School Refusal
School refusal develops when a child repeatedly tries to avoid going to school or exhibits severe discomfort about school. Children’s school rejection can have a range of factors, such as sadness, social issues including bullying, and academic challenges.
Children with a wide range of anxiety disorders, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder, may experience anxiety and unease at school. Children may attempt to avoid going to school, such as by making up an illness or skipping the bus, in response to this pain. However, studies on children’s school refusal behaviors have revealed that anxiety problems are the main contributor to these behaviors.
Although doing so frequently does help them feel less anxious at the moment, it can also lead to missed assignments, falling behind in class, or concerns from other students about absences.
Long-term, this avoidance and the detrimental effects it causes raise the child’s anxiety about going to school, making it more challenging to return and leading to additional school rejection. School rejection can be expressed in a variety of ways. Following are some patterns to watch for:
- Complaints of illness, such as a headache or stomachache, in the morning before school. Rarely will a child say that they avoid school because of nervousness. Anxiety can result in fleeting discomfort like headaches, which kids can recognize more readily.
- Children who visit the doctor leave with no apparent issue or go with a “resolved” disease.
- The child “drags their feet” or repeatedly misplaces things in the morning, which causes them to be late for school.
- The child routinely phones one or both parents to request an early pick-up.
- The child frequently visits the nurse’s or counselor’s offices during class hours.
- When the child is picked up from school, they are grumpy.
- On Sunday night before the school week, the child’s mood considerably worsens.
At Connected Care Behavioral Health LLC, we specialize in treating anxiety disorders and their co-occurring behaviors, including School Refusal. We have the necessary training and resources to deliver evidence-based treatment to children of all ages who refuse school.
Exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are used to address school refusal. Through ERP, kids and teenagers can gradually increase their involvement in school by doing their homework, participating in “practice” drop-offs, or attending part of the school day as they work their way back up to total attendance. This fosters self-assurance and allows kids and their families to reclaim their lives from school refusal.
We have discovered that training parents and teachers to best support therapy efforts at home and school makes for the most effective treatment of school refusal. Additionally, we ensure that the child’s school and parents are a part of the healing process. Please call us at (443)-219-9236 if you or someone you know could benefit from our specialized School Refusal therapy services.