Anxious child with constant stomach aches/staying home from school

[Anonymous]

We just went through this with our 10 yr old for the second year in a row. A few things to consider that helped us. First talk to school and get their support. Instead of forcing him to do a full day we integrated him slowly over a 5-7 day period. First day goal was to do one class. 2nd day was two classes and so on. We also had the school assign a point person to walk him into school/class everyday. This person was one of the school counselors. When in class he was allowed breaks, and was also allowed to talk to the school counsel if he said his anxiety was high. We also started on meds. For us Prozac seems to have helped. But we also gave him propananol in the am while the Prozac was ramping up. The Propananol kicks in very quick to lower your heart rate, which supposedly helps with anxiety.
It’s hard OP, good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is he being bullied

Look carefully into this possibility. The behavior which OP describes is classic fora child who is being bullied, either verbally or physically, at school.

[Anonymous]

You’ve gotten good advice, OP.

I would also look into doing a full neuropsych to see if there are any learning disabilities, etc.

[Anonymous]

He’s playing You.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our 9 y/o son has always had some anxiety, and has seen a therapist who is mildly helpful. In the past few months, we've had a bit more stress at home due to two grandparents falling ill at the same time. This seems to have ramped up his anxiety. In the past few weeks, he has had nearly constant stomach aches. We took him to the doctor a few times and had blood work done, and all has been clear. The pediatrician thinks it almost certainly is caused by anxiety, and said it's not even worth a referral to the pediatric GI (and wait time is a few months anyway).

On Monday, he went home from school with a stomach ache and has refused to go back to school, saying his stomach hurts too much and he's afraid of going to the nurse. He starts crying uncontrollably when we try to get him to go to school in the morning. Although he always has had some anxiety, nothing like this ever happened before.

We're really at a loss here. I've scheduled him for a psychiatry consult next week, but even if medication is the best option, who knows how long it will take to kick in. We could just put our foot down and yell at him that he has to go to school. I really don't know what to do. interested in hearing from anyone who had a similar experience.

Anxiety symptoms. Get a therapist. Speak w pediatrician. Potentially a psychiatrist or developmental pediatrician. Don’t let your child continue to suffer. They aren’t doing this on purpose. I am a therapist. I’ve seen this w sons friends when they were much younger. Parents don’t seem to understand their child’s need for medical support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s playing You.

Not necessarily.

[Anonymous]

there could be something going on at school.

A 504 plan is to give a child accommodations when something is keeping them from accessing the curriculum. Being home does that.

In our case, we had a special needs pull-out teacher who was contributing to the anxiety. I redid the IEP removing my child from that pull-out and, like magic, the anxiety and school refusal stopped.

[Anonymous]

I also see that there are some unhelpful suggestions here. Post in the special needs forum if you need additional help and this thread gets unhelpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there could be something going on at school.

A 504 plan is to give a child accommodations when something is keeping them from accessing the curriculum. Being home does that.

In our case, we had a special needs pull-out teacher who was contributing to the anxiety. I redid the IEP removing my child from that pull-out and, like magic, the anxiety and school refusal stopped.

How did the pull-out contribute to the anxiety?

[Anonymous]

can you give us an update? having the same issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our 9 y/o son has always had some anxiety, and has seen a therapist who is mildly helpful. In the past few months, we've had a bit more stress at home due to two grandparents falling ill at the same time. This seems to have ramped up his anxiety. In the past few weeks, he has had nearly constant stomach aches. We took him to the doctor a few times and had blood work done, and all has been clear. The pediatrician thinks it almost certainly is caused by anxiety, and said it's not even worth a referral to the pediatric GI (and wait time is a few months anyway).

On Monday, he went home from school with a stomach ache and has refused to go back to school, saying his stomach hurts too much and he's afraid of going to the nurse. He starts crying uncontrollably when we try to get him to go to school in the morning. Although he always has had some anxiety, nothing like this ever happened before.

We're really at a loss here. I've scheduled him for a psychiatry consult next week, but even if medication is the best option, who knows how long it will take to kick in. We could just put our foot down and yell at him that he has to go to school. I really don't know what to do. interested in hearing from anyone who had a similar experience.

Anxiety symptoms. Get a therapist. Speak w pediatrician. Potentially a psychiatrist or developmental pediatrician. Don’t let your child continue to suffer. They aren’t doing this on purpose. I am a therapist. I’ve seen this w sons friends when they were much younger. Parents don’t seem to understand their child’s need for medical support.

+1. If you've ruled out allergies and other physical causes, and you're sure there's not bullying or actual problems in the classroom, then it's likely functional pain related to anxiety. The key with functional pain is to not invalidate them, but also not reinforce it and teach them strategies to manage the pain themselves. Functional pain is a physical expression of the psychological condition, but anxiety grows when you feed it, so you can't give it lots of attention and accommodations or the anxiety and resulting pain will continue to grow.

Teach the same pain management strategies you'd use when treating pain without medication. Breathing exercises, stretches, etc. Therapy with someone who is familiar with functional pain is great. But spending weeks out of school or hours in the nurse's office won't ever "cure" the pain and may actually make it worse.