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It used to be called “playing hooky” when a teen skipped school—an occasional event in order to do something fun. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were the masters of skipping school in their day, with Ferris Buehler brilliantly reinventing the practice in the ‘80s. But in my work with adolescents over the past twenty years, these rascally and humorous examples of skipping school have given way to a disturbing epidemic. Adolescents are no longer just occasionally playing hooky to get a taste of freedom and mild mischief. Many teens are chronically skipping school to the point that they are failing classes, losing touch with peers, and becoming terribly isolated. The peer, academic, and parental demands on American teens, however, are arguably higher now than ever before, leading some to do whatever they can to escape them.

In most cases of school avoidance, it’s important to remember that the teen feels he or she has a compelling emotional reason for this behavior. Most often the roots of chronic school avoidance boil down to intense depression and/or anxiety—both of which are highly treatable. So balancing your attempts to compel school attendance with a compassionate desire to understand your child’s emotional state can help you discover the root causes of their school avoidance. Understanding these causes is a first step to engaging your child in a manner that is effective and to identifying the kind of help they may need. A trip to your local therapist, psychologist or educational consultant can be a good next step; these professionals can conduct assessments that might shed light on both the cause of and treatment for your child’s school avoidance.

Following is a partial list of common precipitants for chronic school avoidance that parents should look out for:

Social Anxiety: Social anxiety disorder is a condition in which an anxiety response is triggered by social interaction. Often social anxiety is caused by a combination of brain chemistry, neurological predisposition and/or social conditioning or trauma.

  • Agoraphobia: Agoraphobia literally means a fear of public places. The term is used to describe disabling anxiety related to any of a number of public settings or situations. Because agoraphobic tendencies can generalize to many settings, agoraphobia sometimes manifests as a refusal to leave one’s house or even one’s bedroom or bed. Agoraphobia is a specific form of anxiety disorder.
  • Depression: Adolescent depression is rampant today. Signs of depression include listlessness, loss of interest in normal activities, withdrawal, talk of self-harm, excessive sleeping, and hopeless sounding speech. Depression may have chemical, environmental, and/or even seasonal causes.
  • Bullying: Teens frequently create exclusive and, in some cases, abusive cliques that establish social territory by bullying. Bullying may be verbal or physical and may be delivered in person or electronically—through threatening or abusive Facebook posts or emails, etcetera. Bullying is a serious problem and can lead to severe anxiety, depression, and avoidance of situations in which the bullying takes place. Often, the shame that accompanies being bullied makes teens reluctant to discuss it with their parents or peers.
  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Some teens struggle with a heightened and pervasive sense of overall anxiety. This may have biological and/or environmental causes. For these students, the academic and/or social pressure of school may push that generalized anxiety to a very uncomfortable level, even without a specific causal factor.
  • Sleep Issues: Sleep is a big issue for teens, who not only need more of it than they typically get but who also need it at the right times. Once a teen’s sleep cycle is disrupted, it can lead to chronic fatigue, insomnia, depression, and/or anxiety. Some adolescents simply just can’t get to sleep. This may be caused by their daily or evening routine, consumption of caffeinated sodas, internet addiction, depression or anxiety, or even the amount and timing of their daily sun exposure.
  • Sneaking Out: Many adolescents have a secret nightlife that has them out and about late at night while their parents are asleep. This may signal substance abuse, oppositional tendencies, and/or promiscuity.
  • Substance Abuse: Abusing substances can interrupt sleep cycles, reduce motivation or simply eclipse other interests.
  • Low Self Esteem: Poor school performance, social awkwardness, the physical changes of adolescence, problems at home, and many other factors can precipitate low self-esteem. Teens with low self-esteem may avoid any setting that is highly social or that brings attention to things about themselves they do not like.
  • Trauma: If school avoidance is sudden and extreme, and your child will not talk about it, don’t rule out the possibility that a trauma has occurred. Trauma may include any frightening or violating event that is severe enough to create extreme anxiety.