As more and more children of different ages in the United States continue to loathe school and the classroom setting, so much so that they are refusing to return to them, some psychiatrists are blaming this on what they deem to be a mental disorder simply called “school avoidance.”
USA Today details this rise in children hating and refusing to want to return to school in lengthy article, citing claims by activists and psychiatrists claiming this is some sort of disorder.
School avoidant behavior, also called school refusal, is when a school-age child refuses to attend school or has difficulty being in school for the entire day. Several mental health experts told USA TODAY it has become a crisis that has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.
School avoidance is not a concrete diagnosis and looks different in every child. Some students consistently miss a couple of days a week, while others may leave during the day or escape to the nurse or counselor’s office. In some extreme cases, students don’t step foot in a school for months or years at a time.
Half a dozen family members and students told USA TODAY that school avoidance has affected not only their mental health, often leading to anxiety and depression, but also their family dynamics, relationships with fellow students, and grades. It has threatened their prospects of graduation and a thriving future.
School avoidance is a complicated condition that neither parents nor school systems are fully equipped to handle. Some experts say school systems and national organizations are beginning to come up with strategies to get kids back to school, while others wonder if there’s a better answer.
USA Today wrote, defining this perceived disorder
Jayne Demsky, founder of the School Avoidance Alliance, founded an entire organization that monitors and works with this very thing, as she herself has had her own dealings with a child that delayed returning to school for months on end, to the point where police were called to extract the child and force them back into school, USA Today reports.
When a psychiatrist told her that her son has this so-called ‘school avoidant behavior,’ she told USA Today that “it was almost like a revelation” to her; adding that “there’s no book on this, it’s not spoken about,” and “it’s very scary and parents feel a sense of helplessness.”
Anna, a university student in Virginia, who chose to not reveal her full name due to the stigmatization this label carries, described how she used to get severe anxiety and heart palpitations, heavy breathing twitches – a problem which started to manifest in the 10th grade for her, and thought of returning would only make the anxiety grow.
A 7th Grader named Peter has also suffered from similar feelings, crying nearly every morning with his mother in the school parking lot – “the tears were hot and flowing” – ultimately going home after refusing to enter the building. This apparently peaked in 2021.
‘I just want to be normal.’ It was heartbreaking. As a parent, it is so isolating. It is so lonely because unless you’ve been through it, you don’t understand.
Peter would say, according to her mother in a statement to USA Today
USA Today wrote: ‘The family struggled for years to find the origin of Peter’s anxiety until he was finally diagnosed with pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome, or PANS, which is a sudden onset of neuropsychiatric symptoms typically linked to an infection, according to Nemours Children’s Health. With the help of treatment and counseling, Peter is now a freshman in high school and goes to school most days. Katherine was able to secure an individualized education plan for her son, but others are not so lucky.’
Jonathan Dalton, director of the Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change in Maryland and Virginia, told USA Today that “our waiting list is like 180 families right now,” noting that the mental rehabilitation structure “was never designed for this level of need.”
Anxiety and avoidance are teammates because they work on the same function. Kids feel very uncomfortable when they go to school or think about going to school, so they do what evolution teaches them to do and avoid something that makes them scared.
We don’t call it work refusal, we call it unemployment. If (students avoid school) and gain short-term relief, they’ll become a master of avoidance, and that doesn’t play well for the future.
Dalton explained
And while the definitions and treatments are a still a bit up in the air for these doctors, they all seem to agree that the lockdowns and the Covid-related restrictions only poured gas on the fire, becoming more noticeable when many schools reinstituted in-person instruction but most kids refused to return.
We saw a larger shift in kids who were on the cusp before and then after COVID started refusing completely. Once the pandemic hit and we introduced remote learning, kids got comfortable in their homes.
Krystina Dawson, a school psychologist and mental health supervisor for Trumbull Public School District in Connecticut, said
Dalton added that “a lot of school refusers, when March 2020 happened, they were like, ‘Welcome to my world. This was these kids’ lives,” he says.
Before these disturbed kids make their return to the classroom, Dalton told the outlet ‘most school avoidant students undergo a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy to understand what exactly the student is avoiding and gradually build their tolerance to that source of anxiety. This may look like staying in the car at the school parking lot or walking into the guidance counselor’s office and leaving.’
‘Some educators don’t take school avoidance seriously, families told USA TODAY. Schools sometimes threaten students’ graduation or take students to family court,’ the paper also noted.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[7] All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt. [8] An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more. Psalm 41:7-8
This is absolutely appalling as it demonstrates how these “scientists” and “doctors” think; that if a kid hates school then that must me he/she must have a neurological disorder.
Not ONCE in the entire nonsense article by USA Today did they ever cover or hint as to WHY these kids are so petrified and loathed over going to school.
I hated school so much especially as I got older, and was then amplified when the Lord saved me and was born again. The evil school system played a part in me eventually coming to the Lord after all.
But this hit piece never once discussed why kids have so much animosity with school. All the brainwashing they do to them on a wide list of subjects and beliefs, all the perversion they cram down their throats, making them feel stupid and dumb for not being as fast as the other students, not playing into each child’s unique gifts and talents, the abuse, the peer pressure, the harassment both in person and online; and then many of these kids go home to a disjointed and fractured family, with parents that don’t parent, discipline or admonish the child. And then, God forbid we discuss the elephant in the room of the retarded Covid restrictions like masking, social distancing, much more.
But you and these kids have a “mental disorder” classified as “school avoidance” if you don’t want to go to school; and then these kids have to be “treated” and probably medicated to curb this made-up nonsense. Have you ever wondered why so many emo and pop-punk bank always sing about being some heavily-medicated, depressed, freaks who need therapy? I’m not recommending their music or anything, but I’m just saying.
This is the psychology and psychiatry field in a nutshell. Every little thing is some sort of “mental disease” that some idiots dream-up because they don’t live in the real world, living so high and mighty that they think they are some infallible god and people are not on their level of “intellect;” for a science they made-up.
[20] O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: [21] Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:20-21
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Wow.
You know when children cry when they’re dropped off at these wicked Godless institutions (like I did and I’m sure you did too no shame) because CHILDREN DONT BELONG THERE!!!
This goes not just for public schools, but private and religious schools as well! I graduated from “christian” school the Accelerated Christian Education Program! And believe me, they’re also evil just in a different fashion!
Moms need to find a way to bring home the bacon that DOES NOT involve a career IF she’s a single mother! Also, dads needs to work and provide for the wife and the children and the woman keeps the home and educates the children, take them to a tutor sure, but keep them OUT and AWAY from these Scripture usurping NOT education centers!
Another possible customer base for witchcraft, pardon me, pharmaceutical industries, born out of one of the stupidest made-up terms out there.
YEAH ITS CALLED EVEN CHILDREN KNOW ITS WRONG TO WATCH PORNOGRAPHY IN SCHOOLS. its a CESSPOOL for teachers sexually abusing children while unprotected by their parents, left vulnerable with adult strangers, afraid and not knowing how to defend themselves against sexual predators and now children are molesting children and sexually abusing other children. these school systems now a days has turned into full on brothal institutions.
talk about unleashing the dragon.
The solution is no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks. The pencils have been replaced with I-pads, do children even use textbooks anymore?………but those dirty looks must be downright terrifying these days. I’ve just heard more stories where school personnel, including one superintendent, are involved in human trafficking, and not necessarily in schools located in slum neighborhoods. I loathe parents who still send their kids to public schools. And private schools, too.