Many districts are back to school this week, causing outbreaks of nerves in legions of kids. Most will soon settle into a routine, conquering their fears and finding success. For some, however, the fear goes far beyond the jitters. For a 17 year old Pennsylvania girl, school phobia has greatly impacted her life.
According to NPR, the teenager has been unable to attend school since she was eight. Plagued with phobia symptoms that she likened to a heart attack, she was unable to focus, to complete assignments or even speak to others. The district sent tutors to her home for the next six years, but when testing determined that she was performing far under grade level, her parents successfully sued the school district. They won a settlement calculated at $45 per hour for 1,000 hours of instruction the girl did not receive.
Her parents have used some that money for pay for summer camps and modeling classes, activities that they argue are therapeutic. At the school district’s suggestion, the girl tried boarding school for three months. When her phobia became overwhelming, she dropped out.
Now the school district has had enough. They point to the three months she spent at boarding school as evidence that she is sufficiently recovered to attend classes. Ironically, the parents are now being fined for truancy and have racked up more than $11,000 in fines.
School phobia is very real, but only rarely does it reach the levels claimed in this article. In order to formulate an opinion of what is fair, I would need to know more facts. Has the girl received mental health counseling? What is her doctor or therapist’s opinion? Has the school district brought in an independent expert to examine her? What do that expert’s facts show?
I have no doubt that the girl in question does suffer from a legitimate phobia. However, I wonder if she is an innocent victim caught in a battle of wills between her parents and the school system. Has anyone, on either side, worked with an expert to develop a treatment plan for something that, if left untreated, could disable the girl for life?
Read more about school phobias, including symptoms and treatment options, at Back to School Phobias.
She needs to be tested for face blindness also known as prosopagnosia. I was never allowed not to tend school but I had new kid in school jitters every day I was there from first grade to last day of High school.I developed serious gut problems due to undiagnosed gluten intolerance in High school and had to go on home bound for a few months. That probably saved my sanity. I can’t recognize people by their faces. The part of the brain that is hardwired in most folks to do that easily and instantly does not work in me. I am also car blind and place blind. I can see but my brain doesn’t remember what I saw in those specific areas. I can remember what trees and plants look like just fine. Most counselors and psychologists, even psychiatrists and neurologists have never even heard of this! So trying to get it officially diagnosed is a bear and there is NO treatment.I also have Asperger’s syndrome, can’t read or respond to facial expressions but face blindness can exist on its own as the child’s only problem which ironically makes it even harder to diagnose. A parent or teacher may notice a child is not responding to expressions. (they didn’t with me) but may not realize the reason the child is too “shy to make friends” is they can’t. Once someone leaves a room or I do and comes back in again it is as if that person is a separate person to me except I can go by clothes for that day. But folks change their clothes so forming friendships was just about impossible. I also could not tell who my enemies were and of course, being very different I did have them! I got scolded by teachers and counselors for “always having my nose in a book” as if not doing that would have solved the problem. I got told repeatedly I was rude. (I “snubbed” people by accident and looked at them blankly instead of emoting back and forth with them. Telling an Aspergerian they are rude and people will like them if they quit being rude is like telling a Dyslexic Kid they will read better if they just read better. We are socially learning disabled by failing to be able to pick up social cues and show our feelings on our face. Or we do the opposite over emoting not realizing others don’t need that much to get what we are feeling. We end u at the bottom of the pecking order and no matter how much we wanted to be around people at first, soon we learn to avoid them to avoid constant social failure. I also have a learning disability I don’t even have a name for and have never heard described by anyone. I can’t learn from being shown stuff. I have almost had car accidents because I can’t read the traffic directors hand signals to tell what they want me to do1 All that hand waving is a foreign language to me. If a teacher is pointing stuff out on the board, demonstrating how to do something it takes all my mental energy to figure out where the Teacher’s hand is and by the time I do that it has already been to several other places on the board. So there is no way to learn from all that hand waving they do. My father tried to teach me to drive by having me “watch what I do.” I could not. My friend sat me in the drivers seat and talked me through it. No problem. How many other Kids are terrified or bored stiff with school or misdiagnosed as lazy or dumb because of this? What is it called? Does anyone know? Write me if you know what it is called or have the same problem or know someone who does! lhensley@webkraft-hs.net
First let me say I’m crying so hard it’s very hard to even write this. It’s also lucky that I can write at all spelling/ gramar humm? I was living in a small Midwest town whil I had great grades in my early years that would soon change. This story has repeated it’s self a thousand times so let’s just say it I learned that I was gay . Wow how could this be ! I felt so very alone and nowhere to turn just panic all around not such what to do . I went to doctor after doctor no not one was “adult enough” to say anything to help me and why bcz there was no answering this sad boys question. Now I’m still lost and I pray I can somehow help others to learn we are not all the same and therefore good but rather we are different and equal ! My life has been hard you need an education to get by . You learn to take one day at a time and keep smiling . If you see a child not wanting to go to school help them to understand theirself . I just look for the good in life everyday but I can’t help to think that someone could have helped me ?? Next time you hear someone say gay ppl make a choice think THINK about me .
Seems all these people could have been helped by a parent that cared enough to give up the second paycheck(or in my case the first)stay home and help them homeschool, or rather self school. School has always been a frightening place, even before crime, drugs and school shootings became commonplace. The only kids who really like school have a seriously lacking home life as an alternative. “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” will explain how homeschool is easier than you think, and legal in every state. With computers in libraries everywhere and most homes, there is no real need to spend 13 years learning the basics. Put yourself in THEIR place, not the school you remember. Things have changed!
I am sorry I don’t understand what grounds the parents sued the schools? The girl had tutors. If it is a medical condition it is not the school district’s fault but the parents for not getting her whatever treatment she needed. If they did and it didn’t work, then why did the school get sued when its not their fault. Schools are their to teach children, but its the student’s responsibility to learn.
And I do understand phobias. I have one actually of driving and I don’t have a license though I should have one by my age. I get panic attacks while driving and so I understand that it is dangerous for me to be on the road until I overcome this phobia. I am working on this now. But would I sue the driver’s ed people? Of course not. That is illogical to me.
Let me get this straight — the girl was home most of the day every day for six years, and the parents didn’t know she was “far under grade level”? So they sue and win $45,000, and instead of hiring private tutors to educate her or getting her treatment, they send her to summer camp?
Could there be a connection here?
I was never diagnosed has having school phobia, it probably wasn;t around in the 50’s when I started school. I’m sure I had it though. I worried so much about going to school that I got a doudenal ulcer at the ripe old age of 6. The ulder was not diagnosed until I was 7 but I’m sure the true cause of it was fear of school.
I remember as a first grader that I would be fine on the weekends but starting about 6 p.m. Sunday night my parents and I would be watching lassie or the wonderful sorld of disney on tv and I would start to get a stomach ache. I knew I would have to go to bed soom and get up for school the next morning. First grade was pure torcher for me. I would throw up almost every school day morning. Sometimes I would be allowed to stay home but everyone including my parents thought I was faking being this sick. Once the ulcer was diagnosed all adults felt guilty for doubting me illness. i had to take medicine before and after each mean including lunch and my mother would come to the school at lunch time to dispense my medicine because back then schools had no provision to give out drugs of any kind.
We moved to a new town when I was 8 and going in to the 3rd grade. I must have felt more secure at this new school because I gradually got better and did not need to take ulcer medication. I would have occassional flare ups of school phobia through junior high and high school but not like those first 2 years. It is amazing that I went to college, got a teaching degree and became a successful adult but things could have turned out very different.