CONTENT

Families and schools are confronted more and more with children and adolescents who feel so “sick” at school that they can’t pay attention in class or that they refuse to return to school for days or even months. Some specialists are worried about the sudden increase in this phenomenon over the past few years. Many psychiatric hospital units confirm this emerging concern by the increasing amounts of consultations for children who suffer from school phobia or anxious school refusal — another term to name this syndrome.

Parents and teachers feel often helpless when they have to face this intense anxiety that arises at the moment when it is time to go to school. How to react? How can you help the child? First of all, it is most important to understand the complex origins and the consequences of school phobia to be able to suggest a concrete way out…