The child feels bad at school: what to do?

There are so many schools of modern psychology that parents are involuntarily at a loss: which one to choose? At the Genesis #PROapproach conference, authoritative specialists from various therapeutic areas told how they would work with a specific request – a child refuses to go to a prestigious school, referring to the fact that peers are not interesting to him, and teachers are fools.

Read about the principles of work in CBT methods, Gestalt therapy and the Adlerian approach here.

How does a systematic family approach work with such a case?

Psychologist Alla Chugueva says

Even if one person comes to the consultation, a systemic family therapist works with the whole family, and this is the main difference in the approach. First of all, I will ask for information about the family. Does the child have a father? Are your parents living together or are they divorced? Who else is involved in the family system, what kind of family environment?

Meeting with the whole family is the best option. But in our realities it is not always possible to gather everyone. Therefore, a mother with a child, father, mother, child and, finally, one mother can come – this is normal, we will take all these cases into work.

The main ideas of our approach are as follows: the system is greater than the sum of its elements, the system has its own laws by which it lives. When everything is stable in a family, we say that it is in homeostasis, which any system ultimately strives for. But there is a paradox: at the same time, the system is also striving for development. And since development occurs through crisis, changes, the system begins to resist them. It is at this critical moment that people usually turn to a psychologist.

So, the mother talks about the problem (we call it a “symptom”): poor academic performance or the child’s unwillingness to go to school. We do not investigate the question of why a child does not study well or does not want to go to school (this is what the mother will tell). We wonder how long this situation lasts. Obviously, poor academic performance is part of family homeostasis. This is the unfortunate situation that somehow maintains stability in the family. And we need to find out how different family members relate to this problem, to whom and what bonuses, benefits does it promise?

For example, a triangle could develop in the family: the problem of the child forces mom and dad to talk as often as possible. Maybe if it weren’t for these problems with their studies, they would have nothing to discuss. We also explore what rules work in this family system, study the boundaries of the family and those myths that pass from generation to generation. For example, the myths “everyone in our family is an excellent student” and “without a higher education life will turn into hell” can increase anxiety and prevent parents from picking up a child from a prestigious school, where they may be humiliated by classmates or not quite adequately behaved by teachers.

We look at what stage of development this family is at. Perhaps another child was born, and therefore the boy lacks contact with his mother. Or maybe his older teenage brother behaves antisocially: he skips school, smokes, drinks, and the younger one focuses on the older one and takes an example from him.

Having received sufficiently complete information about the family, we can build hypotheses that explain how a child’s poor schooling is involved in family homeostasis. Alternatively, it helps marital contact and emotional intimacy. Or it allows all generations of the family to unite and show warmth, attention, care for each other. Or maybe the child is signaling that he is having a hard time with the divorce of his parents. Or receives the missing attention of the mother after the birth of her sister.

Depending on which of the hypotheses turns out to be the most reliable, we will choose one or another way of working. We use different techniques and methods: emotionally focused therapy, work with subpersonalities, communication trainings, homework, game methods – to change dysfunctional, unhealthy interactions in the family into safe and functional ones.

The most unexpected thing is that we do not work with the symptom that the client initially came with: “the child does not study well and does not want to go to school.” We will not at all study the child and look for ways to send him to school. We will work with other things – with the contact of spouses, the relationship of the child and parents, the communication of brothers and sisters, family myths and family history. And as this family system improves, the symptom (poor study) will disappear by itself. This is the paradox of systemic family therapy.

How does Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy deal with such a case?

Psychologist Varvara Sidorova says

There are many directions of art therapy, some were created on the basis of dance, others – painting or music … Our direction, intermodal therapy with expressive arts (expressive art-therapy), suggests using different types of art in one session and smooth transitions between them, as this corresponds to human nature . After all, all these abilities: to hear, to see, to move, are integrated into us.

I suppose that in the territory of art the client may feel a little more relaxed than at the reception of a psychologist of any other direction. There is no need to comply with anything, no need to think. Art is an “embracing space”, it accepts anything, all experiences, all roles.

I don’t ask clients to be artists. I ask them only to be attentive and sensitive. For example, I will ask you to draw a line. And then I will offer to see the image in this line. Someone will have a snake, someone will have a road or a rocket soaring up. And then I will offer to come up with a story about this rocket or snake. And through the creation of something new, other meanings are born.

Any problem is a kind of dead end, stagnation. Play and creativity provide an opportunity to look at the situation from a different angle, to see new perspectives. And to transfer the experience gained in the territory of art into real life.

So, back to the given case. Mom comes without a child, tells how bad it is at school. No friends, teachers are stupid. What exactly will I do?

First of all, listen to the client, showing sincere curiosity, empathy, and asking clarifying questions. I’m really interested to know: does the boy have no friends at all – or only at school? Were there before? Classmates do not like – what, absolutely everything? Teachers are fools – whose opinion is this, who thinks so?

I will definitely support my mother in what she is doing well, as well as in the fact that she seeks help. And then I will pay attention to her movements, the images that arise in her speech, postures, breathing, voice. And maybe she will say: “I am trapped by this decision, like in a box, I feel that I cannot move” or, conversely, “I am stretched like a rope, from two sides.” And this will be a sign for me: I will offer her to go to the territory of art.

“How is it? Can you draw or depict with a body, a pose that you are stretched like a rope? How do you feel this tightness? And here comes the choice of art medium. I have an easel in my office, a table for dirty work, tools, boxes of clay … I suggest that the client choose the materials himself. But we do not stay on the study in one modality. We can start with a pose and then move on to drawing. Or vice versa.

We seem to be dancing around this problem, gaining new experience on the territory of art. And at the same time, we explore what is happening now in the body, in the drawing, in the mind, in the reality of the client.

Leave your son in this school or transfer to a new one? It is clear that we need to open this duality, remove the question that puts a person in a dead end, paralyzes. I can suggest that mom find some place, a point in the room, where she will imagine that the child stayed at school. She will stand there and listen to her feelings: what is it like for her here? Look at the world from this point. “Oh, a heavy feeling in the body arises.”

Then, let’s say, I suggest: “What will happen if you stand here now? Feel what it would be like if you moved to a new school. What is changing? Now find a new point, look at these solutions from there. What do you feel? Is a third option possible?

When tension is relieved, it may turn out that it doesn’t matter so much whether the school is new or old, but you need to spend more time with your child, support him. Or maybe it’s worth enrolling him in some kind of circle where he has long wanted to, or hiring tutors.

As a result, the client leaves me with a new perspective. Even if this is not a literal answer to the question “stay or move”, but something completely different, for example, about why I do not trust my child, a person feels that everything is fine, he will cope with the situation, find a way out.

How does existential analysis deal with such a case?

Psychologist Svetlana Krivtsova says

Existential therapy is aimed at strengthening the free, personal in a person. Help the client find resources in himself that will allow him to see the essence of the problem situation more clearly, evaluate it, take a position based on his assessment, and make a decision. And to begin with, the existential analyst must see the person who came to the reception openly and without prejudice. Not through the prism of some theory, but from within its subjectivity. Understand what the person himself sees and thinks about what is happening.

We don’t question whether what the client is saying can be trusted. We are interested in what is his internal logic, how did he come to it, from what experience did his vision form, what he considers “for granted”?

The life of each of us is embroidered with patterns from different “for granted”, and sometimes filled with strong emotions! It seems to us that something can never be, “it has always been like this”, and it cannot be otherwise. So when two people, mother and son, two classmates, and so on, meet with different “taken for granted” about the same situation, conflicts arise. Both are absolutely sure that they are right, it is difficult for both to question their point of view.

Foolish teachers, uninteresting classmates – how did this become a picture of the boy’s world, what made him come to this conclusion? Therefore, if possible, an existential analyst will peacefully talk first with the mother, then with the child in a position that can be described as “not suspecting anyone of anything”, trusting everyone and trying to understand.

In general, the task of an existential analyst is to help an adult client isolate this particular “pattern” of the contents of his inner world from the general background of his life, take it to a distance and analyze it.

Perhaps, in the course of this work, I will suggest that my mother try to understand how she came to a deep conviction that you can go to school only if you study well in all subjects. Where did she get it from? Or some other attitude with which she lives and which, of course, she passes on to her son.

When all this becomes visible to the person himself, he can do something about it. Clarify your attitude, take a position. This woman might say, “Actually, yes, it’s like my dad’s mindset. But now I understand that he is not completely right. And now I, as a free, adult person, can admit that it’s not about grades, and stop worrying about it. ”

In our work, we open this gap of freedom to the client: to deal with what is in it in a different way.

The idea of ​​free in man is very important in the existential approach. Each of us has the ability to make decisions. We do not choose whether or not to come into this world. We are not asked what family we want to be born into. Besides, anything can happen to any of us at any moment. But the more freedom a person shows in these limited and disturbing circumstances, openly and fearlessly surrendering to them, the deeper and more fulfilling life he lives. The word “existence”, in fact, means a really good, deep life.

Someone with spiritual trepidation goes towards difficulties, gets involved in the son’s problems, and then something turns out, it becomes clear, one has only to enter this situation. And someone lives with a closed heart, with the message “just don’t touch me”, doesn’t want to feel anything, but continues to demand something from life, from children – and this is not a situation in which he can find any meaning .

The meaning is found only when the client says: “What is, is. I have such a child, he has such classmates and such teachers. And he doesn’t want to go to school. What can I, his mother, do in these circumstances? To figure out, by talking with him, what demotivates you the most, what hurts the most?

Usually, behind the categorical statements “everything”, “no one”, “never”, a very specific conflict is hidden. And you need to help the child to resolve it, but not to do for him what he can do himself. For example, a son may even suffer a little while thinking about why his classmates don’t choose him, for example. Of course, if the mother does not have a resource for this, a psychologist will help her.

The result of good existential analysis is clarity, a more balanced, fair assessment of what is happening, and a calm but firm position on what is right to do to make things a little better. After the consultation, the mother usually feels calmer, because she was understood, not so helpless, because something became clear to her. Because of this, she may feel more determined to do something.