How to deal with school refusal

What parents can do when morning jitters go too far.

On the list of top 10 complaints parents have to listen to, “I don’t want to go to school today” probably ranks right up there with “He’s bugging me” and “I just want to text my friends!”

The difference, it turns out, is that reluctance to go to school is a gripe that should ping your parental radar.

Research and anecdotal accounts from child psychology experts have shown that anxiety among kids is on the rise, and with that rise has come an increased awareness and diagnosis of school anxiety. And, in some cases, that anxiety results in school refusal — a repeated avoidance of or outright refusal to go to school.

School anxiety and refusal have been around for a long time, says Dean McKay, a professor of psychology at Fordham University, “but I think the reasons for kids experiencing school anxiety and exhibiting school refusal have been changing. It used to be and still is the case for many children that they have difficulty separating from their parents, classic separation anxiety was a driving

force. But there are other factors today.”

Those include increasingly competitive school environments. “There are many reasons that anxiety among children is on the rise,” says Christopher Kearney, director of the University of Nevada Las Vegas Child School Refusal and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, “including that they are responding to the very fast-paced school environment and they’re clearly struggling with that.” Yet the causes of school refusal and anxiety are complex, Kearney says, and though school refusal is a psychological, not behavioral, problem, kids who refuse to go to school can have some behavioral issues.

“These are messy cases,” he says. Which is why it’s important for parents to remember that school refusal is an issue that needs to be unraveled with care. Here’s how to start that process.