Kids with school phobia: High Anxiety Signs to be aware of as an educator

During our childhood everyone is going experience some anxiety by going to school, like when curriculum got harder and stressful exam periods. However, adults may struggle with seeing some anxiety signs can be an indication of school phobia. It can be a combination of different types of anxiety and therefore be detected by with different signs. However, there are some signs to general high anxiety we should be aware of.

Physiological symptoms of high anxiety are usually common in all causes of school phobia and so are essential to be aware in this case to detect. It can be a student experience a loss of appetite, sleeping problem, or especially nausea.

School phobia can be caused by social interaction as school, such as student experience bullying or struggles with finding and maintaining friendship. This is often seen with student throughout middle school and high school. Signs that teacher can observe in this case, could be if a student keep mostly to themselves at school. Other cause of school phobia can be the student`s academic experience at school. For instance, if the student has any learning or developmental disorder. So, signs of a student struggling with following the classes or becomes stressed when they need to answer in class, can be important to detect. Since signs of learning disorder and anxiety can cooperate with each other, signs of school phobias can also be represented in a matter of learning and reading difficulties, for instance a student struggling with the curriculum or fail turning in homework.School phobia can also be caused by Depression, leading high anxiety signs overlaps with signs of depression. In that case, social and academical signs can also indicate a student struggle with their mental health.

There has been some argument of avoidance of attending school could be a sign of school phobia, but it depend mostly of the frequency and the purpose for avoid going to school. Some kids skip school for a period or don`t want to attend, while other try avoid attending as much as possible. Although one sign cannot indicate alone that a student has school phobia or struggle with other difficulties, detecting those signs and relate them to the student`s context can promote a better safe learning environment.

Reference
Burgemeester, A. (2016, June 3). What is School Phobia and What are the Symptoms? What Is Psychology? https://www.whatispsychology.net/what-is-school-phobia-and-what-are-the-symptoms/
Campbell, L. (2021, July 27). How to Help When Your Child Is Anxious About Going Back to School. Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/school-anxiety#signs