All Posts Tagged: school anxiety

child wearing face mask in empty classroom

Separation Anxiety: Going Back To School During The Pandemic

As the 2020 – 2021 school year begins, children who normally go through separation anxiety may be even more anxious about going back into the classroom during the pandemic. After all, the beginning of a new school year can be threatening during normal times, but returning into a situation where the coronavirus is likely to be present has raised anxiety levels in many kids and parents.

For parents who live in school districts that offer a choice between virtual or in-person learning, how do you make a decision about which is best for your child? Being safe at home means that kids who have special needs or who learn better in person will lose out on many learning opportunities. Children who are fearful of being in a classroom, however, will struggle more if they have to go back into the school.

All this stress can bring up school refusal in kids, not to mention heightened school anxiety in parents.

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Virtual Reality Apps Are Helping Children With Anxiety

Sometimes it isn’t easy to go through childhood. There’s a big, scary world out there and new activities or experiences can often bring up anxiety in children. But, what if there was a way for your child to experience a new scenario in a safe, nurturing way so they could reduce their anxiety before taking part in the activity? Enter virtual reality apps. The growing field of virtual reality therapy is combining cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and in-vivo exposure therapy in a fun way – on a powerful and engaging game-like platform that children can easily relate to.

How Can VR Apps Help My Child?

The Children’s Center’s innovative Giant Leap app is great example of a high-tech solution that gives kids control over their fears. Giant Leap and other VR apps can be used in a variety of scenarios, such as:

  • Helping to reduce school anxiety
  • Addressing the child’s concerns before a visit to the doctor
  • Calming their separation anxiety when staying home with a babysitter

For example, one child might be apprehensive about classroom interaction in school, while another may worry about an upcoming medical procedure, such as getting an MRI. Both kids could conquer their fears by watching exposure stories on the app, which will show them what to expect from the upcoming experience.

VR apps can also be used to manage behaviors and teach your child emotional regulation techniques. Featuring customizable avatars that can be configured to match your child’s hair color, style, and skin tone (and can even use a photo of your child), these entertaining virtual reality apps encourage independence and motivate kids through stories, videos, and flexible charts and reward systems.

How Effective Are Virtual Reality Apps?

Studies are showing that virtual reality apps amplify the areas of the brain that are related to attention and control. The result is that children:

  • Strengthen their daily living skills
  • Learn emotional regulation techniques
  • Report having more control when faced with real-life issues

Animated stories like the ones provided on the Giant Leap app gradually expose the child, via their avatar, to the scenario they are worried about (for example: visiting the dentist). Kids work through one scene at a time, at their own pace, until they are ready to move forward to the next one on their own. These meaningful, close-to-life scenarios offer immediate feedback, which greatly enhances the child’s ability to cope under stress.

Furthermore, positive behavior can be learned and reinforced through virtual reality apps and tailored to each child’s individual needs. Flexible programs allow parents to customize the app to their child’s specific activities and situations while encouraging routines and building life skills. By motivating and rewarding appropriate behavior, children learn to function independently, and gain powerful tools that lead to future success.

Learn More About Our Giant Leap App

For more information about how virtual reality apps like our Giant Leap app can help with child anxiety treatment, contact the Children’s Center for Psychiatry Psychology and Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida or call us today at (561) 223-6568.

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How Does Virtual Reality Therapy Help School Anxiety?

How Does Virtual Reality Therapy Help School Anxiety?

The start of a new school year is just around the corner. While many children are happy about heading back to the classroom and seeing their friends again, for some kids, a new school year embodies fear and school anxiety. But, what if your child could go into their classroom in a non-threatening way, interact with a new teacher and classmates, and learn effective methods for coping with the anxiety-inducing situations they dread in school? With virtual reality therapy, they can do just that.

This innovative treatment is emerging as a high-tech solution that lets kids challenge their fears in a safe, realistic environment, but in a way that gives them control. VR therapy can be used across age groups and can be adjusted to the child’s developmental age as they mature.

Additionally, this therapy can be tailored to vary the complexity of school phobia scenarios. For example, one child might be apprehensive about taking exams, while another dreads interaction with their peers. Both can be helped with virtual reality therapy, which is a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and in-vivo exposure therapy, but with a state of the art twist.

For example, if your child has a high level of test anxiety, as studies indicate anywhere from 15% to 25% of students do, virtual reality therapy will allow them to mimic test taking in a non- or less stressful environment (just like in-vivo exposure does) in order to overcome their negative thought patterns (“I always fail tests.”) through cognitive behavioral therapy. In a test-taking scenario, the virtual reality simulated distractions and stresses of taking exams would be minimal to start with, and then slowly be increased as the child learns to process and adjust to them. At the end of the therapy, the child will be able to face an exam with reduced or minimal fear.

What Happens During Virtual Reality Therapy?

Because most kids relate so well to video games, virtual reality exposure therapy seamlessly integrates treatment with real-world interface. It helps children retrain their brain so they have a defense against problems like meeting a new peer or being bullied, which makes them feel more comfortable about situations at school. VR therapy has also been successful in teaching or improving social cognitive skills and emotion recognition in high-functioning autistic children.

When kids go through VR therapy, they first learn coping skills to help them stay calm under a stressful circumstance. Once they are comfortable with these strategies, they continue on to virtual reality therapy, where they view computer-generated environments and use an avatar to experience interactions with adults and other kids.

As you can see in this Today Show video, the teens have the freedom to pause or review and repeat their avatar’s interaction with others inside the setting until they feel confident about the situation. A therapist listens in on the virtual reality session and offers feedback and coaching to help the child navigate the difficulties that have created their school refusal.

Studies have shown that virtual reality therapy actually “rewires” the brain so that the areas relating to sociability and attention are heightened. This leads to increased awareness and understanding of social cues, enhanced perception of the give and take in conversations, and more control when faced with real-life school issues. In studies done after kids have gone through virtual reality exposure therapy, scans have shown that the regions in the brain associated with social skills and those sections that exchange information during social interactions are heightened.

This interactive and visually stimulating approach to treating school anxiety delivers a dynamic platform that can simulate an unlimited number of phobia situations. By targeting a child’s specific fears, it provides meaningful close-to-life scenarios with immediate feedback, which greatly enhances the child’s ability to cope under stress.

Did You Know?

Our Children’s Center focuses specifically on offering a variety of clinical, therapeutic, educational and supportive services to children ages two through twenty two in a warm and welcoming environment.

For more information about how our child psychologist team can use virtual reality therapy for your child’s school refusal, contact the Children’s Center for Psychiatry Psychology and Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida or call us today at (561) 223-6568.

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Help for School Refusal

For some children, going to school can be emotionally traumatic. Their school anxiety may stem from such things as their dread of encountering a particular child or teacher, their worry about not doing well in school, or the fear of failing a test or “looking stupid.” While many of these worries are a normal part of growing up, they may also be triggered by stressful events like moving, changing schools, or being bullied.

Just about every child goes through a day here and there when they don’t want to go to school,  but the Anxiety and Depression Association of America notes that about 2-5% of children regularly experience school refusal due to severe stress or emotional concerns. School refusal is not the same as truancy: truant children skip school, then go out to play. They aren’t afraid of going to school and they try to hide their absence from school from their parents.

On the other hand, children experiencing a school refusal disorder will stay home (where it is safe), are fearful of going to school, and will try to talk their parents into letting them stay home. Often, the children with school avoidance also suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety, depression, or panic disorders.

Symptoms of School Refusal

School refusal is most common in children ages five, six, ten, and eleven, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The pattern of rejecting school isn’t the same for every child. Some kids will go off to school without a problem, but become more anxious as they get closer to the building. Some children have no trouble until a holiday comes up, then they become depressed or anxious when the time comes to go back to school. Others will go to school willingly, but frequently ask to visit the school nurse. Still others are chronically tardy, skip a certain class most days, or simply decline to go to school.

Frequently allowing your child to stay home from school keeps them from learning and advancing with their peers. Additionally, a child’s symptoms may increase or they may suffer from additional symptoms the longer they stay out of school.

Just as school refusal patterns aren’t the same for each child, the symptoms of school anxiety can be different, as well. Your child may experience some of these signs of school refusal:

  • Sleep issues
  • Temper tantrums, defiance
  • Crying or exhibiting fearfulness
  • Panic symptoms
  • Threats to harm themselves if they have to go to school
  • Headaches, stomach aches
  • Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
  • Heart palpitations
  • Separation anxiety

School Anxiety Treatment

School refusal is best treated as a collaborative effort. The first objective is to get the child back into the classroom because the longer they stay out of school, the harder it can be to go back.

With that goal in mind, the child’s physician should do a thorough exam to be sure any physical complaints, such as headaches and abdominal pain, don’t stem from a medical condition. Once medical concerns have been ruled out, your child’s teacher will be asked to evaluate for behavioral issues and things like problems with report cards and tests, or the possibility of the child being bullied.

Armed with this information, a child psychologist or other mental health professional will evaluate your child to look for any emotional or psychiatric difficulties. These results, combined with the medical and school evaluations will help them develop the most effective plan of treatment.

School refusal can be addressed through several types of psychological therapy. For example, exposure therapy can ease your child back into school by allowing them (with cooperation from the school) to attend school part of the day and gradually increasing the time they spend there.

Cognitive behavior therapy can teach the child how to change their destructive behavior patterns. This therapy helps them develop coping techniques, and challenge their negative thoughts through strategies like role playing, relaxation techniques, and guided imagery. Operant behavior techniques can also be used to reward the child for attending or staying in school.

If your child’s school anxiety is new, often working with the teacher to identify and eliminate triggers can be enough to reverse it. However, if the school refusal has become significant, the therapies discussed above offer excellent outcomes for getting your child back into the classroom.

Our Children’s Center Can Help

For more information about how a child psychologist can help with your child’s school avoidance, contact the Children’s Center for Psychiatry Psychology and Related Services in Delray Beach, Florida or call us today at (561) 223-6568

Resources:

American Academy of Family Physicians: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/1015/p1555.html

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: https://www.adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/children/school-refusal

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