Missing work or school and school avoidance

School avoidance – In my work with teenagers and young people for many years I recognise that school avoidance is a common occurrence, especially during high school. There are many reasons for why a young person may avoid school, but in my experience, it is rarely due to school simply being boring (despite this being the number one descriptor from most young people who avoid school). Avoiding school is usually a symptom of an underlying issue, which could be a broader and more complex relationship with anxiety, a protest behaviour towards authority or parents, related to friendships (such as peer insecurity) or lacking friends, etc. 

At times school avoidance occurs in the context of depression and low moods, especially for young people who experience many bodily symptoms of depression (e.g. lack of energy, constantly feeling tired, oversleeping). I continually meet many parents who are at their wits end about what to do, at times haunted by insecurity in the parental role, asking whether they are doing more damage or on the right track. Above anything else, we work together in establishing a trusting relationship, identifying the many aspects of how the problem emerged, how it is maintained, what it achieves, and collaboratively we create a treatment plan. 

Bullying in the workplace or at school – experiencing unwanted and uncomfortable treatment from others create relentless emotional and mental pressure. Bullying behaviour is surprisingly common, especially in school settings and in work settings with many people in the same location and usually with a hierarchical structure or foundation. The person who experiences the bullying is usually targeted by one or several other people, and the ongoing attacks are either physical (less in a workplace), emotional, or psychological in nature. 

Bullies hurt people where they are most vulnerable and will often use a person’s emotional state (embarrassment in particular) as the primary weapon of choice. For example, if a person seems shy, self-conscious, and perhaps avoidant of attention, the bully will usually target the person in a public place with many others, using an extroverted approach, and make personal comments about appearance. When we work together to establish the predictable pattern of behaviour, we can often counter-act and defend against attacks. 

Improving performance – procrastination, demand avoidance, time wasting, fire-fighting, working hard and achieving little, are but a few of the many typical barriers to improve performance regardless of setting and task and unrelated to age. In my experience these are typical symptoms of an underlying issue related to how we translate ideas and thought to observable actions.