Navigating School Avoidance: Strategies for Parents

August 19, 2024

Kids in Maryland are heading back to school next week or, in some counties, the day after Labor Day. As parents gear up to return to school, understanding and managing their child’s potential anxieties is crucial for a smooth transition. Here, we share expert insights and actionable tips to support your child through their journey. These can even be applicable if your child starts trying to avoid school mid-year so make sure you save this for reference later!

1. Let’s Do a Root Cause Analysis

School anxiety can stem from various sources, such as fear of bullying, academic pressures, or separation anxiety. Identifying the specific cause affecting your child is the first step toward addressing them effectively.

Actionable Tips

• Open Communication: Encourage your child to express their feelings and concerns about school, ensuring they feel heard and understood.
• Monitor Changes: Keep an eye on any significant shifts in your child's behavior or attitude toward school, as these can be indicators of underlying issues.

Parenting Pro Tip: Christopher A. Kearney, Ph.D., Department of Psychology University of Nevada, Las Vegas poses four questions to help identify the underlying cause of the refusal and create a plan for addressing it.

2. Supportive Strategies to Overcome Anxiety

Children who were bullied may fear a repeat of past traumas, while others may dread academic challenges due to undiagnosed learning disabilities. These anxieties can manifest physically, with symptoms like headaches and stomachaches, intensifying as the school year begins. It’s up to parents to present a balanced approach—neither dismissing the child’s fears nor overly accommodating them, which could reinforce avoidance behaviors.

Actionable Tips

• Exposure therapy: Gradual exposure can help ease school-related anxieties by slowly acclimating your child to the educational setting through controlled, supportive steps. Practice short periods of separation from your child, gradually increasing them to help mitigate separation anxiety.
• Collaborating with School Staff: Work closely with teachers and school counselors to provide additional support to your child and tailor strategies that address their specific needs. Maintain regular communication to monitor progress and adjust strategies as needed.

3. Note Your Own Anxieties

Parental influence plays a significant role in how children cope with anxiety. Children often mirror their parents’ anxieties and emotional states. Therefore, parents need to be aware of their feelings and the signals they are sending to their children.

Actionable Tips

• Awareness: Keep a general awareness of how you are feeling about returning to school and pay close attention. Whatever you are feeling inside, you are mirroring out to your child.
• Make it fun: Remove the fear and make it fun for everyone. Develop family traditions or special rituals. You know you and your child best. Do what works for you.

Parenting Pro Tip: Arrange for your child to visit their school before the term starts to familiarize them with the environment. If that’s not possible, play the “What If?” game. Ask your child what they think their classroom will be like. Maybe they know there will be a rug, but we can guess what color it will be. This reduces the newness of the experience and you can catalog which things you guess right once you get to the classroom!

Parenting Pearl

"Every child's anxiety is a puzzle. Solving it requires patience, understanding, and the right strategies in place."

We want to hear from you!

Tell us how your first day of school went! Did you use these strategies? Did some others work for you?

Navigating school anxiety is a journey for both the child and the parent. By applying these strategies, you can help your child face their school-related fears with confidence. Remember, you're not alone in this, and there are resources and communities ready to support you.

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Happy parenting!

Content provided by Theresa Nguyen, MD, MS, FAAP and Krystina Wales.