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I talked in a previous blog about school avoidance, and how it can be caused by clinical depression and anxiety in a child.
My son Lawrence started kindergarten this school year. He was in a wonderful preschool the past two years, where he thrived. Of course we were concerned that he would hav...
Hello, Deborah - This is a good post that brings back a lot of memories, both of my own childhood and that of my sons. I developed lots of migraines when I moved to a different school situation - this was in a private school for the wealthy, and we weren't that at all. Even though I always did well academically and had many friends, there were days when I couldn't face the class or the teacher, a headache hit, I stayed home. Those were definitely early days of depression and anxiety, though, as was your experience, no one thought about mental health problems in kids. One of my sons acted out a lot at a certain period. Unfortunately, I was dealing then with unacknowledged emotional and mental problems of my own and couldn't imagine what to do about his issues. We looked to the school environment or we thought it was a hard phase he was going through, but there was an inner hurt we didn't pay enough attention to. And there were certainly later consequences for him.
Thank you - it's helpful to read about this and live again through some of the problems we can learn from, if only in retrospect.
Hi John,
I think it's really hard to know what's the best course to take even if you aren't dealing with your own issues. You don't want to ignore the problem, but you don't want to overact or make a mountain out of a molehill. It's a pretty fine line to walk when you're a parent. I think the best we can do is stay informed and talk to our kids and let them know they can talk to us.
- Deborah