There are children who, every Sunday night, begin to feel a stomachache that no doctor can fully explain. There are others who cry at the school gates as if they were being left in a dangerous place, even though they’ve been attending the same classroom with the same classmates for months. And there are teenagers who, from one day to the next, start inventing increasingly elaborate excuses to avoid going to school, and who, when they finally manage to stay home, seem to breathe a sigh of relief they can’t put into words. All these scenes, so different from one another, often share the same root, and that root is called school anxiety.
School anxiety isn’t simply not wanting to go to school, nor is it synonymous with laziness, although it’s often mistaken for that by outsiders. It’s a response of the nervous system that interprets the school environment, or a specific part of it, as a threat, and that activates all the physiological reactions of fear in the child’s or teenager’s body, even though there is no real danger involved. The heart races, the stomach churns, the mind fills with catastrophic thoughts, and the whole body screams to escape the situation. The curious thing, and also what’s confusing for many families, is that these symptoms often appear before the child can even name what they’re feeling. That’s why we talk so much about stomach aches, headaches, or that lump in the throat that appears just before leaving for school.
The causes behind school anxiety are varied and are almost never due to a single, isolated factor. In some cases, the origin is related to undetected academic difficulties, where the child feels they can’t measure up to expectations, and each class becomes a painful reminder of that. In other cases, the main trigger is social: bullying, exclusion from the group, fear of being judged, or simply the enormous pressure many children and teenagers feel to fit in. There are also cases where school anxiety actually masks separation anxiety, especially in younger children, where the fear isn’t so much of school itself but of being away from their caregivers for so many hours. And we can’t leave out significant changes, such as moving, changing schools, the arrival of a sibling, or even difficult family situations at home. Although these may seem unrelated to school, they end up manifesting precisely there, because school is where the child spends a large part of their day and where they have the least control over their environment.
As a family member or teacher, it’s natural to feel tempted to minimize these symptoms with phrases like «it’s nothing,» «you’ll get over it,» or «come on, it’s not that bad.» I completely understand where that impulse comes from, because it often stems from our own desire to quickly calm the child and the discomfort we feel seeing them suffer. However, when a child feels their distress is minimized, they often learn two painful things: that their emotions aren’t valid and that it’s better to stop talking about them. That’s why the first step, before any strategy, is to validate what they’re feeling. Something as simple as saying, «I see you’re finding this really difficult. Tell me what’s worrying you the most,» already begins to generate genuine relief in the child because they feel they’re not alone with that burden.
Once that validation exists, it’s important to start identifying the specific trigger together, because the strategy will vary greatly depending on whether the fear is related to a particular subject, a classmate, recess, or separating from their parents in the morning. Here, it’s very helpful to work with gradual exposure instead of completely avoiding the anxiety-inducing situation, because although avoidance produces immediate relief, in the long run it ends up reinforcing the idea that school is indeed dangerous. Small steps, accompanied by plenty of calm and celebration for each advance, work much better than forcing the child to face everything at once or, at the opposite extreme, allowing them to stay home indefinitely.
It’s also key to teach children concrete tools for managing their bodies during these moments of heightened anxiety, such as slow breathing, counting objects of a specific color around them to ground themselves in the present, or carrying a small object in their pocket to remind them they are safe. These tools, practiced in calm moments before anxiety arises, become much more effective when truly needed.
Finally, I want to make something very clear for families reading this who feel they’ve tried everything without success. When school anxiety is intense, persistent, or significantly interferes with a child’s daily life, it’s important to seek professional help.
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