Aug

30

Some things you need to know about kids who are school phobic or anxious about school

Filed Under Behaviour Management, Computers In The Classroom, Dealing With Stress, Special Education 

Where has the summer gone? Our local dollar store has all it’s Halloween stuff on display already. Summer is definitely over! School starts again on Tuesday, and most kids are excited about going back to school. Heck, most parents are excited about their kids going back to school. :) Notice, I said most kids are excited about going back to school because for some kids the thought of going back to school makes them ill, literally ill. What’s going on with these kids? Why is this happening? What can we do to help them?

Every year I see kids who are totally overwhelmed by the thought of coming to school and attending classes. Oh, I know that most kids have the first-day-of-school jitters. But what these kids feel is way beyond the- first-day-of-school jitters. They’re so totally anxious about going to school to the point where they become physically ill with stomach aches, headaches, temperatures etc.that excuse them from attending school.

We know that about six to ten percent of students suffer from school anxiety and that about three to five of percent of students who suffer from school anxiety flatly refuse to go to school no matter what. Symptoms usually appear when kids are about 10 to 12 year old, although some kids can manifest school anxiety at the kindergarten or grade one level. I’ve given support to kids in grade nine and ten who are so afraid to come to school that all they can barely manage to enter the building.Tracy, not her real name, was like that.

When I met Tracy, she had many of the characteristics of kids who are anxious about school.
She was

    a great kid
    shy and didn’t want to be noticed
    a perfectionist
    average or above average intelligence
    want to please the teacher

It’s really important for kids like Tracy to get treatment because if they don’t

    50% will develop depression
    targets for bullies
    girls have a tendency to drop out of high school
    boys have a tendency to drop out of college or university
    be under employed
    have unsatisfactory intimate relationships
    alcohol or tobacco addiction

I guess the big question here is why are kids like Tracy so anxious about going to school? How and why does a kid become anxious or phobic about school. Experts like Lynn Miller, a psychologist specializing in anxiety prevention, notes that anxiety tends to run in families. Some kids are born more sensitive than others and are affected more by their environment and how it responds to them.

Parenting may also make kids more anxious. Highly critical and over protective parents can contribute to kids developing anxiety. Well meaning parents might contribute to a kid’s anxiety by trying to rescue them from situations that their kids might find threatening. For example, Mom is taking Katelyn to school. Katelyn’s a bit reluctant to go and when she sees a group of kids in the playground laughing about something, she assumes that they are laughing at her and says “Mom, those kids are laughing. I think they’re laughing at me” Now mom who is trying to protect Katelyn decides to avoid the unpleasant situation and says “Let’s just use the back door to go into school.We don’t have to go to the front door where those girls are.”

Look what’s happening here. By avoiding the kids who are laughing, mom is not only confirming that the kids are probably laughing at Katelyn but also missing an opportunity to teach Katelyn to look at the situation in a different way and say something like “Katelyn, they’re probably just laughing because they’re having fun. Let’s go.” It’s just like those times when I say hi to someone I pass in the hall, and the person ignores me. I could think he’s being rude but I’ve learned to think that it could be that he’s preoccupied with something and didn’t even notice me. Who knows! I’ve probably done the same thing. It’s all how you look at it, but kids need to be taught that.

Sometimes parents help kids avoid activities because they don’t want kids to expereince any distress or embarassment. For example, Jordon may not want to go on a field trip because he’s are anxious about being on the bus. Maybe he’s worried that he’ll be sick on the bus and end up making a big mess. One solution might be to take the day off work and drive Jordon to the field trip. That’s not teaching not Jordon any coping skills other than avoidance.

Oh yes, remember Tracy and her anxiety about school. It took time, but gradually Tracy learned through cognitive behaviour training how to cope with her anxiety and was able to attend classes with support from her psychologist, the special education team, school social worker and her guidance counselor. Cognitive behaviour training gave Tracy the skills she needed to help her deal with her anxiety. The treatment challenged her to stop thinking negatively about things and try to put a more neutral spin on things. For example, Samantha may think her teacher’s in a bad mood because of something Tracy  did instead of allowing that the teacher might be in a bad mood because she had a flat tire on the way to work, or the that the forgot something important at home.

At the beginning of the semester, Tracy was so anxious about going to school that she had trouble even coming into the buiding let alone going to classes. As part of Tracy’s treatment, we encouraged her to come to school for only 30 minutes a day. She was to start school later than the other students and come to the Contact Room, not a regular class room, and work on her school work there with our support. She was in school, but not part of the regular student body yet.

The deal was that her Dad would come to school with her and keep her company in the Contact Room while she did her lessons.This gave her the emotional support she obviously needed from someone she trusted. At first, he stayed for the entire 30 minutes, but then gradually as she felt more comfortable he would stay for shorter and shorter periods of time until the point where he would just drop her off at Contact Room door,say hi to me and my behavioural teaching assistant, and leave.

When Tracy was finally able to go into a classroom, the behavioural teaching assistant would sit with her during the entire class to give her emotional support and then gradually over time, Tracy would stay in the class on her own without the BTA support. She would just check in and say hi and have a little chat before going to class. She also had the option to leave the class and come to the contact room if she felt she needed to do that. Eventually Tracy was able to attend regular classes with a behavioural teaching assistant’s support.

It wasn’t easy for Tracy. It wasn’t easy for her family. But, with the treatment she got form her psychologist and the support she got from the support team in school, including her classroom teacher, she was was able to cope with her anxiety about school.

Getting help early for kids who suffer from school anxiety is so important. There is treatment that helps kids deal with school anxiety and in an ideal world all kids would get the treatment they need. Before they can get treatment, however they have to be identified. In the real world of the classroom with 30+ kids, it’s difficult to notice a quiet student when there are so many other needy kids-kids who have behavioural problems, can’t read or write well enough to pass the literacy test, kids who can barely speak English, kids who have ADHD etc. The quiet student who isn’t causing problems for the teacher sometimes gets overlooked. I know it’s not right, but that’s what happens. It’s up to us, parents, teachers, counsellors etc. to identify kids who suffer from school anxiety and help them get the treatment they need so that they feel comfortable going to class and fulfilling their potential.

 
icon for podpress  Some things you need to know about kids who are school phobic or anxious about school [8:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (26)

Comments

2 Responses to “Some things you need to know about kids who are school phobic or anxious about school”

  1. ms_teacher on September 12th, 2008 10:58 pm

    My oldest and youngest children deal with anxiety. For my youngest, his worst year of school was 3rd grade. Only after intensive therapy coupled with a low dose of an anti-depressant and a change in schools (his school was unwilling to believe that he had school anxiety) did his life and ours return to normal.

    Thank you for posting about this. I plan on including a link to this post and featuring it on my Teacher Tip Tuesday (that is, if you don’t mind!).

  2. Elona Hartjes on September 13th, 2008 7:01 am

    Ms Teacher,
    You’ve had quite a struggle, but thanks to your persistence you were able to get the support your family needed. Thank you for sharing your experience. Of, course you can link this to your site. I would be delighted.

Leave a Reply






Powered by FeedBlitz

AddThis Feed Button Stumble It!

This blog contributes to the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.