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School Avoidance

What is school avoidance?

An umbrella term to describe difficulty attending school due to emotional factors that leads to prolonged absences from school.

Environmental factors can be considered instrumental in supporting a young person back to school.

What is the cause?

There is often a variety of factors contributing to why a young person finds it difficult to attend school. EBSA is usually underpinned by a combination of complex and related factors including the young person, the family and the school environment.

There tends to be four main reasons for school avoidance:

To avoid uncomfortable feelings brought on by attending school such as feelings of anxiety and low mood
To avoid situations that might be stressful such as academic demands, social pressures, and aspects of the school environment
To reduce separation anxiety or to meet a need from significant others, such as parents or other family members
To do things that make the young person feel safe or comfortable instead of school such as playing video games or playing outside.

What can we do to help?

1.Learning about anxiety and how it affects thinking, feeling and behaviour can be beneficial.

Anxiety management techniques such as relaxation training and deep breathing should be explored. An anxiety/avoidance hierarchy can be used to help take the first steps to overcoming fears about school.

A gradual re-exposure to the school setting can help with re-adjustment which may entail:

Standing outside the school when it is closed
Entering the school when it is closed
Entering the school going into the reception area
Staying in the resource base
Joining in a small group activity
Going into favourite lesson
Going into 2 next favourite lessons
Going into PE lesson
Going into lunch hall with best friend (support)
Going into lunch hall without best friend (support)

To create an anxiety/avoidance hierarchy the young person can be asked to name situations and then rank them from least worried about to most worried about. When thinking about the next steps it is important for the young person to pick the situation they are least worried about to work on. When they have overcome this fear then they can begin to work their way up the hierarchy.

2. It would be helpful for the young person to be taught social skills and given the chance to practice these.

Going over what may have been missed during the absence would also be helpful to reduce anxiety about going back into school
Role-playing what the young person will say to their peers when asked about their school absence would also be helpful in reducing anxiety.

3. The approach here would be to attempt to meet those needs with techniques such as;

Establishing morning routines
Using problem solving techniques
Establish positive and individual time to spend with your child outside of school hours
Focus on positive behaviours

4. Approaches toward this reason for school avoidance may include;