As our children head back to school, there’s a range of emotions for both the children and us as parents. While we expect some feelings of nervousness, uncertainty and fear, the question we often hear is “what’s normal?”.
Approximately 40% of our patient load is pediatric: we have children entering elementary school in Newport Beach to high schoolers in Coto de Caza to students at UCI who come to our center for a range of issues. Not surprisingly, many of their concerns focus on academics and related social situations.
Children can be anxious about going to school for a number of different reasons; often we’ll hear parents state that their child has “school refusal” or “school anxiety”. While neither of these represent a clinical diagnosis, we understand that it represents behavior around school. When we hear “school anxiety”, it usually falls into one of several different diagnoses:
- Panic Disorder with agoraphobia
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Social Anxiety Disorder
Each of these are treated differently, so it’s important to make sure that a thorough assessment is completed to make sure that the correct treatment protocol is used to fit the need. Just as important are making sure the protocol is adjusted to fit the developmental stage of the child, and that the family is involved in treatment.
During the assessment, one of the important issues to remember is “what is normal”? In other words, we expect a certain level of anxiety and stress at the beginning of school year (academic and social stressors). However, when the reaction to normal stressors are disproportionate to the situation (excessive crying, tantrums), or the fears themselves are not reasonable (“Even though I got straight A’s in junior high, what if I flunk out of high school?”), then it may be time to help our children out.