Tuesday, September 21, 2010

"When Kids Refuse to Go to School"

9/21/10. Every year, too many kids get up for school with fears, stomach-aches, head pains, and anxieties --- and refuse to go to school. Sometimes kids gets side-tracked to weeks of medical work-ups, and only rarely come out with a medical diagnosis.  Unless the child is physically sick, it is the kiss of death for the child's and family's mental health for the parent to allow the child to stay home --- especially for days on end. This problem used to be called school phobia --- but there is rarely something at school that is the problem, and now the disorder is called school refusal. At root here, most often, is the child's anxiety about separating from his or her parent(s). Many times the child worries about real or imagined sick parents, or a parent getting into an auto accident, or hurt at work, and so on. And the treatment is:  get the child to school.

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/09/21/when-kids-refuse-to-go-to-school/?KEYWORDS=school+refusal

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