If getting your child to school has become a daily struggle, this post will help you understand what may be going on beneath the stomachaches, the tears, and the “I’m not going.” You’ll learn what school avoidance is and why staying home feeds the fear instead of easing it. You’ll also find tips on where to turn for support.
Now that we are a few weeks into the school year, one of these scenarios may sound familiar.
The moment you take out your kindergartner’s shoes and bend down to help him put them on for the walk to school, he says his tummy hurts. He wraps himself around your leg and asks, for the fifth time that morning, who is going to pick him up and what will happen if you are late. By the time you have made it down the stairs and onto the street, he is crying, and no amount of reassurance seems to stick. This happens at least three mornings a week. On Saturdays his stomach seems fine, which doesn’t make the weekday pain any less real to him. And once he is at school, you half expect a call from the nurse’s office saying he feels unwell and needs to be picked up.
On Sunday nights, your middle schooler goes quiet. Around bedtime she mentions a headache and a sick feeling in her stomach, asks whether she can stay home tomorrow, and lies awake for hours after the lights are out. On Monday morning she moves slowly, misses the bus, and is late for the sixth time this month. When you gently ask what’s going on, she says she can’t stop thinking about having to present in front of the class.
Or perhaps your high schooler’s alarm has gone off three times before you knock on their door. A faint voice answers, “I’m not going to school. Just leave it.” They say they are exhausted, and it’s true: they were awake past 1 a.m. with a knot in their chest about the day ahead. Lately you have also been getting attendance messages from the school saying they have been leaving after lunch. At home, they spend more time alone behind a closed door and less time with the friends they used to talk about.
If you recognize your child in one of these scenes, they may be experiencing school avoidance.
Psychologists who study it, such as Dr. Christopher Kearney and Dr. Anne Marie Albano, often call it “school refusal behavior.” They use the term when a child or teen:
Often, though not always, a parent knows where their child is during the school day: at home, sometimes even in their room doing schoolwork. Over time, the missed days and hours can add up.
The word “refusal” can make it sound like a choice. But a child who isn’t going to school doesn’t necessarily want to stay away. Often, overwhelming feelings such as anxiety and fear are standing in the way. Because emotion is often a big part of the picture, some psychologists such as Associate Professor Glenn Melvin, prefer to use the term emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA).
If your child is struggling to go to school, your family is far from alone. In July 2025 Ipsos surveyed more than 1,000 parents across the US for The Kids Mental Health Foundation. Among parents whose child had missed school out of fear or anxiety, three in ten (30%) said the absences added up to more than a week. Here in Washington, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction reports that about 27% of students were chronically absent in 2024–25. That is roughly 295,000 young people who missed 10% or more of the school year. Not all of those absences are school avoidance, but mental health and not feeling a sense of belonging at school are among the common reasons students miss that much school.
The reasons are complex, and often more than one is at work. Kearney and Albano (2004) describe four main reasons young people avoid school. Two are about getting relief from something hard:
The other two are about being drawn toward something outside school:
Kearney and Albano also found mental health diagnoses that are linked to school avoidance, such as separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and social anxiety disorder. Still, a child who is avoiding school does not necessarily have a mental health condition. In their study, about third of the young people had no diagnosis at all.
When a child avoids school to get relief from fear, worry, or anxiety, a pattern called the avoidance cycle can take hold. According to this model, something that feels threatening sets off a child’s fight-or-flight response, the body’s built-in alarm system. The alarm shows up in three ways: as an emotion (fear), as thoughts (“This is really dangerous”), and as physical sensations (a pounding heart, fast breathing, even a stomachache). This is why your kindergartner’s tummy really does hurt when his shoes come out, why your middle schooler can’t stop thinking about presenting in front of her class, and why your high schooler lies awake with a knot in their chest.
The natural response to an alarm is to get away from whatever set it off. When your high schooler leaves school after lunch, the alarm quiets and they feel better almost right away. That relief is powerful: it tells their brain that school really was unsafe and that leaving is what worked. Over time, they begin avoiding more and more of what is connected to the original fear. Dr. Ariana Hoet, a pediatric psychologist, warns that each time we sidestep something that makes us anxious, the anxiety comes back stronger.
This is why timing matters. The longer a child stays away from school, the harder it becomes to go back, and it is important to start easing them back in as soon as possible.
What can you do if your child is avoiding school?
Most of the suggestions below are adapted from Kearney and Bensaheb (2006)
1. Take the aches seriously. Headaches and stomachaches are common with school avoidance. Kearney and Bensaheb (2006) recommend a full medical check-up whenever a child reports physical symptoms. Start with your child’s doctor, who can check for a physical cause.
2. Keep in mind that your child’s symptoms are real. That is true even when your pediatrician finds no medical cause. The experience of anxiety and fear can be very intense and highly uncomfortable. Let your child know you believe them, and tell them once, calmly, that the feeling cannot hurt them.
3. Aim for some school over no school. If your child isn’t getting to school at all, a late arrival or a partial day is easier to build on than a whole day at home. Work with the school on a plan that adds a little at a time, such as one more hour or one more class each week and celebrate each step.
4. Keep mornings calm and predictable. Steady morning and evening routines and short, clear directions help. If your child asks the same worried question again and again, answer it once, calmly and truthfully, and avoid repeating the reassurance multiple times.
Because the reasons for school avoidance are complex, and so is the process of returning, it helps to work with a therapist who uses approaches backed by research. A therapist can help your child discover their own motivation for going back to school and build a plan with them for returning gradually, one step at a time. A therapist can also help your child look closely at what they believe about school, check those beliefs against what actually happens there, and then adjust them to fit the facts. Children who suffer from anxiety could also benefit from relaxation techniques that allow them to take the edge off the physical discomfort.
If your child is finding school hard right now, things can get better with the right support. To talk about what that could look like, reach out to me using the free consultation request button on my website.
For more resources on school avoidance, visit The Kids Mental Health Foundation, School Avoidance Alliance or AllPlayLearn.
Kearney, C. A., & Bensaheb, A. (2006). School absenteeism and school refusal behavior: A review and suggestions for school-based health professionals. Journal of School Health, 76(1), 3–7.
Kearney, C. A., & Albano, A. M. (2004). The functional profiles of school refusal behavior: Diagnostic aspects. Behavior Modification, 28(1), 147–161.
The Kids Mental Health Foundation (August 2025). New Survey Reveals Top Reasons Why Kids Avoid Going to School.
Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Washington’s 5-Year Challenge to Cut Chronic Absenteeism in Half.
Washington State Institute for Public Policy (July 2025). Chronic Absenteeism in Washington’s K–12 Schools: What Schools Are Doing to Reduce Absenteeism.
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