.

Students never learn that they can handle discomfort because we keep removing opportunities for them to build that capacity. We've signaled—loudly and repeatedly—that anxiety means "opt out."

This is done with the best of intentions. We saw students struggling. We wanted to help. We removed the stressor.

The anxiety didn't go away. It got louder. It expanded.

The Difference Between Support and Avoidance

There's a difference between accommodation and avoidance.

Accommodation modifies the challenge while keeping it present. Breaking a presentation into smaller chunks. Letting a student present privately first, then to a small group, building toward the full class. Teaching coping strategies and supporting students as they use them.

Avoidance eliminates the challenge. "You never have to present." Unlimited extensions with no accountability. Removing every situation that might cause discomfort.

One builds capacity. The other teaches students a different lesson—that the world will always remove obstacles for them.

The world won't.

What We're Actually Teaching

When we help students face uncomfortable situations with scaffolding, they learn they can survive discomfort. That they're more capable than they thought.

When we remove every uncomfortable situation, they learn the opposite. They can't handle hard things. Anxiety tells the truth about their limitations. They're fragile.

We're teaching them which one to believe.

It's Important to Ask

Why do we keep accommodating in ways that might be making things worse?

Because it's easier in the moment. Because we're terrified of being accused of not caring. Because saying "no, you need to try this with support" feels mean when a student is panicking.

But what's worse: short-term discomfort that builds long-term capacity, or short-term relief that teaches lifelong avoidance?

What Do We Do

We can ask different questions:

• Is this accommodation building toward independence, or removing the need for it?
• Am I scaffolding the challenge or eliminating it?
• Am I treating anxiety as something to accommodate indefinitely, or something to build resilience around?

The Real Support

The most supportive thing we can do for anxious students isn't removing every source of discomfort. It's helping them discover they can handle more than they think.

With scaffolding. With practice. With gradual exposure to the things that scare them.

By teaching them that anxiety is uncomfortable but survivable. That discomfort isn't damage. That they're more capable than their anxiety tells them they are.

You're not alone in this. Teachers in The STRONG Teacher's Lounge are working through these same questions—where's the line between support and enabling?