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School refusal
School refusal is the refusal to attend school due to emotional distress. School refusal differs from truancy in that children with school refusal feel anxiety or fear towards school, whereas truant children generally have no feelings of fear towards school, often feeling angry or bored with it instead.
Signs and symptoms
Symptoms of school refusal include the child saying they feel sick often, or waking up with a headache, stomachache, or sore throat. If the child stays home from school, these symptoms might go away, but come back the next morning before school. Additionally, children with school refusal may have crying spells or throw temper tantrums.
Warning signs of school refusal include frequent complaints about attending school, frequent tardiness or unexcused absences, absences on significant days (tests, speeches, physical education class), frequent requests to call or go home, excessive worrying about a parent when in school, frequent requests to go to the nurse’s office because of physical complaints, and crying about wanting to go home.
It is important for parents to keep trying to get their child to go back to school. The longer a child stays out of school, the harder it will be to return. However, it may be hard to accomplish as when forced they are prone to temper tantrums, crying spells, psychosomatic or panic symptoms and threats of self-harm. These problems quickly fade if the child is allowed to stay home.
Parents should take their child to the doctor, who will be able to rule out any illness that may be causing the problem. Parents should also talk to the child’s teacher or school counselor. Although school refusal is not a clinical disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, it can be associated with several psychiatric disorders, including Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia, and Conduct Disorder. Therefore it is critical that youths who are school refusing receive a comprehensive evaluation by a mental health professional.
A medical condition often mistaken for school refusal is delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS). DSPS is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder which is characterized by a chronic delayed sleep cycle.
The attempt to control by means of threats or pressure, the behaviour of the student, is also still in danger as external (extrinsic) motivation to undermine intrinsic motivation and a sense of self-control, self-worth and self-responsibility. Some social scientists and evaluaters view the condition as a pseudophobia.
Cause
Factors that can cause reluctance to attend school can be divided into four categories. These categories have been developed based on studies in the United States under the leadership of Professor Christopher Kearney. Some students may be affected by several factors at once.
•The child possibly wants to avoid school-related issues and situations that cause unpleasant feelings in her or him, such as anxiety, depression, or psychosomatic symptoms. The reluctance to attend school is one symptom that can indicate the presence of a larger issue, such as anxiety disorder, depression, learning disability, sleep disorder, separation anxiety or panic disorder.
•The child may want to avoid tests, presentations, group work, specific lessons, or interaction with other children. The child should be assessed for learning disabilities if academic performance is low.
•The child may want attention from significant people outside of school, such as parents or older acquaintances.
•The child possibly wants to do something more enjoyable outside of school, like practice hobbies, play computer games, watch movies, play with friends such as riding bikes, etc., or learn autodidactictally.
Other factors can be:
•Anxiety about academic achievementand being tested can arise on the basis of inflated claims by teachers and/or parents, but also unrealistic ambitions of the upset child themselves.
•School refusal may arise as a response to bullying.
•Shyness or a social phobia can contribute to school refusal.
•The child might worry about parents or siblings, for instance, a parent with substance abuse, or a parent who physically abuses other family members.
•Some students may refuse to go to school due to anxiety or fears of emergency drills, such as fire, lockdown, and tornado