School Phobia in Children Pasadena CA

School Refusal in Children, Pasadena, CA

Attending school is something every child struggles with a little bit. However, in some children, going to school becomes such a negative experience it leaves them feeling overwhelmed and has a detrimental effect on their emotional well‒being. When these negative emotions become overwhelming, it is known as school refusal.

School refusal can leave a child struggling academically, socially, and with their mental health. At Vital Brain Health, we help those seeking therapy for their child's school refusal through a comprehensive, holistic approach.

Schedule an appointment with Vital Brain Health today and help your child overcome their difficulties with school.

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What is School Refusal?

School refusal is a symptom of severe anxiety, depression, or trauma related to attending school. Learning disabilities, severe negative social interactions, and other extreme difficulties in school can cause school refusal in children that leads to other challenges.

At Vital Brain Health, we can help provide early intervention, giving your child the strategies they need to support their condition and overcome the behavioral challenges school refusal can cause.

Our staff are experienced, kind, and ready to help. Schedule an appointment for school refusal support today.

Common Risk Factors Associated With School Refusal

Understanding the common risk factors associated with school refusal in children can help you get your child the support they need. School refusal is often the result of one of a variety of risk factors:

Anxiety

Social and generalized anxiety can cause children to dread going to school, triggering school refusal.

Depression

Depression can cause a lack of interest in activities and leave people mentally and emotionally exhausted. This makes even something as routine as attending school a major challenge.

Trauma

Traumatic events and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can cause school refusal in children.

Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities can place additional stress on children and make school a more challenging prospect. For children who don't get the support they need, it's common for them to develop school refusal.

What symptoms are associated with school refusal?

Symptoms of school refusal can vary in type and severity. Some of the symptoms that benefit from an evaluation at Vital Brain Health include:

Complaints of physical ailments such as nausea or headaches
Anxiety or panic
Avoidance behaviors

What are the Support Options for School Refusal?

Vital Brain Health offers different types of support, each serving a different purpose. Some of the support options you may be recommended include:

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback utilizes advanced brain training to optimize your brain’s natural function using real‒time feedback.This can help the different parts of your brain communicate more effectively, which in turn improves focus, emotional regulation, and cognitive performance. Best of all, no part of this process requires medication.

Biofeedback

Biofeedback provides strategies to help people control physical actions such as breathing and heart rate in order to combat conditions such as anxiety. This can help children with school refusal calm themselves and feel less overwhelmed emotionally at the idea of attending school.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Vital Brain help with children with school refusal?

Yes, we provide advanced support for children with school refusal using Neurofeedback 3.0 integrated multi-modal training protocols specifically designed for children with school refusal. Our approach helps optimize brain networks to retrain behaviors associated with school refusal. We use research-based protocols that target the specific brain communication patterns underlying school refusal in children.

How does Vital Brain help with children with school refusal?

Our protocols for children with school refusal use Neurofeedback 3.0 to help the parts of the brain that cause children to reject and try to avoid attending school. Through our visual feedback system, we train brain areas to learn to coordinate on shared frequency channels, developing stronger connections during sleep that lead to improvements in helping children move past the avoidance behaviors they exhibit.

What is neurofeedback?

References

Enriquez-Geppert, Stefanie, et al. "The Morphology of Midcingulate Cortex Predicts Frontal-Midline Theta Neurofeedback Success." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 7, 2013, pp. 1-10. Gruzelier, John H. "EEG-Neurofeedback for Optimising Performance. I: A Review of Cognitive and Affective Outcome in Healthy Participants." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, vol. 44, 2014, pp. 124-141. Ros, Tomas, et al. "Consensus on the Reporting and Experimental Design of Clinical and Cognitive-Behavioural Neurofeedback Studies (CRED-nf Checklist)." Brain, vol. 143, no. 6, 2020, pp. 1674-1685. Micoulaud-Franchi, Jean-Arthur, et al. "Electroencephalographic Neurofeedback: Level of Evidence in Mental and Brain Disorders and Suggestions for Good Clinical Practice." Neurophysiologie Clinique, vol. 45, no. 6, 2015, pp. 423-433. Escolano, Carlos, et al. "EEG-Based Upper-Alpha Neurofeedback Training Improves Working Memory Performance." Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2014, pp. 2327-2330. Vernon, David J. "Can Neurofeedback Training Enhance Performance? An Evaluation of the Evidence with Implications for Future Research." Applied Psychology, vol. 54, no. 3, 2005, pp. 385-404.

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Whether you're in the Los Angeles area or elsewhere in the United States, we can provide you the services you need.

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