By Lucille Carr-Kaffashan, Ph.D.
The Impact of School Avoidance on Families
School avoidance disrupts families, creating both intrapersonal distress (and sometimes related physical symptoms) and relationship tensions between parents and children, between parents, and between siblings. Parents report feeling scared, exhausted, overwhelmed, and helpless. They often feel an acute sense of failure and suffer in silence with guilt and shame that they are unable to accomplish a most basic parental function ¾ getting a kid off to school in the morning. They often feel blamed by school professionals, friends, and family members who might imply that they should just “toughen up” and get their kids to school. At times they feel afraid and intimidated by truancy officers, threatening letters, and the possibility of fines.
It is not uncommon for school avoidance to trigger intense disagreements among parents and caregivers. One parent often takes a nurturing (and sometimes enabling) role, arguing (correctly!) that a child should not be punished for having a mental health problem, while the partner appropriately reflects a need to be firm with limits and boundaries and not enable avoidance. If one or both parents, or a student’s sibling, struggle with mental health symptoms themselves, these symptoms might be exacerbated by the overall tension in the household. And let’s not forget the school avoiding child who suffers with anxiety, dread, embarrassment, and low self esteem on a daily basis.
Parents dealing with school avoidant youngsters walk a tightrope each day, trying to balance the reasonable expectation that a child attend school while also validating the child’s discomfort and being careful to not inadvertently reinforce avoidance of anxiety-provoking experiences. Some parents give up their jobs and put careers on hold thus suffering financially as well as emotionally. Families often forego recreational activities and withdraw from family and friends to accommodate the anxiety of their children and to avoid social judgment.
How Parents Can Help School Avoidant Students
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has reported that there is a significant association between parental anxiety and school avoidance and that this anxiety might lead to overprotective parenting behaviors. It is natural for a loving parent to move in to support and protect a scared child but in doing so a parent runs the risk of inadvertently rewarding problem behaviors. Parents reinforce school avoidance by offering excessive reassurance, by allowing or encouraging avoidance behaviors, and/or by “taking over”, that is, by doing tasks for children that they are developmentally capable of doing themselves. These actions can reduce a child’s anxiety in the short term but in the long run they undermine the child’s self-confidence and the development of self-regulation and other important life skills.
Research also shows that parental depression and a lack of confidence in one’s own parenting abilities are associated with school avoidance, as is a lack of belief in a child’s ability to cope. Parents who struggle with these issues might seek their own individual therapy or family therapy, and/or might attend parenting classes or support groups to boost confidence, to learn parenting strategies, and to have others validate their skills and strengths.
Difficult though it might be parents might also want to examine how they inadvertently make the home environment too comfortable for the child who is avoiding school. Having full access to the internet and video games, to unlimited snacks, to parental attention, etc. can further undermine any desire or motivation to attend school. For that matter, school nurses, guidance counselors and other school professionals must also examine how they might make their space and attention available to avoiding students in counter-productive ways.
Parents should also consider if there are ways that they communicate to a child that he is needed at home for either practical or emotional support. For example, parents who have been ill, who have experienced a significant loss, or who themselves are struggling with mental health symptoms might need to make it clear to their children that they are OK, that they are dealing with their adult concerns, and that the best way that their children can be helpful is to do their job, that is, to attend school.
In addition to seeking support for themselves, parents can also consider the following strategies to help a school avoiding youngster:
- Create and stick to a morning routine.
- Help your child create a self-soothing kit to use when anxious or otherwise uncomfortable.
- Learn breathing, meditation, or other relaxation strategies with your child and practice with him before school and/or to unwind after school.
- Validate your child’s discomfort while expressing confidence in her ability to face and cope with anxiety and other difficult emotions.
- Set small, achievable targets, such as visiting the building before or after school hours or attending one class. Make sure to recognize even the smallest achievements.
- Help your child create and maintain a home routine that includes relaxation time, homework, screen time, chores, and socialization with family and friends
- Work closely with school personnel: request a home visit from a school staff member to encourage your child and help him feel cared for and safe; ask for an adjusted schedule and a timetable for gradually building back toward full attendance.
- And don’t forget to ask your child what she thinks will help!
How School Personnel Can Help School Avoidant Youngsters
There are numerous ways for school personnel to partner with parents to help school avoidant students. First and foremost, school professionals must adopt a non-judgmental stance free of blame and finger pointing and fight the tendency to imply that parents should be doing “more”, instead helping parents consider how to do “differently”.
A mental health provider should be the driver of any comprehensive intervention plan and school professionals should quickly steer parents to school-based mental health professionals or refer to a community resource. Assessments for learning problems and neurodiversity issues (e.g. Autism, ADHD) should be considered as these can contribute to school avoidance.
Frequent parent-teacher communication is necessary to ensure fidelity to the intervention plan that is developed, and to share findings about the child’s response. Districts can offer on-site rewards for school attendance, modify schedules as needed to support gradual exposure plans, offer self-regulation strategies (brief walks, using a fidget toy), and create a “safe” space in the school where students can ground themselves and calm down when needed. School districts might also consider offering ongoing parenting workshops and support groups, with a special emphasis on engaging both fathers and mothers as each makes unique contributions to child development.
As with parents, educators must reduce “rescue” behaviors and unhelpful accommodations for anxiety, instead projecting a stance of expectation and confidence that the child can perform and succeed. They can provide corrective information about the level of threat in any given situation and identify unhelpful self-talk. It is important to validate the child’s anxiety and the potentially scary aspects of a situation while also emphasizing that he can learn to tolerate anxiety and discomfort. Anxiety and other mental health symptoms per se should never be punished, and all desirable behaviors that approximate full school attendance should be recognized and celebrated.
District leaders should also consider possible school-wide triggers for students’ avoidance behavior, e.g., bullying behaviors, safety concerns, and aspects of classrooms and other spaces (bathrooms, hallways, etc.) that might exacerbate or overwhelm children with anxiety or sensory issues. Fostering a welcoming school environment will help tremendously ¾ enthusiastically greet school avoidant youngsters when they appear in school, recognize even the smallest successes, and don’t press students with long absences to offer explanations. And don’t be afraid to (privately) ask each student what might help him or her feel more comfortable.
Resources:
School avoidance becomes crisis after COVID (usatoday.com)
Chronic absenteeism is plaguing schools. Five reasons for the trend. (usatoday.com)
Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Chronic absenteeism is plaguing schools. Five reasons for the trend. (usatoday.com)
School Refusal – StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf (nih.gov)
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/school-anxiety-and-refusal/
School Avoidance 101: Assessment Scale & Parent Resources
