School anxiety in a nine-year-old, with parent support

He had refused to go to school for five months running. He said his heart hurt and that his hands shook when he entered the classroom. His mother said he was calm and happy at home and that only school was a problem, and that contradiction made it hard to work with.

The assessment was done in two separate sessions. The child's session showed the problem was one specific event in his first year at school rather than school in general.

In therapy, play was the main tool: we built the classroom out of figures and named the situations one at a time. Work was also done separately with the parents so that their response to the child's anxiety could change.

He returned three days a week in month four and five days in month seven. The important part was that his mother learned not to ask about his day before school — that one change did more than any technique.