In my years of practice I have had many of such cases in which children of different age resisted to go to school and parents had to struggle to have their children continue their education smoothly and successfully. Obviously this is a wish of every parent to have their children achieve the highest level of education and become successful in their adulthood.

As parents, do you remember the time you first started going to school or started your first job. Did you feel any sort of anxiety or fear? Most of us might have had such feelings in the past.  Generally, person feel somewhat anxious at least when face some new environment, task and or facing group of new people. Such feelings in children are much more intense due to being concrete, lack of experience, dependent highly on their care givers, fear of leaving them and facing the unknown.

From early age parents need to develop in child a sense of security, safety, clear communication with their children as well as the certain fair rules/responsibilities for home and school for child to follow. However, parents also need to build child’s trust in them by being fair, giving them unconditional love no matter what, build self confidence in them, keep their promises on timely manner. 

Children of any age generally respond well to motivation and certain kind of punishments.  Punishment or discipline should not be “physical” but using mostly positive reinforcement. Another words rewarding the good behavior with small token or things that interest the child and remove the child’s favorite objects if he does not agree to fulfill his obligation. Besides, parents can also control child’s play time or fun activities if he did not fulfill his part. The rewards do not have to be expensive or glamorous. All care givers and parents should be consistent and agreed to use the same plan using above methods.

Not every child’s difficulty to going to school can simply be resolved with above procedures. Sometimes the reasons for resistance going to school could be due to poor parenting, more deeper psychological issues such as separation anxiety (child fear of leaving the care giver), parental or care givers emotional conflicts or difficulties, parents marital problem, being bullied at school, having problem with attention, concentration or just can’t fit with others of his age group or classmates. 

If such daily discomfort continues, it would impact on child’s learning, memory, concentration, attention and happiness in general.  In such case its important to consult with child clinical psychologist for consultation, evaluation and effective parenting training.

I had a 10 years old male patient who suddenly refused to  go to school no matter what. Parents tried all tricks but did not work. After seeing the boy I found out that for many years this child was incapable of coping with daily school stress and demands including lack of confidence taking exam, poor social and communication skills, problem with attention and concentration, feeling lonely and also not being able to fit with other classmates.  Since his parents had problem understanding his difficulties and never sought psychologist help, the child suffered for so many years and also with low grades. I also found out that parents often argue, have different marital problems and often blame each other in front of child about boy’s school problems. Furthermore, they presented a poor parenting style. 

I used personality testing to understand child’s emotional problem, which reveled depression and anxiety. I conducted intelligence, neuropsychological tests to rule out learning problem. Used GDSIII-R the U.S. latest technology to evaluate impulsivity, attention and concentration. After comprehensive psychological and neuropsychological evaluation the child was diagnosed with ADHD and learning problem in writing and math.  

After few months of treatment/rehab including attention training, different psychological treatment for this child, helping parent’s marital problems and also doing family therapy with child present, after the first month of treatment he went back to school but with some difficulties. We continued the treatment for few months more and at end child was happier, gained more self-confidence, made few friends with classmates and his grades improved. His attention and concentration also improved a lot. His parents also learned to resolve their differences peacefully and not using their son as excuse for their own problems.
It was a happy ending for every member of family 
Dr.Mike