Story time
I want to share two short anecdotes that, at first glance, may not seem to have much to do with school or, more specifically, school avoidance.
I promise I’ll explain the connection afterward.
2011
When I was pregnant I had a lot of nausea in my first trimester, as many do. I was trying to rest on the couch while listening to music one day when my nausea was particularly bad. There was a song I liked at the time and I listened to it a lot that day.
I could not listen to that song again for a decade.
Every time I heard it, I had an aversive response and would start feeling a tad nauseous.
It took over ten years for that association to fade. Ten. Years.
It may not have taken so long if I had made intentional efforts to make positive associations, but it wasn’t something I prioritized. Luckily I had the option of simply avoiding the song if I didn’t want to listen to it.
2018
In the summer of 2018, while on vacation as a family, we stayed at a hotel-style suite on a lake. A quirk about this place was that all of their smoke alarms were inter-connected and also highly sensitive, such that if one room set off their alarm, every room’s alarm would go off.
One morning our son was about to go brush his teeth and the alarm went off just as he entered the bathroom. This scared him, of course, and he came running out. We comforted him and assured him that everything was fine, the alarm had been set off by someone making their breakfast in another unit.
Our son was afraid to re-enter the bathroom despite the fact the alarm had nothing to do with brushing his teeth. Because the two events had occurred at the same time, his brain made a connection between the two, and caused his “warning system” to activate when he headed towards the bathroom again.
With support and reassurance from his parents, our son was able to overcome this anxiety and continue with his routine, but the next time he needed to go into that same washroom he hesitated. After a few times he was able to understand that the timing was coincidental, but it took many more times to undo the fear than it did to create it.
Okay, now back to schools
When students struggle to attend school, the staff seem to have only two strategies in their toolkit.
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