Medicine: School Phobia

There is a little of the truant in every healthy child. But the openly defiant youngster who simply refuses to go to school may be suffering from what doctors call "school phobia"—a deep-rooted psychological disturbance.

School phobia, reports the British Medical Journal, is actually a form of separation anxiety: the rebellious child's real trouble is not fear of school but fear of separation from his parents. The affected child, says the B.M.J., "is usually above the average in intelligence, but tends to be timid, sensitive, spoiled, and to show other fears and fear reactions, such as night terrors. The mothers tend to be indulgent, overprotective and overanxious." Coddled and shy, the child quickly cultivates an intense dislike for the rigors of school discipline. "The final breakdown," reports the B.M.J., "is occasioned usually by an absence from school on account of illness, a change of school, a change of home, the birth of a sibling, or an illness in the parents. When the time comes for school, he digs in his heels and flatly refuses to go." Then a psychiatrist is often needed to perform the difficult task of weaning mother and child from each other. If the home situation appears unlikely to improve, says the B.M.J., the best solution may be to separate the child from his parents, send him to a boarding school.