The most important thing to understand about phobias is that they are not rational. A child who is afraid of dogs isn't going to be talked out of it, scolded out of it, or punished out of it. It simply doesn't matter if we show that child a small dog, a gentle dog, or even maybe a stuffed dog. It doesn't matter if we assure him that we will protect him from dogs, if we tell him that dogs are "man's best friend", or if we promise him an ice cream cone if he'll just pet our dog, just once, to see that he doesn't have to be afraid.

The trouble is that he is afraid. He may be so afraid that his heart races, his breathing gets irregular, he starts to sweat, and he shakes. He absolutely, positively believes that he has to get away from the dog or he'll surely die. If he can't leave, he may cling to the nearest grown-up in terror. This is a full-blown phobic response to a feared object. If it happens more than once, chances are this child will be so afraid of the awful feelings that he knows goes with being around dogs, he'll do everything he can to avoid them. If the feelings are strong enough, he may not be able to tolerate even a picture of a dog or a story about dogs. Lectures and reassurances are totally beside the point. All the child can feel is his fear and his fear of what happens to him when he's afraid.

Most of us grown-ups get it when a child is afraid of something like a dog, especially if we know that the child was once bitten by a dog or witnessed someone being attacked by a dog. As frustrating as it may be to try to calm the child, we understand that there is a rational cause to what may now be an irrational over-reaction. We respond with comfort and compassion, at least for a while. We may even decide that it isn't the worst thing in the world for someone to want to avoid dogs. Dog loving isn't necessary for survival in our world and dog-avoidance is actually quite do-able.

Adults, especially adults who work in schools, generally have a much harder time being understanding when the thing that makes a child afraid is school or a school subject. After all, people who become educators liked school. For them, school was a place where they felt successful, where they learned neat stuff, where they were comfortable. Fear of school subjects lies outside their personal frame of reference. It's a big stretch to truly understand that a kid can be just as phobic about school, or math class, or writing a sentence as another child might be about dogs. But some children and teens, maybe more than we have understood in our culture, are really and truly phobic about parts or all of an ordinary school day.

Think about it. For some kids, going to school is like putting themselves in the way of a vicious dog every day. For them, school is a place where they can't succeed, where they feel bad about themselves, where they constantly fall short of adult and peer expectations. For them, every math lesson is another opportunity to show how stupid they are; every group project is where they will disappoint their classmates; every test, quiz, and question and answer session a chance to be humiliated - again. Day after day, year after year, they are thrown into the situation they fear most. And day after day, year after year, the fear is reinforced.

Imagine getting up every day to go to a job like that. Imagine knowing, really knowing, that to go is to invite feeling like you're having a heart attack (perhaps several "heart attacks") during the day. Imagine no escape. Imagine if the people you thought loved you the most kept making you do it, day after day, year after year.

Some kids learn to handle the situation by "leaving". Some leave by being chronically late and/or truant. Some "leave" by turning to marijuana or other drugs. Others "leave" by derailing the class when they know a subject is coming up that makes them afraid. They act up, make a joke, ask an irrelevant question, or trip a classmate. Others disengage by doodling, daydreaming, or focussing on something else. Kids who really don't want to be in conflict with their teachers but still need to "leave" often find internal tricks for avoiding the lessons that make them afraid. One kid I know starts to count all the corners in a room when he has to get near a math lesson. (Have you any idea just how many right angles are in a room? Counting them can keep you busy for a long time.) Another kid I know subtracts backwards from 10,000 by sixes. 10,000, 9,994, 9,988, 9,982, etc. It takes concentration. It takes him away from the situation that makes him afraid.

The trouble with "leaving", however a kid might do it, is that it works  - but at a cost. Any such tactics help the child tolerate staying in, what for him, is an intolerable situation. They don't work, of course, in that the child neither masters the fear nor the lesson at hand.

There are good teachers who understand just how discouraged and afraid of school a child can be. But teachers, being teachers, generally do what they are trained to do. They try to reassure the child that the lesson isn't really that hard. They break the lesson into smaller steps. They try to take a running start at a hard concept by introducing easier ones first. They individualize. They give the child extra time, extra help, extra resources. But no matter what the teacher does, if the child gets frustrated - and scared - enough, he will "leave" (either physically or by disengaging from the whole thing). The child doesn’t learn - not because the teacher and the child aren't trying but because it's just like the situation with the dog. A dog is a dog is a dog and the kid is afraid of dogs. School is school is school. The kid is afraid of school. Unless the fear is dealt with, the child will never get near it.  

First deal with the fear

Children and teens who are school phobic can be helped. But it usually requires either a collaboration between a mental health counselor and an educator or an educator who has been trained to manage anxiety disorders. For a child to learn to master his fear about school, that fear has to be addressed directly. It needs to be the focus of the lesson, not seen as a bothersome obstacle to the "real" stuff of school. As long as the child is phobic, lessons for dealing with the phobia is the real stuff. If the child can master the phobia, chances are he'll be able to learn the curriculum as well as any other kid.

Steps for managing a phobia

There are well-developed programs for helping people desensitize themselves from a phobia. Whether the phobia is a fear of flying, a fear of heights, a fear of dogs, or a fear of school, the steps are pretty much the same.  Essentially, a counselor develops a highly individualized series of steps to help the person get closer and closer to the thing he fears and to tolerate it for longer and longer periods of time. Methods for managing anxiety are taught and reinforced. As the person gets practice in managing his fear, he learns that being in the feared situation is indeed manageable and that he won't die. He learns ways to feel in control. And he learns that he is a person who can face a fear and get over it. These are life lessons that can lead to feelings of confidence and competence. And a confident, competent person can do just about anything -- even school.

Case Studies

How a phobia is born:

I remember vividly the week that I was taught to be afraid of foreign language study.  It was 1961. I was a ninth grader in my first French class ever.  The teacher administered an "aptitude test" of some kind. I remember listening to a tape of what I later learned were Kurdish words and phrases. We then had to answer some multiple-choice questions about them. The whole exercise was over-whelming to me. I remember being fascinated - and mystified - by the new sounds. I remember being confused that so many of the other kids in the class seemed able to make sense of them and were busily filling in the little bubbles on the answer sheet. Several days later, the teacher called us to his desk, one by one, for a conference. "Marie, you got the lowest score of all five of my classes. I don't think you can learn French but you need to take it and do well if you want to get into college. You will have a lot of trouble keeping up but good luck."  Good luck???!! I was terrified. This big male authority figure had just told me I was bound to fail and that my whole future depended on passing anyway.  From that day on, I hated French lessons. From that day on, I felt doomed every time I went into class. And from that day on, I was never fully there. Somehow I managed to squeak by with a D but I approached everything about the subject with dread. My fear of studying a foreign language was only solved when I decided to take German in college. I was able to work my mind around to an idea that German would be different. So, of course, it was.

Jake

Jake had difficulty with fine motor skills in preschool that continued throughout most of his time in elementary school. Work with an occupational therapist helped him learn how to hold his pencil and how to write. Still, holding the pencil and making it go the way he wanted it to go was awkward at best and his handwriting was next to illegible. As he grew older, the adults in his life became more and more impatient with his handwriting. It was true that he could produce legible work if he used a special rubber grip and was very, very careful. It was also true that writing so carefully made him the last kid to turn in the work, often holding up his group. Teachers sighed. Kids teased. Writing assignments made Jake anxious. Jake wanted to write less and less. Writing made him feel dumb. Writing made him the butt of jokes. Writing made him scared. His oral work showed him to be bright and capable but he always did the bare minimum on written papers and tests. By fifth grade he was diagnosed as having a language based learning disability which let both his teachers and Jake off the hook some. Well-meaning teachers let him tape his work or answer test questions orally. They didn't know they were helping Jake avoid a task that made him afraid. They didn't understand that every day they let him "leave" the task of writing, they further handicapped him.

How a phobia is mastered

Fast forward a few years for our friend Jake, described above. He is now 16, a sophomore in high school, and convinced that he can't achieve in school. Any writing assignment makes him so upset and anxious that he can't sit still for it. He horses around, sharpens his pencil, or teases the kids next to him. He has also started using marijuana regularly and often comes to school was a glazed look. Pot helps him "mellow out" he says. Of course it does. This kid is a nervous wreck. He is phobic about writing and he has to write every single day. For him, the physical act of handwriting has teeth, claws, and scales. For him, having to take up a pen and write something is as frightening as scary as having to face a grizzly bear.

Basic steps to master a phobia.

1.       psychoeducation

2.     teach self-soothing techniques

3.     develop a hierarchy of frightening events

4.     confront each item on the hierarchy, using the self-soothing techniques.

Step 1: psycho-education

          Students who have developed phobias seldom know what it is. All they know is that they are upset about things that other people find ordinary. They feel weird. They often wonder what is wrong with them. The first step in mastering a phobia is to help a child or teen understand what is going on. These kids need to know that although their situation is painful, it isn't weird. Rather, it is a normal reaction to a painful situation.

Step 2: Teach self-soothing

          Students with phobias have usually fallen on a number of ways to "leave" the situation. They "leave" because it is just too painful to stay. The counselor works with the student to help him understand all the various ways that he leaves the situation as well as the many ways the student already knows to calm himself. He also spends time on breathing techniques and self-assurance techniques so that the student can practice independently from the counselor.

Step 3: Develop a hierarchy of frightening events.

          Once the student and counselor have figured out what is frightening to the student, they must work together to make a list of things that are related to the situation but that have varying degrees of fear attached. When first asked what about writing was okay for him, Jake said that even thinking about it made him want to run.  But when pressed he was able to come up with the following list. He was then asked to rank the degree of scariness from 0 – 100.

By doing this exercise, Jake and his counselor learned something important. The items that were at the top of the scale were when he felt under pressure and that he would be judged. They decided to include some work on these issues as well as the fears in the course of their work together.

Step 4: Confront each item on the hierarchy using the self-soothing techniques to settle down

          At this stage the counselor systematically works with Jake to actually do each of the items on the hierarchy from the task that has the lowest stress level to the task that has the highest.. As they move up the hierarchy, they talk a lot about how Jake feels. They work on using the new soothing techniques. They take their time. As Jake settles himself down during each event, he gains confidence in his ability to do just that -- calm himself down. He learns that the alternative to leaving is to stay and work it through. He learns that he can take charge of how he reacts and feels in the situation. He learns to trust himself again.

Untreated, school phobia can have negative consequences for a child's present and future. A child who is anxious and scared about some aspect of school can not and will not learn that piece of the curriculum. Equally worrisome is that the child also learns that he can't learn. Self-esteem and motivation plummet. A bright capable child grows into an adult who is limited by both gaps in knowledge and by his own fears. It's an unnecessary outcome. Careful treatment designed specifically to address a particular child's phobia can help such a child get back on track and fulfill his own potential.