School phobia: how to support a child for the return to school after confinement?

Returning to school after long weeks of confinement looks like a puzzle, difficult for parents to solve. An even more complex puzzle for parents of children with school phobia. Because this period of estrangement from classes has most often accentuated their confusion and anxiety. Angie Cochet, clinical psychologist in Orléans (Loiret), warns and explains why specific care for these children is important in this unprecedented context.

How is confinement an aggravating factor of school phobia?

Angie Cochet: To protect himself, the child who suffers from school phobia will naturally go position oneself in avoidance. Confinement is quite conducive to maintaining this behavior, which makes going back to school even more difficult. Avoidance is normal for them, but exposures should be gradual. Forcibly putting a child in full-time school is excluded. It would reinforce the anxiety. The specialists are there to help with this progressive exposure, and to support parents who are often destitute and made to feel guilty. In addition, deconfinement measures are struggling to be put in place, and the child cannot prepare. The worst will be the weekend before the recovery.

More generally, to what is this phobia, now called “anxious school refusal”, due?

A.C. : Children with “anxious school refusal” feel an irrational fear of school, of the school system. This can be manifested by a strong absenteeism in particular. There is not one cause, but several. It can affect so-called “high potential” children who, because they may feel bored at school, have an impression of slowness in their learning, which generates anxiety. They no longer want to go to school, even if they still want to learn. As well as children victims of bullying at school. For others, it is the fear of the gaze of others that weighs heavily, especially in the diagrams of perfection expressed by performance anxiety. Or children with multi-dys and ADHD (attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity), who have learning disabilities, which require academic accommodations. They are confronted with difficulties of adaptation to the academic and standardized school system.

What are the usual symptoms of this school phobia?

A.C. : Some children can somatize. They complain of stomach aches, headaches, or may also experience more severe pain and make panic attacks, sometimes severe. They can lead normal weekdays, but have an anxiety flare on Sunday night after the weekend break. The worst being the school vacation period, recovery is a very difficult time. In the most serious cases, the general condition of his children only improves when they leave the traditional school system.

What can parents put in place during confinement to facilitate the return to school?

A.C. : The child must be exposed to his school, as much as possible; drive past it or go to Google Maps to see the property. From time to time look at pictures of class, of satchel, for this one can ask for the help of the teacher. They must be made to speak for defuse the anxiety of returning to school, talk about it with the teacher to play down the drama, and resume regular school activities before May 11. Keep in touch with a classmate who on the day of the recovery could accompany him so that he does not find himself alone. These children must be able to resume school gradually, once or twice a week. But the difficulty is that it will not be a priority for teachers in the context of deconfinement.

Professionals and various organizations also offer solutions …

A.C. : We can also set up a psychological follow-up in video, or even put psychologists and teachers in touch with each other. More generally, there are indeed specific arrangements for these children, with possible recourse to shared CNED or Sapad (1) To calm anxiety, parents can offer relaxation and breathing exercises via the Petit Bambou application [insert web link] or the “Calm and attentive like a frog” videos.

Do parents have a responsibility for the anxious refusal to go to school that some children show?

A.C. : Let’s say that if sometimes this anxiety sets in by mimicry in the face of anxious parents themselves, it is above all an innate character trait. The first signs often appear in very early childhood. Teachers have a role to play in the identification, not just parents, and the diagnosis must be made by a child psychiatrist. Those around them, teachers, health professionals or the children themselves can be very guilty towards parents, who are criticized for listening too much or not enough, for being too too protective or not enough. In children who suffer from separation anxiety, they may themselves blame their parents for forcing them to go to school. And parents who do not put their child in school can be the subject of a report to the Child welfare, it is the double penalty. In fact, they are as stressed as their children, which makes the educational task difficult and complicated on a daily basis, they harbor the belief that they have missed something. They need outside and professional help such as psychological care, and specific support in schools.

In this context of coronavirus, are other profiles of anxious children “at risk”, in your opinion?

A. C. : Yes, other profiles are potentially vulnerable as the resumption of classes approaches. We can cite children who suffer from disease phobia, who will have difficulty returning to school for fear of falling ill or transmitting the disease to their parents. Just like school phobic children, they must be supported and fostered family dialogue, or even from professionals, who can currently be consulted remotely.

(1) Home educational assistance services (Sapad) are departmental national education systems intended to provide children and adolescents with health problems or accidents with educational support at home. This is to ensure the continuity of their education. These systems are part of the complementarity of the public service, which guarantees the right to education of any sick or injured student. They were put in place by circular n ° 98-151 of 17-7-1998.

Interview by Elodie Cerqueira