It’s hard enough to control your own brain when it’s on high alert, let alone someone else’s, however much that someone else wants to do the ‘right’ thing. It’s the physiological, neurochemical response of a brain on high alert. That’s why anxiety can look like a tantrum (fight) or resistance (flight). When this happens, the fight or flight response is triggered and the body is automatically surged with neurochemicals to deal with the threat.
Many kids with anxiety would know somewhere inside them that there is nothing to worry about, but they’re being driven by a brain that thinks there’s a threat and acts as though it’s true. Whether the danger is real or not is irrelevant. Sometimes it’s not driven by anything in particular. Sometimes the anxiety is driven by the fear that something will happen to the absent parent. It’s a physiological response from a brain that thinks there’s danger. School anxiety isn’t a case of ‘won’t’, it’s a case of ‘can’t’.
If only being tougher was all it took they all would have done it yesterday and we’d be talking about something easier, like how to catch a unicorn – or something. They’d try anything – parents are pretty amazing like that. It’s likely, anyway, that parents dealing with school anxiety have already tried the tough love thing, even if only out of desperation.
The assumptions on which you’ve built your high ground are leading you astray. Nothing at all.Īnyone who is tempted to tutt, judge, or suggest a toughening up of parents or children, don’t. Separation anxiety and school anxiety have absolutely nothing to do with behaviour, defiance or poor parenting. If I could write this across the sky, I would: Sometimes it will dress itself up as illness (headaches, tummy aches), sometimes as a tantrum or fierce defiance, and sometimes it looks exactly as you would expect. It’s so common, but it doesn’t always look the same. School anxiety is awful for children and heartwrenching for parents.
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