subject: What Causes School Phobia? [print this page] School phobia develops very similarly as an adult anxiety disorder. It is always troublesome for a child to be away from home after so long being at home, such as the school holidays or time off sick.
Factors such as moving to a new location, a divorce or a bereavement can cause immense stress to a child and set off worried, anxious behavior that can escalate into school phobia.
Also the child's family often unexpectedly reinforces school phobia symptoms. When a family experience a major stress such as moving house or a death it is common for a child to express mild refusal to abandon the primary caregiver (who may also be anxious, distressed, depressed.)
This can escalate if the child is not firmly advised to leave the caregiver; in fact, they are often by mistake compensated with extra attention from their parents. The child's anxiety about leaving is bolstered and the child doesn't have the opportunity to cultivate ways to endure the separation.
Having school phobia at such ayoung age is dreadful, it is not only scary but confusing too. The essential nature of a child is very superficial until this age and the abrupt realization that life is not all about play and fun and in fact truly upsetting,challenging and fragile, comes as quite a shock to a child.
Children with school phobia discover their mortality at varying ages but this realization too, can cause a child extensive pain if not handled correctly by parents or guardians.
School Phobia Removal is it possible?
School Phobia are symptoms of an anxiety disorder and NOT stand-alone disorders. Anxiety disorders occur when the 'anxiety switch', the Amygdala, in the brain, becomes stuck in the ON position as a result of repeated anxiety provoking situations or, less commonly, an one-off trauma which has caused the sufferer to experience high anxiety.
The Amygdala is the organ in the brain that regulates and stores the anxiety response and it is this which MUST be addressed in order to return the anxious response back down to normal in order to eliminate school phobias in your child as a matter of fact any phobia, completely.
