Health and Wellbeing
Mental Health Network: September 2024 | Anxiety | School Avoidance
A warm welcome, the same routine each morning and help to calm down can make school feel possible again for an anxious child.
- 23 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 0.5 CPD hours
- Certificate
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What you'll learn
- Brief frontline staff on greeting an anxious child warmly, whatever they're wearing
- Decide which rules to let slide so the day starts neutral or better
- Set up a morning routine with a familiar person, place and activity
- Help a child manage worries with share it, shelf it, shout it, shed it
- Use 'if... then' planning to prepare for what they fear might go wrong
About this course
For a child on the edge of school avoidance, getting through the door may have taken since the night before. What happens next matters. A telling-off about a hoodie or late homework tells their brain that school is a place to fear, and tomorrow gets harder.
The aim is a day that's neutral or better. You'll plan how staff greet the child, including the office team, who are often the first face they see. You'll build a routine they can repeat each morning, with a familiar person and place, and work out with the child what helps them calm down, whether that's breathing together, blowing bubbles or burning off energy. There's an "if... then" plan to download for talking through their worries.
The ideas come from a child mental health expert whose own daughters have both struggled to attend school.
- For early career teachers, mental health leads and 6 other roles. All phases.
Recording
Open in order
- 9 min
Introduction & Idea 1
- 7 min
Idea 2
- 8 min
Idea 3
Resources