When Your Child Doesn't Want To Go To School

If your child is upset about going to school, it could be for a variety of different reasons and one reason should not be the blame in most cases as there could be more than one thing directly wrong at school or the very thought of going to school for your child could prove an upset.

Kids respond well to dealing with their problems, sometimes it's quite simple this way as you can soon get to the bottom of why your child doesn't want to go to school by talking to them and finding things out.Often a secondary talk with your child's teachers could also help gather some further information why they are unsure about going into school.

My daughter is having this problem at the moment with starting a fairly new school, but she also has a chronic constipation problem that could be why she is scared of going to school as frequent stomach upset must make her uneasiness worse. What we have done as a family is talk to her alot and try to get to the root of the problem, it might be useful to think up a small checklist of things to ask so you can cross them off your list....

Bare in mind that you want to question your child gently and not force words in their mouth as this could provide inaccurate information being relayed back to you.Things to ask could include:-

• Is anyone picking on you? Child, teacher or dinner lady?
• Has anything happened at school?
• Have you been shouted at or told off and why?
• Do you feel well?
• Have you made some friends?
• Why don't you want to go to school?
• Is it a lesson that you don't like?
• Do some teachers scare you?
• Why do you cry when you have to go to school?

You might think of some better questions to ask, but for now that's a good start.It's all about getting to the bottom of things and working out what the problem could be and then working with the teachers to help sort it all out. My daughter for instance misses her brother when at school because they are in different year classes she never sees him like she did in her previous school, so as a suggestion I said to her teacher could she sit with her brother at dinner time so she'll feel a bit better? and they have done that for her which brightened up her day, although she is still a bit wary of school even now and we still haven't really got to the bottom of it.

Maybe it could be taking some time to get used to as she has had a bit of time off because of her constipation troubles, but she hasn't really had a full week in school so that could have made things slightly worse.

The best thing to do is to talk all the time with your child as they'll eventually let slip what the problem could be and whilst I just think that she (our daughter) just wants to be at home with us all the time, that's just not possible, because schooling is important for a child's development socially and for later years in life career wise.

Sometimes you'll find that a small problem that a child has had before may stick with the child and it could spiral into a whole heap of stress for the child like using the school toilets or eating dinners with other children for example.

Children could simply have problems with certain lessons in school, anything that represents a change for them or something that will stress them either mentally or physically and P.E is one lesson that most kids don't like, I know this because I hated it when I was at school, having to play football and be forced to play as a team is something that was mentally crushing and also physically I wasn't fit anyway and so I tried to avoid it any time that I could.

If your concerns are not getting resolved by simply talking to your child and your child's teachers and your child is still uneasy going to school then it might in some cases be a good idea to see a child psychologist who may be able to find solutions to your child's behaviour (Not been this route yet, but we are considering it!) maybe they might be able to think of things you have not and use some reverse child psychology to correct the problem I do not know, but it's worth a try if there is help out there, then why not?

I know that when your child is upset the easy solution is to keep them at home, but this doesn't really solve the problem and you are probably playing right into their little hands as that could be why they don't want to go to school, they might just want to watch TV and play with their toys all day.