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Writer's pictureUnloveable Dad - Curt

My Kids Don't Want to Go to School, But Do You Know Why? - Sick Day or Mental Health Day?



School Avoidance Transcript


Preeti (00:00)

Hey, it's Curt and Preeti from mayaforlife.com and we are talking about school avoidance. That is the phenomenon that I'm sure many of you are frustrated over being that it is September of kids who don't want to go to school. Curt, that never happens in your household. Kids being sick, wanting to stay home sick from school, possibly not being all that sick. How do you deal with that as


Unlovable Dad.


Curt Dalton (00:24)

So we definitely are at the part of the year, like you said, where the seasons are changing, all the kids are back, at least for a couple of weeks, if not five or six, if you live down south. And you're getting your first bugs, germs, COVID strains, flus, whatever we're going to call it. And so now comes the, I want to stay home today, I'm sick. And there's two different things you need to look at going on. Is there a sickness going around and are you aware that the school has 200 other kids out?


There is a viral situation, no pun intended. Or is there something else going on? Is there an avoidance because of school? They don't want to go for a different reason. Could be bullying, could be a big test coming up, could be a lack of confidence, lack of new friends. They don't like the new school year. So that's your first divider. Are they sick? Is there an actual physical problem or is there something else going on? And with the season change, getting colder, you're going to have regular allergies and colds and flus as well as passing it between different groups of kids. First and foremost, use the thermometer, talk to your son or daughter, see if they're sick, do your best judgment as a parent. If you think they're not too bad but they still don't want to go to school, start asking questions on why.


Preeti (01:30)

Right. And I liked what you said about sort of setting some criteria. Like what is the criteria for a child being sick? Harvard Medical School says that it is four things. It is a temperature, it is vomiting, it is difficulty breathing, and I forget what the fourth one is.


Curt Dalton (01:47)

you know, and you said, it's, they sick? And of course, depending on your generation and how your parents raise you, there's certainly an element of suck it up, you know, especially on the boy side. You're a man. This is what we do. You put your work boots on and you go. But is, is saying, I don't want to go to school today. Also a chance for a mental health break, which we're not allowed to talk about, especially for boys. I need a mental health day. Now it is in the workplace. Gen Z and millennials have really introduced that where you can take mental health days now at companies.


But that hasn't made it down to the school where you want to call your school in the morning and say, hi, I'm calling in. And so and so would just like a mental health day today, we're going to hang out. So there's no reason adults should have that option. And you don't think kids are under the same mental pressures and changes and stresses. So be aware that if your son or daughter is kind of maybe faking it or half sick but asked to take a day off, think about their mental health. How's it going right now? Are they going through a tough stretch?


A lot of tests, there are social situations going on in sports where they just need a day to collect themselves, just like adults do.


Preeti (02:46)

Right. you know, Gen Z and millennials are getting a lot of flack for that as well. And the fact is, we as adults don't do this. We don't take our sick days. We don't take our vacation time. Working culture and American culture is working 24 seven. It is not taking breaks. It is looked down upon. If you take time off from work, if you take time to be with your family, we still don't have paid family leave. I mean, this is this is a cultural phenomenon. So it makes sense that kids not having the agency or even the language, and as you said, there are some great barriers to it. know, boys are often told to suck it up and to not have feelings, to not express emotions, to not say when they're stressed. And also, don't necessarily, children don't necessarily have the language to express that they aren't feeling well. I know that I was an anxious child. I also struggled with depression.


And I had no idea what that was. And neither did my parents. I think it's hard to, we don't always know what those warning signs are, but I have a stomach ache, I'm too sick to go to school. These are often warning signs of other issues and they can be bullying, as you said, it can also be mental health issues, anxiety being, I think a really big one.


But also, is there a neurodivergence that's undiagnosed? Because if your kid is also struggling in school and they're now feigning illness or they have a stomach ache and they're not feeling, it might be embarrassment, shame, not being able to articulate that they're not doing okay. So the key here is communication, knowing your child. I mean, you know your child. You know your child better than anybody does.


But learning to talk to your child, learning to elicit information about how they're really feeling and to get down to a root cause is something that I think parents need to give themselves permission to do. And it's hard to do that on a Monday morning when your kid says, I don't feel good. I don't want to go to school. And your first reaction is, well, what am I going to do?


Like I can't take the day off to stay home with you. There isn't always that option for parents as well, right? Because once again, American culture, working culture is we do not take time off. We don't take time off to spend with our families. We don't take time off to go on vacation. We're not Europe where we take all of August off and enjoy the holiday season. Like these are difficult things that are pervasive throughout the country.


Curt Dalton (05:05)

Yeah, as one of our vice presidential candidates said, you know that to solve child daycare issues call grandma and grandpa and uncle a little few a few more times and a lot of people can't do that and it's if you're lucky if you can and you can just on a drop of a dime say hey so and so sick I got to run to work and they come right over but for a lot of America and that's just not a action plan that you can rely on and you're right with neurodivergent things like ADD ADHD very diagnosed and talked about in schools now certainly if you feel your child is super hyper or on the other side Kind of a little bit lethargic and still not getting it. Those are you can talk to teachers and counselors at school for those tests and those diagnosis so kind of like dig in and see What's going on with your child at school to where a they may on a 50 -50 call want to not go in and I get everybody Nobody wants to go to school. It's kind of like work You definitely want to stay home and watch movies and play video games, but how much effort are they putting in to really?


Are yoou trying to get there? And again, your own demons come up and your own mom and dad issues as far as you suck it up and go to school unless you're throwing up or have a fever, put on your big boy pants and all that stuff comes up. So it's you and your parents. And again, here comes the generational trauma of you had a son or daughter who really was sick or needed a mental health day and you kind of told them to suck it up and get dressed and go to school. talking to your kids is the first step and understanding where they're at, not only physically, but mentally is a good place to kind of start your baseline monitoring.


Preeti (06:30)

And on the neurodivergence piece, this where girls often fall through the cracks because our ADD and our ADHD, we don't present as hyper on the outside. We are able to sit still in school. And I'm saying we because I was diagnosed as an adult with ADD. The hyperactivity for girls with these issues is often hyperactivity on the inside, the brain not being able to stop.


getting on an endless loop, having a little bit of, having some OCD tendencies, not being able to organize your thoughts. I was a terrible note taker and I really, I've had a lot of shame around this. I wasn't totally sure what was wrong with me, but I could not compute.


what the teacher was saying in enough time to write it down in a way that made any sense when you read it back. So my notebooks were filled with doodles and drawings and giving up, but it caused a lot of anxiety and it caused a lot of stress. And oftentimes I didn't want to go to school and kids get really good at finding what seemed to be legitimate excuses to not go to school.


Curt Dalton (07:33)

And that does happen. literally, I don't know if any adults have done this because I haven't written anything in so long. I had to write out a school note the other day. I think it was for an orthodontist or something. I literally had to handwrite it and I almost couldn't. I thought I had a stroke or Alzheimer's. I'm trying to write with a pen and I almost forgot because forget handwriting. I print and I was still printing like it looked like a five -year -old was trying. I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I probably haven't written anything on a piece of paper in 15 years, but you just lose the connections and the synapses. You look at your handwriting, you're like, I look like a caveman right now. That's like a five -year -old trying to print. No wonder the teacher doesn't believe some parent wrote it. So yeah, you got to work on your writing, your cursive, and your handwriting as you get older too. Because we don't print anymore. There's even a movement of not teaching kids handwriting anymore. It's just kind of a skill that's gone by the wayside. So we'll see.


Preeti (08:20)

I found out a few years into my relationship with him that my stepson couldn't read cursive because I would just write cursive. It was something that I learned in school and that I actually have nice handwriting. So when I write a card to somebody, I write in nice scripty letters and I take my time. And I haven't done it in a while, to your point. I've not done it in a while. So who knows if I'm actually capable of this. But it took three or four years for him to say, can't read what your cards say.


Curt Dalton (08:46)

He looks at your car like it's Shakespeare your calligraphy like handwriting is going the way calligraphy like hey I appreciate it But I don't know what this ancient texture using is like that's just cursive handwriting, so okay got it


Preeti (08:58)

Yeah, yeah. But so if there is an issue and we really thought that some of this had changed in our culture during COVID, right? We were home, we took pleasure in being home. It was a really difficult time and there was a lot of tragedy that happened out in the world and people were very worried and very anxious and people lost a lot of family. But one of the...


opportunities in COVID was for us to really come together and spend time at home and spend time with our families. And I think for a lot of people, there was a little bit of a reset where we said, wait a minute, there's a complete imbalance in our country. And I was sort of optimistic that when we went back to work, that there would be more work from home opportunities. And we've seemed to have have fallen into old patterns and old ways. And of course this trickles down to our kids because they see how we work 24 seven and that's probably really daunting to them. I think if we modeled for them that it's important to take care of ourselves, important to take care of our health, it's important to take care of our mental health, our kids would have a head start in all of that.


Curt Dalton (10:08)

Yeah, I agree. And that's what MAYA is great for is working with the teens we do talk to about, creating the life they want and how to do it, giving them the steps and the kind of the processes to think about. and that it doesn't have to be 24 seven work chaos papers in the air, nonstop, no time for yourself or mental health or taking a day. and kids are going off into high school and college knowing, I need a day I need to take some time right now. That's what my body or my mind's telling me. So, it starts with one and then it just gets to the next and the next person and you can change a generation very slowly.


Preeti (10:38)

Well, and I think the other slippery slope of this work hard is the other side of that coin is play hard. And what that often means is acting out. means drugs, means alcohol, it means doing things to excess. And so when we are not leading these balanced lives, when we are working 24 -7, the result of that is often a backlash And if we were able to find more balance in our lives, our playtime would be balanced as well. And we may not turn to maladaptive coping mechanisms like food, alcohol, sex, drugs, shopping, all of these things that can turn into problems.


Curt Dalton (11:15)

Yeah, I agree. And again, as we can change the kids first, they'll break those patterns and what they see in some, maybe not the best role modeling or parents are doing the best they can, as we say to survive, but they're going to realize there's also mental health survival and their own survival as far as happiness, as opposed to just, you know, how much money came in the door this week and how much money went out. So that's what we try to work on it, MAYA.


Preeti (11:36)

That sounds great. So how can people learn more about MAYA and help their kids through these issues, Curt?


Curt Dalton (11:41)

You can go to Maya4Life.com, that's MAYA4life.com. Check out all our educational videos, get in touch with us, interview us, ask us your questions, find out if we're right for your teen and tell us what's going on and we'll tell you if we feel we're a good fit to work with your teen or tween or anybody in college and it's free and it's great to just spread information that's helping people.


Preeti (12:02)

That's right. And send in your questions at Maya4Life.com because we will answer them on these videos. All right, Curt, thanks so much for joining me.


Curt Dalton (12:10)

You're welcome.


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