Day 9 - School Refusal

[MomWithOCDSon]

This, for me, is some of the hardest stuff. In 6th grade the school phobia surfaced. For him, he went blank during a test - his brain just wouldn't work. This scared him and he ended up having a panic attack. After this happened a few more times he became panicky that he would have a panic attack in school, and this led to separation anxiety. He could not stand the idea of having a panic attack in front of classmates and away from me with no one to help him. What we tried that didn't work: hospitalization, homebound services, gradual re-introduction to school (i.e. go 1 hour , then work up to 2 hours, then 3 etc.), lots of time in the counselors office, therapy. What did eventually work: an IEP reducing work and giving him daily one on one time with a case manager to manage academics, flooding technique with him signing a contract (i.e. go to school and can go to counselors office or time out room or call therapist but not home - has to wait out the anxiety until it calms and then go back to class) and daily prize box for attendance with large reward after completion of school (a tv for his room)

 

That being said, 2 years later he still experiences periodic school refusal. Now it is based on being overwhelmed by the volume of work and fearing he may lose control at school. Once the volume of work is reduced and managable again for him, he seems ok. Again - the same theme that he won't be able to control his emotions at school (publicly mortifying for a junior high student) I have to say our school counselor has been amazing with him and usually is able to talk him through the worst and get him back on track. Do you have counselors/support services at your son's school?

 

We have been on a very similar road with our DS13. Yes, I think the key is to have someone on the school end that your DS feels he can turn to, rely upon, when he gets overwhelmed. It is SO important to have support, especially at this age when they're already flooded with hormones, etc. and feeling as though ALL their behaviors are on full display, even when they're not PANDAS behaviors!

 

We took our DS back to school very slowly after we'd pulled him out and home-schooled him for just over a month during the height of his illness. We started by taking him back to his least demanding period of the day: his resource class with his IEP case worker. The man is a god-send, and DS engages so well with him. That class period was after lunch, with only 3 more class periods in the day afterwards, so we sort of inched up the school day "backwards," adding one period and then another very slowly over the next few weeks until he was in full time. But it took about 3 months to get him all the way back in, and he still doesn't attend gym (too many triggers for his OCD).

 

Since you're so close to the end of the school year, it isn't likely to work to work him up to a full day, but if you can just get his body into the building each school day, even for a short period of time, it will set a better stage for the next year. Does he have an IEP and a case worker? If so, that person should be able to help you. Does he have a favorite class? Maybe you start with that one.

 

Sorry, I know it's tough. But from experience, I think the longer he stays away, the harder it is going to be to go back, especially since he's developing lots of self-awareness in terms of what his peers are noticing and commenting on. But if you can get some good support on the school end . . . even if it's just one person (you said the principal was good with DS?), then that might be all you will need if you move slowly.

[tpotter]

Yes. It's a big problem. We ended up having to pull our ds 13 out, and fight the school district for 3 years (1 1/2 years while in a private school,) because he was too sick to attend, and school refusal...plus phobia was out of control. We were lucky, though, and found a school in our area that caters to children who have severe anxiety and school refusal. They understand that children can't learn while they are too stressed to learn, and my ds grades are back up to A's and B's (had dropped to F's.)

 

Good luck. If you contact me directly, I can give you more information about this school (I don't know what part of the country you are in, but maybe you're somewhere near me.

[dcmom]

I have to say I agree with SF Mom.

 

My daughter attended school until age 9 1/2- not one issue in all of her years. Pandas hit her like a Mack truck, and within a few weeks she refused to go to school. We did make her go one day- and it just made her worse- she was a mess at school- a shell of her former self. She really was just too sick to go. She had every symptom in the book: ocd, anxiety, hyper, depression, anger, not eating, not sleeping, etc. We decided to keep her home, and treat her as if she was sick. We told her she was sick, and that when she got better, she would have to go back and make up the work. She wanted to go back (in the future).

 

Once we did some serious medical intervention (pex), she went back with only minor anxiety for the first few days. She ended up missing almost two months of school. She has been back now for two months, NO problems. We do seek therapy to help her work through the anxiety/ocd issues that she has- it is not that I don't believe in therapy- but for my kids, there have been times when they were just too far gone for that.

 

With my younger daughter, we did work really hard on keeping her in school. But for her, she was happy at school, once she could get there- so it was in her best interest to do the hard stuff to get there.

 

I really feel, that in their time of serious crisis, we need to treat this as a medical issue. When they are in recovery, or have a flare, that is the time for therapy and working hard.

 

The answer really lies in what your "mommy instinct" tells you. I find with pandas, this instinct is the BEST guide to helping my kids.

[Kay]

Here is my 2 cents for what it is worth. My daughter 19 (17 at the time) was not school phobic or having school anxiety, it was plain old separation anxiety caused by PANDAS.

 

I sat in the parking lot many days trying to get her into school. This was long before I knew of Pandas (now it all makes sense.)

 

There was nothing I could do to help her get in there. We opted for tutoring (supplied by the school) She did go to the school to meet with the tutor after school (was very difficult for her to do even that)(we did it that way because we thought it would help her at the time to still be familar with the building, if I knew then what I know now probably would have just had the tutors come to our home) at the end of her Junior year and online classes still connected with the school her senior year. She still had school privileges and could go in the building anytime she wanted (there were not many) and could attend some of the important milestones in her Junior and Senior year if she wanted.

 

She did from time to time try to go back to school, she would set it up so she could still do her work independently but often it was too hard for her to follow through with, she was still sick.

 

She desperately wanted to be in school so I know it was not school anxiety or phobia.

 

She is a different person now that she has been treated with antibiotics. We are not 100% but I see a different person and one if she had to go to school today would at least make the attempt, but not back then.

 

There is my 2 cents!!!

Kay

[mama2alex]

Again, thanks to everyone for posts and PM's!! Wow, I am really leaning heavily on the forum this week, but your input is invaluable. These days if we're really stuck, my husband says, "Have you posted this on the forum yet?"

 

There is a lot of food for thought and great ideas here, and I'm going to have to go back through it all. Unfortunately, our school and especially our teacher, has not been that supportive. We don't have a go-to person at the school, like a counselor, if he's really struggling. They have now (as of two weeks ago) offered to let me drop him off with the computer lab teacher any day but Monday, but it seems this is too little too late. We'll see. Fortunately, we finally have our 504 meeting scheduled for this Friday, so we will be able to bring up some of these great ideas at the meeting.

 

Most of all, your replies gave me strength to keep going. I was really feeling alone. The principal says in all her years (she's almost 70), she's only seen one other kid with separation anxiety as bad as my son's.

[Joan Pandas Mom]

My thoughts are if you are able to keep him out for the rest of the year do it. I have found over the years that the thoughts associated with PANDAS are really, really scary. Your son might have some thought he can't express to you right now that is preventing him from attending school. He seems too sick to go right now. If the school doesn't know how or want to handle it, then going will be a disaster. Hang in there. Things will get better, it just takes so long though.