All Posts Tagged: school refusal

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child wearing face mask in empty classroom

Separation Anxiety: Going Back To School During The Pandemic

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As the 2020 – 2021 school year begins, children who normally go through separation anxiety may be even more anxious about going back into the classroom during the pandemic. After all, the beginning of a new school year can be threatening during normal times, but returning into a situation where the coronavirus is likely to be present has raised anxiety levels in many kids and parents.

For parents who live in school districts that offer a choice between virtual or in-person learning, how do you make a decision about which is best for your child? Being safe at home means that kids who have special needs or who learn better in person will lose out on many learning opportunities. Children who are fearful of being in a classroom, however, will struggle more if they have to go back into the school.

All this stress can bring up school refusal in kids, not to mention heightened school anxiety in parents.

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How Does Virtual Reality Therapy Help School Anxiety?

How Does Virtual Reality Therapy Help School Anxiety?

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The start of a new school year is just around the corner. While many children are happy about heading back to the classroom and seeing their friends again, for some kids, a new school year embodies fear and school anxiety. But, what if your child could go into their classroom in a non-threatening way, interact with a new teacher and classmates, and learn effective methods for coping with the anxiety-inducing situations they dread in school? With virtual reality therapy, they can do just that.

This innovative treatment is emerging as a high-tech solution that lets kids challenge their fears in a safe, realistic environment, but in a way that gives them control. VR therapy can be used across age groups and can be adjusted to the child’s developmental age as they mature.

Additionally, this therapy can be tailored to vary the complexity of school phobia scenarios. For example, one child might be apprehensive about taking exams, while another dreads interaction with their peers. Both can be helped with virtual reality therapy, which is a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and in-vivo exposure therapy, but with a state of the art twist.

For example, if your child has a high level of test anxiety, as studies indicate anywhere from 15% to 25% of students do, virtual reality therapy will allow them to mimic test taking in a non- or less stressful environment (just like in-vivo exposure does) in order to overcome their negative thought patterns (“I always fail tests.”) through cognitive behavioral therapy. In a test-taking scenario, the virtual reality simulated distractions and stresses of taking exams would be minimal to start with, and then slowly be increased as the child learns to process and adjust to them. At the end of the therapy, the child will be able to face an exam with reduced or minimal fear.

What Happens During Virtual Reality Therapy?

Because most kids relate so well to video games, virtual reality exposure therapy seamlessly integrates treatment with real-world interface. It helps children retrain their brain so they have a defense against problems like meeting a new peer or being bullied, which makes them feel more comfortable about situations at school. VR therapy has also been successful in teaching or improving social cognitive skills and emotion recognition in high-functioning autistic children.

When kids go through VR therapy, they first learn coping skills to help them stay calm under a stressful circumstance. Once they are comfortable with these strategies, they continue on to virtual reality therapy, where they view computer-generated environments and use an avatar to experience interactions with adults and other kids.

As you can see in this Today Show video, the teens have the freedom to pause or review and repeat their avatar’s interaction with others inside the setting until they feel confident about the situation. A therapist listens in on the virtual reality session and offers feedback and coaching to help the child navigate the difficulties that have created their school refusal.

Studies have shown that virtual reality therapy actually “rewires” the brain so that the areas relating to sociability and attention are heightened. This leads to increased awareness and understanding of social cues, enhanced perception of the give and take in conversations, and more control when faced with real-life school issues. In studies done after kids have gone through virtual reality exposure therapy, scans have shown that the regions in the brain associated with social skills and those sections that exchange information during social interactions are heightened.

This interactive and visually stimulating approach to treating school anxiety delivers a dynamic platform that can simulate an unlimited number of phobia situations. By targeting a child’s specific fears, it provides meaningful close-to-life scenarios with immediate feedback, which greatly enhances the child’s ability to cope under stress.

Did You Know?

Our Children’s Center focuses specifically on offering a variety of clinical, therapeutic, educational and supportive services to children ages two through twenty two in a warm and welcoming environment.

For more information about how our child psychologist team can use virtual reality therapy for your child’s school refusal, contact the Children’s Center for Psychiatry Psychology and Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida or call us today at (561) 223-6568.

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Help for School Refusal

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For some children, going to school can be emotionally traumatic. Their school anxiety may stem from such things as their dread of encountering a particular child or teacher, their worry about not doing well in school, or the fear of failing a test or “looking stupid.” While many of these worries are a normal part of growing up, they may also be triggered by stressful events like moving, changing schools, or being bullied.

Just about every child goes through a day here and there when they don’t want to go to school,  but the Anxiety and Depression Association of America notes that about 2-5% of children regularly experience school refusal due to severe stress or emotional concerns. School refusal is not the same as truancy: truant children skip school, then go out to play. They aren’t afraid of going to school and they try to hide their absence from school from their parents.

On the other hand, children experiencing a school refusal disorder will stay home (where it is safe), are fearful of going to school, and will try to talk their parents into letting them stay home. Often, the children with school avoidance also suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety, depression, or panic disorders.

Symptoms of School Refusal

School refusal is most common in children ages five, six, ten, and eleven, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The pattern of rejecting school isn’t the same for every child. Some kids will go off to school without a problem, but become more anxious as they get closer to the building. Some children have no trouble until a holiday comes up, then they become depressed or anxious when the time comes to go back to school. Others will go to school willingly, but frequently ask to visit the school nurse. Still others are chronically tardy, skip a certain class most days, or simply decline to go to school.

Frequently allowing your child to stay home from school keeps them from learning and advancing with their peers. Additionally, a child’s symptoms may increase or they may suffer from additional symptoms the longer they stay out of school.

Just as school refusal patterns aren’t the same for each child, the symptoms of school anxiety can be different, as well. Your child may experience some of these signs of school refusal:

  • Sleep issues
  • Temper tantrums, defiance
  • Crying or exhibiting fearfulness
  • Panic symptoms
  • Threats to harm themselves if they have to go to school
  • Headaches, stomach aches
  • Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
  • Heart palpitations
  • Separation anxiety

School Anxiety Treatment

School refusal is best treated as a collaborative effort. The first objective is to get the child back into the classroom because the longer they stay out of school, the harder it can be to go back.

With that goal in mind, the child’s physician should do a thorough exam to be sure any physical complaints, such as headaches and abdominal pain, don’t stem from a medical condition. Once medical concerns have been ruled out, your child’s teacher will be asked to evaluate for behavioral issues and things like problems with report cards and tests, or the possibility of the child being bullied.

Armed with this information, a child psychologist or other mental health professional will evaluate your child to look for any emotional or psychiatric difficulties. These results, combined with the medical and school evaluations will help them develop the most effective plan of treatment.

School refusal can be addressed through several types of psychological therapy. For example, exposure therapy can ease your child back into school by allowing them (with cooperation from the school) to attend school part of the day and gradually increasing the time they spend there.

Cognitive behavior therapy can teach the child how to change their destructive behavior patterns. This therapy helps them develop coping techniques, and challenge their negative thoughts through strategies like role playing, relaxation techniques, and guided imagery. Operant behavior techniques can also be used to reward the child for attending or staying in school.

If your child’s school anxiety is new, often working with the teacher to identify and eliminate triggers can be enough to reverse it. However, if the school refusal has become significant, the therapies discussed above offer excellent outcomes for getting your child back into the classroom.

Our Children’s Center Can Help

For more information about how a child psychologist can help with your child’s school avoidance, contact the Children’s Center for Psychiatry Psychology and Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida or call us today at (561) 223-6568

Resources:

American Academy of Family Physicians: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/1015/p1555.html

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: https://www.adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/children/school-refusal

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Treatment for School Refusal and Separation Anxiety

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The summer is waning – it’s almost time for autumn to roll around again, which means school will be starting soon. While most children look forward to this time so they can see their friends and enjoy various school activities, this can be a period of major anxiety for some school-aged children. These kids are extremely unwilling to leave home or be away from major attachment figures such as parents, grandparents, or older siblings. The beginning of the new school year is often seen as a threat to them, resulting in elevated anxiety levels and possible school-related disorders, such as separation anxiety disorder and school refusal.

In some cases the separation anxiety and school refusal follow an infection or illness or can come after an emotional trauma such as a move to another neighborhood or the death of a loved one. The anxiety generally occurs after the child has spent an extended time with their parent or loved one, perhaps over summer break or a long vacation.

Anxiety Definition

A teen or child is said to be suffering from a separation anxiety disorder if they show excessive anxiety related to the separation from a parent or caregiver or from their home, or if they exhibit an inappropriate anxiety about this separation as related to their age or stage of development. School refusal and separation anxiety are not the same: school refusal is not an “actual” diagnosis, instead it is a result of the child or teen having a separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, or social phobia, among other diagnoses.

Separation Anxiety Physical Symptoms

Children with separation anxiety have symptoms which can include:

  • Excessive worry about potential harm befalling oneself or one’s caregiver
  • Demonstrating clingy behavior
  • Avoiding activities that may result in separation from parents
  • Fearing to be alone in a room or needing to see a parent at all times
  • Difficulty going to sleep, fear of the dark, and/or nightmares
  • Trembling
  • Headaches
  • Stomachaches and/or nausea
  • Vomiting

A child who exhibits three or more of these symptoms for more than four weeks is likely to be suffering from a separation anxiety disorder.

Treatment for School Refusal and Separation Anxiety

When treating a child with separation anxiety and school refusal, therapists try to help the child learn to identify and change their anxious thoughts. They teach coping mechanisms that will help the child respond less fearfully to the situations that produce their anxiety. This can be done through role-playing or by modeling the appropriate behavior for the child to see. Medication is sometimes appropriate in severe cases of separation anxiety. Additionally, the therapist encourages child to use positive self-talk and parents help with this therapy by actively reinforcing positive behaviors and rewarding their child’s successes.

Have Questions? Need Help?

To get more information and help for child anxiety, separation anxiety and school refusal, please contact The Children’s Center for Psychiatry, Psychology, & Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida at 561-223-6568.

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Separation Anxiety and School Refusal

Posted by

The summer is waning – it’s almost time for autumn to roll around again, which means school will be starting soon. While most children look forward to this time so they can see their friends and enjoy various school activities, this can be a period of major anxiety for some school-aged children. These kids are extremely unwilling to leave home or be away from major attachment figures such as parents, grandparents, or older siblings. The beginning of the new school year is often seen as a threat to them, resulting in elevated anxiety levels and possible school-related disorders, such as separation anxiety disorder and school refusal.

In some cases the separation anxiety and school refusal follow an infection or illness or can come after an emotional trauma such as a move to another neighborhood or the death of a loved one. The anxiety generally occurs after the child has spent an extended time with their parent or loved one, perhaps over summer break or a long vacation.

Anxiety Definition

A teen or child is said to be suffering from a separation anxiety disorder if they show excessive anxiety related to the separation from a parent or caregiver or from their home, or if they exhibit an inappropriate anxiety about this separation as related to their age or stage of development. School refusal and separation anxiety are not the same: school refusal is not an “actual” diagnosis, instead it is a result of the child or teen having a separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, or social phobia, among other diagnoses.

Separation Anxiety Physical Symptoms

Children with separation anxiety have symptoms which can include:

  • Excessive worry about potential harm befalling oneself or one’s caregiver
  • Demonstrating clingy behavior
  • Avoiding activities that may result in separation from parents
  • Fearing to be alone in a room or needing to see a parent at all times
  • Difficulty going to sleep, fear of the dark, and/or nightmares
  • Trembling
  • Headaches
  • Stomachaches and/or nausea
  • Vomiting

A child who exhibits three or more of these symptoms for more than four weeks is likely to be suffering from a separation anxiety disorder.

Treatment for School Refusal and Separation Anxiety

When treating a child with separation anxiety and school refusal, therapists try to help the child learn to identify and change their anxious thoughts. They teach coping mechanisms that will help the child respond less fearfully to the situations that produce their anxiety. This can be done through role-playing or by modeling the appropriate behavior for the child to see. Medication is sometimes appropriate in severe cases of separation anxiety. Additionally, the therapist encourages child to use positive self-talk and parents help with this therapy by actively reinforcing positive behaviors and rewarding their child’s successes.

Have Questions? Need Help?

To get more information and help for child anxiety, separation anxiety and school refusal, please contact Dr. Andrew Rosen and The Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders in Delray Beach, Florida at 561-223-6568 today.

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