Having a child who “loses it”, or collapses emotionally after school is a common concern for parents of school-age children.
Perhaps your child is able to successfully hold themselves together during the day at school, then “loses it” when they come home. Maybe you’ve spoken to their teacher who says “but he’s always so well behaved in the classroom, quiet and gets his work done,” but this is not what you see at then of the day!
What you see is a child that comes home angry, frustrated, often having a complete meltdown – kicking the cat, yelling at you, arguing with siblings… You get the picture. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence, and you are not alone.
The Feelings are Real
This behaviour is doubly challenging when it is accompanied by school refusal, and body symptoms like headaches, tummy aches. While it might seem like these are phantom ailments, they are your child’s body’s way of letting us know that they are feeling anxious, and not coping with being in a classroom.
These behaviours are troubling for parents, who often struggle with knowing the best way to help a child who is clearly distressed. They have to go to school, but are they really happy and thriving in that environment?
Maybe you’ve tried laying down the law, but getting angry doesn’t help, and most likely escalates the situation. Now everyone is stressed, but what can you do?
Does this sound like your household?
What You Might be Experiencing
I’ve been there. Twenty years ago, my daughter had similar behaviours. As a five yearly she would angrily kick the back of my seat as we drove home, after picking her up from school. Like you, I was completely at a loss to know why she was doing this, and what I could do to help her.
Needing to understand, I started researching child behaviour and learning difficulties, finding they were closely linked. After several years of struggling to keep her at school, we began home schooling, which continued until she started high school.
I also trained in a neurodevelopment program known as The Extra Lesson, and have been working with children since 2005. During this time, I have seen many children who struggle to be at school. Only one ever said she enjoyed being there!
Your explosive or withdrawn child is not naughty. Rather, their behaviour is bringing us a message. Tension has built up during the day. Afraid of getting into trouble, they’ve erupting a bit like volcano when they reach the safety of home. Often, they are simply exhausted from the effort to restrain their emotions.
Maybe your child’s behaviour is touching on your own memories of being at school?
Why is this Happening – the Brain Science
Your child has just spent several hours in a closed environment with up to 30 other children, all with varying degrees of emotional regulation and sensory development. Many of us would find this a test of our endurance as adults, let alone understanding what it must be like for a child.
This environment alone is enough to stress a sensitive child. Add in pressure of academic achievement, and trying to fit in socially, and it’s no wonder many children struggle to learn. The volume of sights, sounds and other sensations in the classroom can easily overwhelm a child’s capacity to process it all.
It’s a Matter of Survival
Feeling stressed, the body’s survival system kicks in, and they have a fight/flight reaction. However, fearing punishment, they hold it in. What we see is an active fight/flight response, the body’s natural survival instinct kicks in when we feel threatened. Following this we may see a child shutdown and withdraw.
These behaviours happen when the feeling of threat becomes too overwhelming for their body’s capacity cope. With a nervous system that is on high alert all day, even breaks outside the classroom can feel threatening, with conflict erupting over rules of play, or the effort of interpreting social cues.
Is it any wonder your child comes home stressed, often refusing to go to school?
We Need to Feel Safe to Learn
Information comes into the brain through our senses, and is integrated in the lower part of the brain. It then proceeds to the amygdala or emotional centre for processing. Strong emotions like fear, anger, frustration, worry or even excitement can be overwhelming, and interrupt higher order processing.
When a child is feeling overwhelmed, it’s hard to stay present and open to learning, or processing sense impressions. The body’s automatic response trips the survival part of the brain survival brain, and their body automatically does what it needs to do to ensure survival. The choice may be to either act it out, or shut down and withdraw.
Thinking and higher order processing is impaired. The child is unable unable to think clearly and make good choices. Their nervous system is in a purely reactive state.
You might be thinking, but “You need to go to school to learn”. The problem though, is that they can’t learn when they’re feeling stressed.
Learning doesn’t just happen in a classroom. In fact, most learning happens naturally outside this space, often through play, when a child is happy and relaxed. Ask any homeschooling parent!
How You Can Help
Your child’s struggle is real, and is the result of a nervous system that has been stretched to its limit for most of the day. What they need most of all is to feel safe, in a place where there stretched nervous system is able to relax. This place is in their home, with you as a co-regulating nervous system, offering calm connection and understanding.
Your role is to offer empathy and understanding. Avoid pressuring them. They’ve already had a day full of feeling pressured. Trying to talk them out of how they are feeling will only suppress those emotions further underground.
One approach is to help them to learn how to understand their feelings without the experience of being overwhelmed. Maybe offer sensory comfort, like a hug, or even a smile, with words of encouragement, presented in a calm vocal tone. It may help to let your children know you love them for who they are, not for what they are achieving (or not) at school.
Rather than going straight to devices, perhaps try offering a healthy snack and a drink – yogurt, fruit, cheese… While they are happily engaged, you can offer conversation and a listening ear. The aim is listening to understand rather than trying to judge their behaviour or talk them out of what they are experiencing.
Talk to Your Child’s School
You could also try talking to their school, becoming an advocate for your child, and letting them know that your child is struggling emotionally. It’s difficult for children to speak up and express themselves to figures of authority, such as classroom teachers. It is particularly difficult if they are frightened, and they can’t find the words because their thinking brain is offline.
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower” – Alexander Den Heiner
In other words, your child is not the problem. It’s not your child that needs fixing, but maybe we need to look at their school environment. Is it helping them to grow into uniquely talented individuals, capable of bringing their gifts to the world? If not, maybe something needs to change.
Counselling and Psychotherapy
If you feel powerless to help your child, or at a loss to know where to go for help, you are not alone. Many parents in my practice have expressed similar concerns.
School refusal and after school collapse can be difficult to address. You may feel conflicted between balancing your role as a caring parent versus the needs of the institution, and the legal ramifications of non-attendance. You may also find it difficult to question social expectations that children need to go to school, or fearful of challenging authority and advocating for your child’s needs.
Your counsellor or psychotherapist understands your concerns. It can be very distressing having a child who is a melting down every afternoon after school. Personal counselling can help you with understanding and processing your own emotional responses to your child’s behaviour, as well as offering strategies to help.
Therapy with parents is generally a collaborative process, helping you to help your child. Alongside parenting support, individual counselling sessions with children can support them to process their feelings about school, including bullying.
When I was going through this process myself, someone said to me “We don’t do it for ourselves, we do it for our children”. Every time we process our own stress and trauma, we are creating a ripple effect of healing around us.
Conclusion
The experiences highlighted here point to the importance of developing an ability to tune into and understand the emotional needs of your children. Refusing to go to school, or collapsing emotionally when they get home is not naughtiness. Their behaviours are bringing us a message, and it is up to us to listen to what they are communicating.
Emotional development is the foundation for all learning, and it happens through being with emotionally regulated adults. Learning is optimal when children feel emotionally supported and safe to learn.
I believe academic tuition needs to be balanced with support for sensory and emotional well-being of both students and their teachers.
