School Refusal
School refusal is when a student is refusing to attend or participate in a full school day due to underlying emotional distress. School refusal is also referred to as school avoidance or school phobia. School refusal is more than just the normal adjustment most students experience when heading into a new school year or after a long school break. School refusal is a persistent pattern of avoidance behavior that can have significant impact on the student’s well-being and academic standing without proper intervention. School refusal is a very common problem and can take many forms.
Common Signs of School Refusal
Frequent somatic complaints: headaches, fatigue, stomachaches or other physical symptoms
Heighten distress or temper tantrums related to school
Frequent visits to the nurse office or bathroom
Avoidance or withdrawal from school activities and engagements
Excessive tardies to school and class
Frequent Monday absences
Frequent absences after school breaks
Reporting not feeling well in the morning
Providing excuses not to go to school and promising to go the next day
Frequently leaving school early
School Refusal Cycle
School refusal is an emotional avoidance behavior. Students experience immediate relief from emotional distress when they are able to avoid or escape distressing aspects of the school day. Initially, this may seem helpful, but the emotional distress inevitably comes back stronger and the student is more inclined to continue to miss school in attempt to minimize emotional distress rather than learning to manage their distress. Students tend to fall behind in their schoolwork and feel more disconnected from important school-based relationships that can make it harder to break the cycle and return to school.
Does your child refuse to go to school? When To Seek Help
School refusal is not something a student is just going to grow out of because when emotional distress is the underlying cause of school refusal behavior, it won’t get better without addressing the core issue. A general guideline is to seek help from professionals if a student has been experiencing school refusal behaviors for one week. In addition to seeking help from a mental health professional, it is recommended to make an appointment to see the student’s primary care doctor to rule out any health or medical conditions that could be a contributing factor to the student’s difficulties. Even if the school refusal behavior has been occurring for longer than one week, seeking professional help as soon as you can is an important step to getting your student get back on track.
We Are Here to Help Treat School Refusal Behavior in Doylestown, PA
Cognitive behavioral treatments (CBT) and exposure with response prevention (ERP) are key interventions for school refusal. When treating school refusal behavior, it really takes a collaborative team approach for successful results. Including with a skilled clinician, who is familiar with the important and underlying factors of treating school refusal behavior, as part of the overall team can make a significant difference on treatment outcomes.