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Phobia making many skip school
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Children fake illness to escape from going to school; shrinks
say the best way to deal with this is tell the child that fear is normal
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Puja Pednekar
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The thought of going back to school stirs up a bevy of emotions
in 11-year-old Swapna — from anxiety and stress to paranoia. She throws
tantrums every morning before leaving home and breaks into a sweat at the
mere mention of school.
Swapna’s mother has tried everything — from scolding to bribing — to stop her from “acting out”, but nothing has worked. “Initially, we feared that she was being bullied at school. We checked it out with her friends and talked to her teachers, but we did not find any evidence of it. She is usually a quiet child. Just the mention of school makes her unhappy; she always comes back home with a frown,” says the resident of Walkeshwar. She suspects that her daughter’s fear of school stems from her reclusive nature. “She does not like being the centre of attention and is extremely shy. She has difficulty making friends. But, she does not speak to us about her paranoia.” Swapna isn’t alone. A parent from Malad says she got suspicious that her 12-year-old son was “traumatised” by the thought of going to school when he missed classes for four days at a stretch last week on the pretext of a headache. “In the morning, he complained of severe headache, but by afternoon, he was back to his usual self. He would log on to the Internet and play computer games. I felt that he was avoiding school on purpose. When we raised this issue with his school, we realised that he was deliberately bunking school, as his class teacher had punished him. He didn’t want to face his classmates after the humiliation.”
City shrinks are alarmed
by the increasing cases of school phobia among adolescents. “It is normal for
toddlers to suffer from separation anxiety when they go to school for the
first time. But more and more adolescents in the city are falling victim to
school phobia,” says psychologist Seema Hingorany.
School phobia is
extreme anxiety that stems from going to school or even talking about it.
Causes range from being bullied and genetic depression to grieving for a lost
pet. In many cases, academic pressure or negative experiences at school also
lead to such a phobia. “Even children who are caught in a marital discord
between their parents, or are exposed to an environment where the mother does
not get along with the in-laws, or whose parent is too authoritative can
suffer from school phobia,” explains Hingorany.
Nita Mehta, clinical
psychologist, New Horizons Child Development Centre, echoes her. She says
school phobia often manifests itself among children in the form of sickness
and insomnia during the first few weeks of school. “Some of the effects of
school phobia can be psychosomatic. Children may fake illness to escape going
to school, but in many cases, the phobia is so intense that the child might
actually fall sick or lose sleep because of it.”
The
best way to deal with such a problem is to reassure the child that fear is
normal, say shrinks.
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WHAT YOU CAN DO
Allow
your child to talk about his fears, if any.
Do
not put words into his mouth; ask him to voice his thoughts.
Try
not to be judgmental about his opinions
Find
out the reason behind any ‘irrational’
behaviour.
Talk
to his friends, teachers and school heads.
If he is facing academic pressure, assure him
that he will be able to cope with it
Motivate
him to go to school by showing him the
positive side. Focus on events that s/he could look forward to, like a fun
event at school
Take
up each issue of going to school as a goal
Watch
out for these symptoms of school phobia
> Bouts of crying
> Headaches, stomachaches, insomnia before
and after school begins
> Constant
vomiting
> Grades dropping; low concentration
> An unwillingness to get up from bed;
throwing tantrums
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Courtesy (visited on 21.6.12):
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