School Phobia

If your child is crying or fighting with you to getting to School.

Try to work out if her/his fear is about going to school (school phobia), leaving you or home (separation anxiety), or going into crowded public places (agoraphobia).

If it might be the first, check if she is being bullied, teased, embarrassed, or abused at, or on the way to, school. Work closely with the teachers to identify and deal with any problematic situations.

Take her/him to the doctor for a complete physical examination. Tell the doctor the whole story and ask him to rule out any serious illness.

Once the doctor  has done this, believe him/her Do not chase after ever more expensive tests. From this point onwards your assumption is that the child is well and so should be in school. Give her firm and confident reassurance that both she and you will be fine when she is there. If she /he complains again of being unwell you then have two options :

The first is that you insist that she go to school unless there is clear, measurable, evidence that she is sick, for example having a temperature, obvious diarrhea and vomiting, etc. just “feeling unwell” is not enough to miss school, after all, many adults have to go work with headaches or other symptoms.

The second option is to “believe” her and tell her to go to bed: lights off, curtains closed, no TV, no special snacks. Ignore her and go about your normal daily routine. Make sure that the option of staying home is boring. If she is not sleeping then ideally she should be doing some school work. Certainly there should be no friends or visitors to entertain her.

Along with this, set up clear incentives (rewards, privileges) for getting to school.

You must be tough and firm, but also calm, about all of this. Be clear that you expect her to be at school, but do not get into a fight with her about it. The goal is for her to want to get back as quickly as possible. Once there, and she discovers that nothing does happen to her or to you while at school, the symptoms of depression and anxiety should rapidly resolve.

If none of this works, or if you are concerned about a serious depression or anxiety disorder, seek professional help through your family doctor.

But please, don’t just hope it will go away on its own. You need to take some decisive action.

 

Thanks,

Health-Nov-2012.