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School and Me - A Helpful Toolkit for EBSA, School Refusal and Anxiety
'School and Me' is a helpful toolkit to explore EBSA, school avoidance and school anxiety in children age 5-10. This toolkit has been co-produced with children experiencing school avoidance and anxiety in collaboration with Lucy and her daughter Ella, 8, from Olive & Pip.
What is EBSA?
Emotionally-based school avoidance (EBSA) is a term referring to reduced or nonattendance at school by a child or young person. The term EBSA recognises that this avoidance stems from emotional, mental health or wellbeing issues. You may hear this referred to as school refusal or school avoidance interchangeably. We much prefer the term EBSA, due to the focus on the emotional reasons impacting the child, rather than the child simply refusing to go to school.
Here at Be Happy Resources, we know that a lot of children can experience anxieties around school and a system that pushes 100% attendance, which can affect not only a child's mental health - but the caregiver's too. Most often, parents and caregivers can feel at their wits end when their child refuses to go to school and may feel unsupported. This has a huge impact mentally on the whole family.
A lot of caregivers and even teaching professionals may not fully understand the emotional and mental affects of EBSA and how to explore these confidently with children. This is where our toolkit can help. Whilst our toolkit is not a replacement for professional support, we believe that supporting children to explore, manage and communicate their worries can help to improve their wellbeing and return to school.
Causes
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There is no single cause for EBSA. In fact, there are likely to be various contributing factors for why a young person may not want to attend school. It's important that caregivers and professionals understand that there may be a lot of complex and interlinked factors affecting the child, including their home and school environment.
A child will have no control over the emotional issues affecting their absences. If we can seek to understand the reasons why the child is absent and support their wellbeing, this will mean they are far more likely to return to school. Reasons why a child may not want to attend school can be:
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To avoid uncomfortable feelings brought on by attending school, such as anxiety or low mood.
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To avoid situations that might be stressful, such as academic demands, social pressures and/or other aspects of the school environment.
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To reduce separation anxiety from significant others, such as parents or other family members/caregivers.
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To pursue other activities outside of school, such as going shopping or playing computer games.
Symptoms
There can be many physical and mental symptoms of EBSA, which typically worsen in the mornings before school, the nights before school and can lessen during weekends and school holidays. Symptoms include:
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Fearfulness, anxiety, tantrums or negative feelings when faced with the prospect of attending school.
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Children may complain of tummy aches, headaches, sore throats or say that they are too ill to attend school, often with no signs of actual physical illness.
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Children may complain of typical anxiety symptoms including a racing heart, shaking, sweating, difficulty breathing, butterflies in the tummy or nausea, pins and needles.
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Symptoms are generally worse on weekday mornings and can be entirely absent at weekends and during school holidays.
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About Our Toolkit
Our EBSA and school refusal toolkit has been designed to help children explore the reasons surrounding their school avoidance and learn how to communicate and manage their worries more effectively. It has also been developed as a useful tool to communicate with professionals in your child's life, such as your child's school.
We would always recommend sharing the results of these activities with your child's teacher or any professionals in their lives such as social workers or mental health professionals.
Your child can complete this toolkit in any order, we would always advise to take your child's lead. Try to choose a time when they are relaxed and comfortable, and avoid times when they are tired. If your child doesn't want to do it, put it away and try again another time.
There may be new topics and things in this workbook your child may not understand or that may be an entirely new concepts. This is where you can help. We have included a helpful guide for caregivers and non-professionals to give you enough advice and guidance on each activity so that you can feel confident in supporting your child through this toolkit.
Once you have downloaded this toolkit, it is yours to keep and you can print out as many times as you wish. All we ask is that you do not share, distribute or copy this resource. A lot of time and care has gone into creating each and every activity.
Disclaimer: This toolkit is not a replacement for professional support. It may help your child in exploring and communicating how they are feeling and things that may be troubling them. We would recommend you share this toolkit with your child’s teacher or any professionals in your child’s life. If you have any concerns about your child's mental health, or you feel that their mental health may be worsening, please visit your GP or contact a mental health professional.
About the Activities
This toolkit features 21 specially designed activities to support children to explore, communicate and manage their worries. From helping children to learn about where they might feel worry, to exploring calming techniques and coping tools they can use at school. We'll go through a few of these activities below!
Where I Feel Worry - The aim of this activity is to help children explore their physical responses to anxiety. Perhaps they may get a tummy ache before school, or their legs may feel like jelly. This activity helps children to realise that anxiety can cause lots of different physical symptoms and how to recognise these.
My School of Worries - When we are worried about something, it's always better to talk about it! But it might be hard to find out what we're worrying about or what is worrying us the most. This activity helps your children to get down all the thoughts out of their head onto paper. Then, it asks them to think about which worries are affecting them the most. Maybe they only have one worry, or maybe they have a few - this activity is all about exploring how each worry makes us feel. Once they have identified which worries are upsetting them the most, they can complete our Rate Your Worry activity.
Rate Your Worry - This activity is all about managing those worries and thoughts that are affecting your child. If it is a real worry - this is a worry that is happening right now, such as bullying - make a plan of action to do something about this worry. If it's a hypothetical worry - a worry that hasn't happened yet and may never happen - make a 'plan of actions' - things they can do when they feel this worry. For example, they could talk to a grown up and take some deep breaths.
Things That Make Me Feel Safe - This activity is about helping your child realise what things at school can comfort them if they are feeling anxious or upset. It also helps children to think of school as a safe and comforting place.
My Safe Place - Some children with EBSA may have a dedicated safe place at school, such as a calm corner or comfort area. If your child has one of these, this activity asks them to write and draw their safe place. This is a mindful activity, reinforcing the comfort this safe place gives them by using their senses.
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My Weekly Top 3 - This activity is all about helping your child think positively about school and the good things that happen. We understand that for children with anxiety, it can be hard to think of positive things, your child may say for example that nothing good has happened. This can be a natural reaction. You can help your child realise their own positives - they don't have to be huge accomplishments, but small weekly wins that made them feel good.
Conversation Cards - Our Conversation Cards are fun ways to learn about your child's day. Have you ever picked your child up from school and instantly asked them if they had a nice day and they just say 'yeh' or 'can't remember?' When children finish school they are still processing the day's events, and for children with EBSA they may have spent the day masking. We would recommend you use our Conversation Cards when they have settled at home - they are designed to get your child thinking about the good things that happened in their day. Our Conversation Cards work both ways - it's much more fun when they get to ask the questions too!
My Coping Pencil Case - This fun craft activity is all about helping your child to learn about ways that help them feel calm when they are experiencing distress or panic. Have them cut out and create their Coping Pencil Case! We have suggested some tools and techniques in our toolkit to help your child learn about ways to feel calm.
Fun Things To Do On The Way to School - All our activities have been suggested from our expert contributors! But we know that your child may also have games they like to play - so we've included some blank cards for them to create their own. These can be used as a distraction technique to keep minds busy on the way to school.
My After School Bucket List - We're sticking with the theme of things to look forward to in this activity and helping your child through the school day. What's on their after school bucket list? Is it watching their favourite programme, making a fun craft or maybe it's having their favourite evening meal? Don't forget to have them tick each activity off as they do it!
Breathing Exercises - Deep breathing can help children bring their focus to something they can control - their breath - instead of thoughts and fears that can exasperate anxiety. Not only this, but deep breathing has many benefits for both mental and physical wellness. We've included two fun breathing exercises, combined with some mindful tracing in this toolkit.
Guide for Caregivers - We've provided a helpful guide for parents and caregivers at the back which guides you through each activity and helps you feel confident in supporting your child. We've also explained how each activity is designed to support your child's emotional and mental wellbeing.
Plus lots more!
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