I have been seeing an increasing number of school refusal cases in my clinical practice. I have yet to read any studies that provide empirically based findings as to why this challenging set of behaviors is on the rise, but I do have a few (unsubstantiated) theories:
1. Children and adolescents have access to too many enjoyable activities when they stay home. When I was a child, if I were to stay home from school, I would be bored out of my mind. Unless I could have quickly caught up with the story line of “General Hospital,” there would be nothing to distract me from the long, drawn-out day, where I was lacking in social interactions. Today, the average home has TVs hooked up to cable, computers, iPads and smartphones galore and gaming systems, etc. Who would not want to stay home and “play” with their gadgets, in contrast to engaging in the challenging curriculum and unchartered social relations of an average day at school? I am always shocked when I hear how the children and adolescents who are too “emotionally ill” to go to school are allowed to be home, having access to technology. IF you are too sick to go to school, then you need to be engaging in a behavior that as closely as possible approximates the behaviors one would engage in at school. As long as your kid does not go to a school for programmers and gamers, chances are their school day does not entail being locked into technology. So they should not be allowed to do that if they are engaging in school refusal behaviors.
2. Parents fail to see the dangerous waters their child is entering when they engage in school refusal behaviors. When your child is little and screaming about not wanting to go to the doctor, what do you do? Do you negotiate? Do you wait until they are ready to obtain their annual checkup? Going to school is as mission-critical to survival as obtaining appropriate medical care. I always tell parents who meet with me that we need to treat school refusal as a psychiatric emergency. Children not showing up for school is equivalent to adults not showing up for work and not caring for their families’ needs.
3. It is unclear why the child is refusing to attend school. In treating school refusal, it is critical to first conduct a functional analysis to determine why a child is refusing to go to school. School refusal is not a diagnosis; it is a symptom of a disorder. Is a child refusing to go to school because he is being bullied? Is she refusing to go to school because she is having panic attacks in the cafeteria? Is he refusing to go to school because he fears he will not make straight A’s and his rigid, perfectionistic thinking is getting in his way? It is critical to figure out why a child is having a difficult time going to school in order to develop an effective treatment plan, to assist your child in reintegrating back into school.
It is also critical to have the support and the assistance of your child’s school. It can assist you in creating an appropriate action plan to get your child back to school. That plan may entail a school staff member temporarily coming over to escort your child to school in the mornings (nothing quite as effective at getting a kid up and out as a school security guard entering the home). The plan may also entail accommodations such as your child being able to take a break from class if he or she feels a panic attack coming on. There are many creative strategies to assist a child in more effectively managing distress and obtaining the tools and skills necessary to handle life’s challenging moments. What is most important is for children to learn that quitting, avoiding, or running away from problems is not a viable long-term solution. As we adults have all learned the hard way, it just leads to digging ourselves deeper into the pain and suffering.
If your child is struggling with school refusal or school anxiety, I recommend you contact a mental health professional trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or pharmacotherapies or both. You can search for a therapist in your area on the Anxiety and Depression Association of American (ADAA) website to help you with this challenging, but very important work.
The last thing anyone wants is to raise a child who suffers from glossophobia – the fear of public speaking. Today, as many as 75% of people have glossophobia, and studies show that many people fear public speaking more than death!
None of us want our children to contribute to these statistics. Rather, we want them to feel strong and comfortable whenever they are speaking and especially when they are speaking in front of a group. In case you doubt that children can be poised and confident in front of a group take a look at this famous video clip of Severn Suzuki who spoke at the United Nations Earth Summit when she was just twelve years old.
In addition to her powerful message, which is still relevant today, did you hear the strength of her vocal delivery including her word choice, clear enunciation, strong inflection and pauses? Did you see the passion in her delivery?
While you may not want your children to be quite as assertive as Severn, you do want them to be confident and poised and to hold their own on issues that are meaningful and important to them. Children who feel comfortable speaking to groups tend to speak out more often, volunteer for leadership positions and meet challenges head on. In fact, developing public speaking skills is just as important as learning to read and write. That’s why “show and tell” is such a popular activity in the early grades. But there is more that we can do to help our children master this all important skill.
When teaching young children the fundamentals of public speaking there are two important areas you can work on every day: Vocal skills and body language.
Here are a few pint size tips I have used as an actress, teacher and parent. I am delighted to pass these on to you.
Vocal Skills
·Read out loud to your child: Research tells us that there are many benefits to reading to your children. When it comes to public speaking, reading is a hidden resource. If you enunciate clearly, vary your pace from slow to fast and use expressive pitch and inflection you will heighten your child’s interest in the story and teach these important vocal skills by example.
·Emphasize key words: When words in the story are colorful, descriptive and emotional, use added stress to make them sound dramatic. Change your volume (speak louder and stronger or softer and lighter) depending on the word and context. Vary your pace and alternate speaking fast and slow. Pauseoften and make those words come alive!
·Have your child read to you: When children are old enough most love reading to their parents. When they do read to you encourage them to speak carefully and say each word clearly. Then, ask them to “play” with the words in the story and bring them to life. Ask your child such questions as, “How can you say this like Max would say it?” or “How can you sound happy, sad, excited or afraid?” Encourage your child to say a word the way it sounds (buzz, swish, cool) and to explore variations of expression for each word.
·Add sound effects: Vroom, chug, boom, screech! Sound effects are a natural means of expression for many children. They love hearing and making sounds. And making many different kinds of sounds gives them an opportunity to practice creative expression and build confidence. So tune up your inner Thomas the Steam Engine or Roary the Racing Car and bring the story to life by using sound effects. Invite your child to play with sounds whenever they read out loud.
Teach Body Language
·Take turns standing up and reading a page out loud: This is a wonderful activity to do with your children but it may be too stimulating to do right before bed. Start early in the evening so there is plenty of time to unwind. Select a favorite story and play “round robin” by taking turns and having each member of the family read a page of the story with dramatic energy and flair. Just this simple practice of standing in front of one or two people will give your child the experience of being in front of a group.
·Play “public speaker”: Children love to role play. They play doctor, ballet dancer, truck driver and chef, so why not encourage them to play “public speaker”? Ask questions to help them learn how public speakers behave when they speak to a group. Encourage your child to stand up straight and not fidget or pull at their clothes or hold onto their hands or arms. Ask them to open their arms away from their body and use big gestures. And make sure youencourage them to smile.
·Use everyday conversation to teach body language: Remind your child to make eye contact whenever they are speaking to someone. The dinner table is a great place to help them learn to do this. When they learn this skill at any early age they will not be uncomfortable using it as they grow.
Teaching public speaking skills to your children requires a great deal of commitment and consistency over time, but it doesn’t have to be a chore. You can teach the fundamentals in a seamless, playful and loving way…and have fun doing it. Before you know it, your children will grow up to be confident and competent young adults capable of standing in front of any group… even at the United Nations.
Social media is a great way to keep up with friends, but the need for more likes, followers, and re-tweets can lead to anxiety and addiction.
Between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, social media is undoubtedly an outlet that engages most online users. However, according to mental health consultants nationally, social media has become an anxiety-provoking factor.
Compare and Despair
A large item contributing to social media anxiety is the compare-and-despair factor; that is, doctored pictures of friends on a vacation in Mexico seems to make your Dairy Queen-filled weekend pale in comparison, which in turn can lead to unsettling anxiety (in short, fear of personal failure). Feelings of self-consciousness or a need for perfectionism can arise, which often manifests itself into social anxiety or pervasive thoughts indicative of Obsessive-compulsive Disorder.
Comparing can also lead to anxiety when it relates to followers. For example, teens using Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have indicated that it's more about quantity rather than quality; that is, the quantity of your followers, re-tweets, and "likes." Users can take these obscure numbers, and twist them to support negative thoughts.
Fear of Missing out
Another social anxiety triggered by online media is the fear of missing out; pictures of a party where the user was not invited, or yet another wedding they weren't able to attend thanks to their grueling work schedule can take a toll on self-esteem, say mental health specialists.
There's a flip side to this, however: it's been hypothesized that those that use social media are traditionally actually more anxious to begin with. And that the anxiety doesn't necessarily derive from the content itself, but not being able to access the content. In a sense, users become almost addicted to social media.
Social Media is More Addictive Than Cigarettes
Not only does social media attract more anxious users, but the University of Chicago found that it's also “more addictive" than cigarettes, and harder to abstain from than a cocktail might be. However, its not going to give you emphysema or liver disease, so perhaps folks are less likely to forgo that fix.
“Your twenties are the best time in your life. You have nothing to worry about yet.” — my delusional uncle, December 2010.
For some, it hits right after they’re handed a college diploma. Set free in the “real world,” they feel lost — overwhelmed by their options and flailing around trying to figure out what to do with their degrees (all while dealing with a pile of debt). For others, the panic sweeps in a slow burn and sets in later. They watch as one by one, their friends get engaged or achieve professional success, leaving them feeling unsure of the decisions they’ve made, the path they’ve taken and ultimately, perhaps a bit inadequate.
While the term may have only been coined in recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that the quarter-life crisis is a very real thing. The phenomenon, which can occur anytime between one’s early 20s and early 30s, is characterized by disappointments, insecurities, loneliness and depression. And a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development found that 39 percent of men and 49 percent of women reported feeling such a crisis in their twenties. Furthermore, according to a survey conducted by Gumtree.com, 86 percent of young people admitted feeling under pressure to succeed in their relationships, finances and jobs before hitting 30, 32 percent felt under pressure to marry and have children by the age of 30, and 21 percent wanted a complete career change.
At a British Psychological Society meeting, researchers broke down the quarter-life crisis into five key phases based on their studies of various individuals who’d experienced one:
Phase 1: A feeling of being locked in by your life choices — whether a job, relationship, or both — as though you have been living your life on autopilot.
Phase 2: A rising sense of “I’ve got to get out” and that change is possible.
Phase 3: Quitting whatever is making you feel trapped and embarking on a “time out” period where you try out new experiences to figure out who you want to be.
Phase 4: A period of rebuilding your life.
Phase 5: Developing and cementing new commitments that better reflect your interests and aspirations.
Of course the trigger — and trajectory — for these crises is slightly different for every individual. But on the whole, it’s a remarkably similar experience, and in some ways, seems to have become a sort of rite of passage. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of a single friend who I haven’t witnessed experience some form of this phenomenon already. Some of us are still treading through it, just trying to stay above water. Some have made it through unscathed to the other side.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how different the life of a 20-something is now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, for our parents. Sure, some of that has to do with the economy/job market, changing social pressures, shifting gender roles, etc. But a lot of it has to do with technology. More specifically, it has to do with social media.
Log onto Facebook in your 20s and you’re bound to see someone flashing their engagement ring. Check LinkedIn and you can’t escape noticing your old colleague just got promoted. Scroll through Instagram and you might come across your college roomie vacationing with his or her S.O. at some chic resort in St. Bart’s. Social media fuels our hunger for fantasy, and we can lose ourselves in it. But we’re only seeing a carefully crafted slice of someone’s life — which they’ve probably slapped a filter on — and it can make us feel like we’re falling short when the fact is, we’re not seeing the whole picture.
In short, many of us are suffering from permanent fear of missing out. “FOMO,” which was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, refers to the feeling of “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere.” And certainly, for someone on the brink of — or in the throes of — a quarter life crisis, being constantly confronted with others’ successes on social media will only fuel this.
So even though our parents may have been plagued by the fear that somewhere, someone is having a better time, thanks to social networks, we millennials have at our fingertips what we consider proof that someone has a better job, a better car, a better relationship, is making more money, etc. No surprise here: A 2014 study in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found a correlation between higher social media usage and depression/anxiety. Furthermore, research by Psychology Today reveals that key themes in relation to the negative consequences of FOMO include self-identity problems, loneliness, negative self-image, feelings of personal inadequacy, disconnection and jealousy. Sound familiar? They’re almost identical to the symptoms of the quarter-life crisis.
Is giving up on social media the answer? Not for everyone. Staying connected to people going through the same crises can be crucial for remembering that you’re not alone in this, and better yet, that will you will get through it. The key seems to be a shift in mindset — realizing that this phase of life is not one-size-fits-all, that the so-called life milestones ingrained in our brains by societal norms are certainly not anything to measure our happiness against.
At the core of the quarter-life crisis is the burning feeling that you need to already have achieved certain things by a certain age. Newsflash: you define your own success and happiness. And more importantly, the success and happiness of others that you think you’re witnessing on social channels isn’t necessarily a reflection of their reality. You don’t know the incessant arguments those newlyweds are already having — and they certainly wouldn’t tweet about them. You don’t know that your former fraternity brother who just posted on Facebook about his high-paying job is secretly miserable because he’s working 14-hour days. You don’t know what dreams the young, smiling mom with her Instagrams of the seemingly perfect family gave up on to have kids a little sooner than she was ready for. In other words, those people you think have it “all figured out”? They don’t know what the hell they’re doing either. It’s just that people choose only to highlight the most glamorous snippets of their lives on these sites.
So instead of wasting time comparing yourself to others, spend it figuring out what’s meaningful to you. What makes you tick. What kind of change you want to see in the world. And remember this: synonyms for the word “crisis” include a turning point, a crossroads. It may not feel like it, but this painful phase is the beginning of something great: taking your life back.
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