Anxiety-driven school ‘refusal’ is escalating. Something that’s troubling me is the use of the word ‘school can’t’ when talking about kids who have anxiety at such intrusive levels, school feels impossible. Stay with me …

First, let’s be clear: school refusal which is anxiety-based isn’t deliberate or intentional. These kids want to be able to go to school, and their parents also want this for them. It isn’t about won’t. It’s about can’t. Not truly can’t, but felt can’t. It’s about anxiety making school feel so unsafe for a child, avoidance feels like the only option.

It’s anxiety. It’s a physiological response from a brain that thinks there’s danger and wants to fight, flee, or shut down.

The problem with ‘can’t’.

Here’s the problem: Anxiety at school doesn’t mean, ‘I’m not capable. Often, it means, ‘I don’t feel safe enough to show you what I’m capable of yet.’

Language is powerful, and when we put ‘can’t’ onto a child, it tells a deficiency story about the child. It makes it about capability, more than anything. But this isn’t telling the truest story. 

These kids have it in them to be brave, to shine, to claim their very important space in the world, to make a difference, to engage – but ‘can’t’ tells a different story. It pathologises the child.

 It also ignores that felt safety is about the environment, and establishing felt safety is the responsibility of adults – teachers, school leadership, parents.School refusal isn’t about the capability of the child. It’s about the environment not feeling safe enough right now, or separation from a parent not feeling safe enough right now. The ‘can’t’ isn’t about the child. It’s about an environment that can’t support the need for felt safety – yet.

Anxiety triggers are in all schools.

School anxiety can happen in the most loving, supportive schools, and with the most loving, supportive parents. 

All schools are full of anxiety triggers. They need to be because anything new, hard, brave, growthful will always come with potential threats – maybe failure, judgement, shame. Even if these are so unlikely, the brain won’t care. All it will read is ‘danger’.

Sometimes school isn’t safe – but that’s anxiety doing its job.

Of course, sometimes school actually isn’t safe. Maybe peer relationships are tricky. Maybe teachers are shouty and still using outdated ways to manage behaviour. Maybe sensory needs aren’t met. This is anxiety doing its job, and it isn’t what we’re talking about here.

What we’re talking about here is an environment that is actually safe, but which doesn’t feel safe enough yet.

To find the right answer to anxiety at school, we first need to ask the right question.

The question isn’t how do we get rid of their anxiety. It’s how do we make the environment feel safe enough so they can feel supported enough to handle the discomfort of their anxiety. The truth of it all is that we can throw all the resources we want at the child, but:

– if the parent doesn’t believe the child is safe enough, cared for enough, capable enough; or

– if school can’t provide enough felt safety for the child (sensory accommodations, safe peer relationships, at least one predictable adult the child feels safe with and cared for by),

that child will not feel safe enough.

To help kids feel safe and happy at school, we have to recognise that it’s the environment that needs changing, not the child. This doesn’t mean the environment is wrong. It’s about making it feel more right for this child.

How can we help them feel safer, braver, stronger at school?

First, we ask the questions for them:

• Are they relationally safe?
  • Do they have an anchor adult at school?
  • Do they know how to access this adult?
  • Do they feel welcome, a sense of belonging, warmth from their adults?
• Do they feel safe in their bodies?
  • Are they able to move their bodies when they need to?
  • Are they free from sensory overload or underload?
  • If not, what is their bare minimum list to achieve this with minimum disruption to the class, keeping in mind that when they feel safer in their bodies, there will naturally be less disruptive behaviour and more capacity to engage, learn, regulate.
    
    Why a bare minimum list? Because there is a limit to how much schools can do to adapt the classroom to support each child. Even in the most loving, caring schools – the schools that want to do everything they can to make sure young people feel safe and cared for while they are there, there will be a limit to how much that school can do. So many kids have specific things they need – and deserve – to help them feel calm and safe in their bodies, but with only one teacher per class, and limited resources, it will likely be impossible to give everything to every child. Think of it like a dinner party – your guests are a beautiful combo of vegan, vegetarian, gluten intolerant, dairy intolerant, diabetic – and you have to prepare a meal that will work for all of them. This is what it’s like for teachers, but added to this, they have the Department coming in with a list of external criteria, ‘… and make sure they all get dairy and the exactly same amount of protein.’ If you come in with a list of, say, six things your child needs, the school might be able to support 3 or 4 of them, but if they aren’t the ones at the top of the list, the support from school is going to feel faded and lacklustre. One of the best ways to support your child’s school to support your child is to help school understand the top one or two things your child needs – their bare minimum list – and working with school not just on what your child needs, but how this might be actioned in the classroom, given the available resources.

Then we ask the question of them:

• What’s one little step you can take? And don’t tell me nothing because I know that you are amazing, and brave, and capable. I’m here right beside you to show you how much. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself enough yet.

The 2 questions they’ll need us to answer.

In addition to this, they will be looking to you, their important adult, to answer two questions:

1. Do you see me?
2. Do you think I’m safe here?

What we do, more than anything we say, will answer these questions.

Love and lead. First, we love. Validation lets them know we see them. Validation is a presence, not a speech. It’s shows our willingness to sit with them in the ‘big’ of it all, without needing to talk them out of how they feel.

It says, ‘I see you. I believe you that this feels big. Bring your feelings to me, because I can look after you through all of it.’

Then, we lead. Our response will lead theirs, not just this time, but well into the future.

Most importantly, if they are safe, we show them we believe in them.

The most important thing, provided they are actually safe, is not to support avoidance. It’s the single worst thing for anxiety. When we support avoidance, it feels as though we’re supporting them, but we’re actually supporting their anxiety.

If we support avoidance, their need to avoid will grow. The message we send is, ‘Maybe you aren’t safe here. Maybe you can’t handle this. Maybe your anxiety is telling the truth.’

Of course, if they truly aren’t safe, then avoidance is important.

But if they are safe and we support avoidance, we are inadvertently teaching them to avoid anything that comes with anxiety – and all brave, new, hard, important things will come with anxiety.

Think about job interviews, meeting new people, first dates, approaching someone to say sorry, saying no – all of these will come with anxiety.

The experiences they have now in being able to move forward with anxiety in scary-safe situations (situations that feel scary, but which are safe, like school) will breathe life into their capacity to do the hard, important things that will nourish and grow them for the rest of their lives. First though, they will be watching you for signs as to whether or not anxiety is a stop sign or a warning. The key to living bravely and wholly is knowing the difference.

The two questions for them that will grow brave.

Teach them to ask themselves, ‘Do I feel like this because I’m in danger? (Is this scary dangerous?) Or because there’s something brave, new, hard, important I need to do. (Is this scary-safe?). Then, ‘Is this a time to be safe or brave?’

To show them we believe they are safe and capable, try, ‘I know this feels big, and I know you can do this.’ Then, give them a squeeze, hand them to a trusted adult, and give them a quick, confident goodbye. Their tears won’t hurt them, as long as they aren’t alone in their tears.

It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they are forward.