Areas › Worry and anxiety › The cost of avoiding
Offer school again at ten, and at eleven, and after lunch. One refusal at half past seven should not be allowed to decide the whole day.
Morning dread usually peaks around the time they would be leaving and then drains away over a couple of hours. A child who could not face it at half past seven can often manage third period, and will almost never suggest that themselves. Keep the offer open, ask lightly, take no for an answer each time without a row, and mean it when you ask again.
Qur’an and Sunnah
My sons, go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God's mercy (Quran 12:87). Jacob sends them out again after years of nothing, which is roughly the patience this asks for.
يَٰبَنِيَّ ٱذۡهَبُواْ فَتَحَسَّسُواْ مِن يُوسُفَ وَأَخِيهِ وَلَا تَاْيۡـَٔسُواْ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يَاْيۡـَٔسُ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلۡقَوۡمُ ٱلۡكَٰفِرُونَ
My sons, go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God’s mercy- only disbelievers despair of God’s mercy.’
Qur’an 12:87read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Reviews of exposure written from an inhibitory learning view argue that the work is done by finding out the expected disaster did not happen, and that this is only learned by going towards the thing. These are theoretical reviews assembling laboratory and clinical evidence, not trials of hourly offers. Read at that level, each fresh offer is another chance for the prediction to be tested rather than confirmed.
Craske MG, Treanor M, Conway CC, Zbozinek T, Vervliet B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: an inhibitory learning approach.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The fear comes down as the morning goes on, so leaving the door open catches the hour when going in becomes possible.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A long stretch at home is never neutral time. It teaches two things at once: staying away stops the dread, and staying away is pleasant.
Every adjustment should arrive with the date you will start reducing it. Written down at the beginning, while everyone is still reasonable.
Where a child is not attending, the adults are often already cross with each other. That argument has to be parked before any plan will hold.