My 10 Year Old Child Suffered From Severe School Phobia.

I have decided to write about this because, although it is all very personal and was extremely stressful at the time, I would have found great comfort in reading such a story had I been able to find one on the web 6 years ago.

We are a family of four, husband Pete, daughter Gemma (now 21) and son Adam (now 18).

Eight years ago, when Adam was 10 years old and still at primary school he began to suffer from severe (and I mean severe) school phobia. He had been diagnosed as severely dyslexic three years earlier and found acadmeic work challenging. However, he was a happy go lucky child most of the time, very funny and engaging, but with a tendency towards extreme anxiety. There were no real warning signs of the difficulties we were about to face apart from a tendency for him to need to know where his sister was in the school at all times and he got very upset if he didn't know where I was also.

One evening Adam felt ill and ran a high temperature. I dosed him with Calpol and suggested he went to bed early , which he did. A few hours later he appeared to wake up but I now know he was just sleep walking/talking and he was saying some very bizarre things about other planets and telling us to stay away from him. I steered him back to bed and the next morning he seemed fine and could rememeber nothing of his previous evening's rantings. He had the rest of the day off school and then the next morning our problems began.

I took Adam to school the next day, just a short drive from our home. By now Gemma had gone to Secondary school so Adam was getting used to being at school without her but despite being fine in the car, when we approached the classroom he began to panic. He begged me not to make him go inside but I persuaded him, as mothers do, and we spoke to his lovely class teacher Miss K. As I explained about his illness, Adam started to back himself up against the wall and shout that he wasn't staying and no one could make him. I tried to calm him down but he bacame more upset so Miss K decided to pop into the next classroom and ask Mr R to come and help. As soon as Adan saw Miss K and Mr R standing by the door (his only escape route I guess) he picked up a pencil and declared he would stab himself if they didn't move out of the way. By now he was sobbing and shaking and saying he was going to die (full panic attack).

The teachers looked at me in horror and I asked them to move from the door and guided Adam out into the playground. i encoraged him to breath slowly and reassured him he didn't have to go back into the classroom right now.

Anyway I took him home and each day I tried to return with him, something similar happened so in desperation I booked him into the doctors. By now Adam was damaging stuff at home (climbing inside his wardrobe and kicking the sides out, grabbing a knife and slashing door frames, climbing onto the garage roof and threatening to jump) so I had plenty to tell the doctor.

I was beginning to feel really frightened by all this and very worried about Adam's mental health. My husband and I argued over whether we were somehow to blame, had we cared too much, not enough, said something damaging without realising it? and on and on.....

The doctor was very sympathetic and referred us to the child & Family Unit where we met a lovely Psychologist called Dr Finnan.

Although the doctor was lovely and trying her best to help, this was an extremely stressful time for us. Over a period of two years, Dr Finan tried to get to the root cause of Adam's problems (but there didn't really appear to be one - apart from his dyslexia and anxiety about being able to cope in the next school) and ended up putting him on Prozac to cut the anxiety levels.

It was a hard decision to make with regards to the medication, but by now Adam was trying to harm himself at home, I was struggling to hold down a part-time teaching job and we couldn't bear to see him so distressed, so we agreed to give it a try (afterall we couldn't go on like this and neither could he).

Initially the prozac calmed him down and he began to reveal glimpses of the old Adam again. The self harming attempts stopped but getting him into school was still a nightmare. We would go and park in the school carpark and a lovely school assistant would take him to the reception class ( he didn't feel trapped when in with that teacher and the little ones) but he had to be able to see us in the carpark the whole time he was in school or he wouldn't stay. My parents, Pete and I all did shifts in that carpark whilst trying to hold down our jobs - a nightmare time!

We somehow managed to struggle to the end of the academic year and thus marked the changeover to secondary school. Although the staff at the primary school had been good in trying to help, I think they were relieved to pass the problem on.

That summer was great, Adam was still on medication but without the danger of being made to go into school each day, the real Adam began to emerge again. We began to relax and talk very positively about the next school. Adam even excitedly came and chose his uniform.

Now we asked ourselves lots of questions at this time and beat ourselves up continually about what had happened, how could we have prevented it or handled it better? etc but the bottom line is that we were so stressed that the pressure on us was huge and we tried really hard for Adam not to see that stress but we were so fearful for him and his future.

He began secondary school (still on Prozac) and for a whole half-term he seemed to cope well and went off with his friends (a short walk to school) each day. Then we had half term holidays and there was no way he was going back to school afterwards.

Very quickly he plummeted back down to where he had been before, self harming, damaging our home, foul language etc. The nightmare had returned so.... the Dr upped the dose of Prozac.

This didn't seem to have much effect and daily I would try to get Adam into school, occasionally succeeding but more often failing, whilst still trying to do my job as a Head of Dyslexia Support at a local private school.

The doctor looked at all sorts of conditions, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Autism .....but she felt none of them were really a good 'fit' for Adam. He was referred to Birmingham childrens hospital, now on the highest dose of Prozac he could be on for his age, and they suggested he stay on their children's mental health ward for 4 weeks for them to observe him.

We went home and discussed this and after a great deal of consternation, decided to wean him off the Prozac, remove him from school completely (as the school had been suggesting) and teach him at home. I resigned and we put his hospital admission 'on hold' for now.

This seemed like a brave step for us (Pete particularly, who believed a child needed to be in school or else what would happen to him in later life?) but I joined Education Otherwise and found some local home educators to talk to. It seemed Adam's story was not that unusual - particularly amongst dyslexic/ADHD/Aspergers children!

I can't say this was a magical solution and everything was suddenly fine because it wasn't. We had to wean Adam off the Prozac very slowly as he suffered some side effects and he took a long time to believe we weren't ever going to make him go back to school again. He didn't like being taught by me and we had many battles. He didn't enjoy mixing with the other home ed kids at social functions and we worried about 'socialisation skills'. I missed my job and we struggled for money.

But slowly, very slowly, Adam began to 'get better'. He came off Prozac, started sleeping better (up until this point he had been on Melatonin tablets to help him sleep) and stopped much of the negative behaviour of the previous 2 years. He was still inclined to angry outbursts, couldn't stay away from home and needed to know where I was all the time. We cancelled the hospital appointment.

Between the ages of 12 and 16 I home educated Adam in the way he learned best - by doing! He is a very kineasthetic learner. He didn't sit any exams but was educated to GCSE level in Maths and English at least. He started a Mechanics Apprenticeship at 16 but dropped out after a year because he couldnt bear being controlled and spoken to 'like a piece of dirt'

Between the ages of 17 and 18, he set up his own car mechanics business and he gave every impression that he was a sociable and outgoing individual who would have a very successful life. We now know that he was simply 'performing' as he knew this was how to gain approval and acceptance. Just recently Adam began to implode again and he felt he was worthless. We became very concerned for his safety.

Now here's the exciting bit! We found out that ALL of his problems were because we had parented him wrongly afterall. No blame or guilt attached because we didnt know! We simply parented how we had been parented ourselves. I was over protective (immensely damaging) and Pete was critical and judgemental (equally damaging).

Once we discovered this thanks to an amazingly generous Dr Greg Baer www. reallove.com, Adam was able to tell the truth about himself (his thoughts, worries and detructive behaviours) and confront us with all the wrongs we had (unknowingly) done to him. We were then able to acknowledge each of them and thank him for sharing.

ADAM CHANGED IN 24 HOURS. He stopped his destructive bahaviours (because he wanted to), he became positive and focussed and oozed contentment and happiness.

I cannot empahasise enough that the real answer as to why our son had a breakdown/school phobia was because he did not feel UNCONDITIONALLY loved. I thought I knew what that meant. I didn't. Now I know and I am eternally greatful for Dr Baer showing me the way.

If your child is going through a breakdown, experiencing a high level of anxiety, or exhibiting school phobia I urge you to do the bravest thing you will ever do and contact Greg@reallove.com. He will help you realise what is happening in your child and your role in it. THIS IS THE ONLY ANSWER - everything else is just treating the symptoms and masking the problem.

If I can offer any advice or support to someone going through a similar exerience I will - please just email me: nikkiuglow@hotmail.co.uk

If you found my hub interesting and/or helpful please leave a comment below.

Thank you.