Every spring, schools shift into a familiar—but often stressful—gear: testing season. Schedules change, expectations rise, and classrooms can start to feel more like pressure cookers than places of learning. For many students, this time of year brings a noticeable increase in stress, irritability, and self-doubt. For child mental health professionals, it’s also a powerful opportunity to step in with support that is both practical and preventative.

On paper, both exposure therapy and relaxation techniques are considered evidence‑based interventions. In practice, however, they serve fundamentally different therapeutic functions. Confusing those functions can stall treatment and inadvertently reinforce the very mechanisms maintaining anxiety. This article is a roadmap for clinical discernment: how to know when to use what intervention.

In recent years, more parents and caregivers have begun asking about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Some families feel the term finally explains their child’s intense reactions to everyday expectations, while others encounter confusion due to conflicting information and strong opinions surrounding the label.

The start of a new year often brings a renewed sense of motivation—and, for many therapists, a familiar tension between aspiration and burnout. We encourage our clients to set meaningful goals, yet we often struggle to create realistic, sustainable goals for ourselves. Between packed caseloads, documentation demands, emotional labor, and personal responsibilities, “do more” goals can quickly become overwhelming.