“How do I get my nine-year-old daughter to school? She seems to have tummy aches or headaches constantly, and misses several days of school each week. Any suggestion that she must go and she screams and cries and seems to be genuinely afraid of going to school. What can we do?”

You have to be firm with her, and not try to just wait it out. If she misses too much school, she will never go back.

At the same time, recognize that her anxiety and distress are genuine. Getting angry at her will not work.

You need to find out what is troubling her. It could be school phobia ( a fear of school), separation anxiety (fear of leaving you or the home) or agoraphobia (fear of crowds and public places). These are all very real disorders.

If it might be the first, check if she is being bullied, teased, embarrassed, or abused at, or on the way to, school. Work closely with the teachers to identify and deal with any problematic situations.

Take her to the doctor for a complete physical examination. Tell the doctor the whole story and ask him to rule out any serious illnesses.

If he doesn’t find anything, then believe what he says. Don’t ask for more tests and assume that your child is healthy and should be in school. Be firm with her and at the same time reassure her that you will both be fine when she gets to school. If she still claims to be sick, you can either:

The first is that you insist that she go to school unless there is clear, measurable, evidence that she is sick, for example having a temperature, obvious diarrhea and vomiting, etc. Just “feeling unwell” is not enough to miss school, after all, many adults have to go to work with headaches or other symptoms.

The second option is to believe her. Since she says she is too unwell to go to school, then clearly she is too unwell to be up and about the house. If she is sick then she is sick, and so she goes to bed: lights off, curtains closed, no TV, no special snacks. Ignore her and go about your normal daily routine. Make sure that the option of staying home is boring. If she is not sleeping then, ideally she should be doing some school work. Certainly there should be no friends or visitors to entertain her.

Along with this, set up clear incentives (rewards, privileges) for getting to school.

You must be tough and firm, but also calm, about all of this. Be clear that you expect her to be at school, but do not get into a fight with her about it. The goal is for her to want to get back as quickly as possible. Once there, and she discovers that nothing does happen to her or to you while at school, the symptoms of depression and anxiety should rapidly resolve.

If you have no luck with these techniques and fear that she may be seriously depressed or anxious, then call your doctor for a professional referral.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.