How to help your kids navigate going back to school

A new study focused on more than 1,300 sixth graders making the transition to middle school found that students who received a realistic but supportive approach from their teachers had better grades, better attendance and fewer disciplinary problems. Psychologist and CBS News contributor Lisa Damour said the study was done in a large school district in the Midwest.

"To half of them, teachers gave a very straightforward three-part message," Damour told "CBS This Morning." "They said, 'The transition to middle school is challenging. You will feel unsure about how you fit in. This will not last forever, and there's support if you need it.' And to the other half they said, sort of, 'Welcome.'"

Damour said the study sheds light on the unintentional effects caused by parents and teachers offering well-meaning reassurance to kids they sense are anxious.

"What we find is when we say, 'It's gonna be fantastic, don't worry, it's gonna be amazing' — what happens is they get there and they feel tense. And then they think, 'Oh, no, something's really wrong,'" Damour said. "But of course they're going to feel tense, they're adapting to an entirely new environment. The other thing that can happen is they can feel less sure that they can come home and say it wasn't great because you said already it should be fantastic."

Damour said worry takes up bandwidth. And so when kids are worried about being worried, they have less energy to focus on school. 

The psychologist also had advice for parents trying to spot the difference between a child being bullied and one involved in a regular conflict with a peer.

"For me, conflict is like the common cold of human interaction. If you're going to be with other people, you will have conflict and you will get colds," Damour said. "And bullying is more like pneumonia."

Damour said while conflict is two people not getting along, bullying needs to be defined carefully as a person being systematically targeted and not being able to defend themselves.

"We can help kids manage conflict more effectively," Damour said. "But we want to make the distinction between 'Is my child tangling with another child?' versus 'Is my child being attacked and unable to defend themselves from another child?'"

If kids laugh off the attack, Damour said, they can deflate the situation.

"And what happens is it goes from being bullying to conflict because your child is successfully defending themselves," Damour said.

Damour also emphasized the the effectiveness of other kids stepping in to stop bullying.

"The kids standing who are standing around when it happens actually have the most power to stop it," Damour said. "They can say, 'hey, knock it off' or 'come play with us' or they can get a teacher. So I think if we're concerned about bullying, we can say to kids on the way into school, 'You're not to mistreat anyone and if you see someone being mistreated, you are to step in or you are to invite them to play with you, you are to go get an adult. You have to do something.'"