Recently, a mother in Chengdu encountered something that made people laugh and cry. In the past few days, her daughter Miaoqin, who is in high school, had a stomachache as soon as she went to class. She just stayed home for a while after school and got better.
However, various examinations showed that she had no major physical problems, and even taking a lot of medicine had no effect.
The mother couldn't help but wonder, was her daughter doing this deliberately to avoid going to school?
However, at the Chengdu Fourth People's Hospital, Liu Fengyu, the attending physician at the Pediatric and Adolescent Psychology Center, found out the cause of Miaoqin's illness. It turned out that it was a physical reaction caused by anxiety about starting school.
The number of such patients increases every year before and after the start of school, and they are concentrated among middle school and high school students.
After the winter vacation, it’s the last semester of Chengdu girl Miao Qin’s senior year.
On the first day of school, the teacher noticed something was wrong with her and kept holding her stomach during class.
Miaoqin said she had a stomachache and was feeling flustered and short of breath.
After being taken home by her parents, Miaoqin's condition improved, but after going to school the next day, her previous symptoms reappeared.
In the next few days, Miaoqin was taken to the hospital by her father for various examinations.
However, various examinations and blood tests were done, and there were no major problems.
Her parents wondered if their daughter was lying to avoid going to school, but judging from her eyes and behavior, it didn't look like she was just faking it.
"Is it caused by too much study pressure in the senior year of high school?" With the mentality of giving it a try, they took their daughter to Chengdu Fourth People's Hospital.
Liu Fengyu, the attending physician at the Child and Child Psychology Center, made a diagnosis. It turned out that Miaoqin's problem was not ordinary abdominal pain, but a physical reaction caused by anxiety before the start of school, which is commonly known as "school start syndrome" by netizens.
"The child has alexithymia. She may have expressed it before, but the family did not pay attention to it, and the child's negative emotions were not channeled, so they were transformed into physical expressions." Liu Fengyu said that this adverse physical reaction is not only stomachache, but also includes Nausea, dizziness, headache, palpitation, shortness of breath, etc.
Liu Fengyu reminded that once you discover physical symptoms with no known cause, you should pay attention to whether they are red stress "alarm" signals sent by your child.
To this end, Liu Fengyu recommended several psychological debugging methods for students and parents.
If you are a student and find yourself anxious about the start of school, you should first find out where the anxiety comes from, whether it is interpersonal relationships or study pressure.
Then, find a comfortable position, use abdominal breathing, slow down your breathing as much as possible, take a deep breath, and then exhale slowly. When inhaling, you can clenched your fists and slowly relax when exhaling. , if you have enough time, you can conduct a tension-relaxation training for each muscle part from head to toe.
The second step is to focus on the present moment, and don’t think about things that make you anxious. You can focus on a sound, an object, your breathing, heartbeat, or the feeling of a certain part of your body, etc., and don’t do anything to what you feel. Make no judgments and don't try to change them.
If you still can't overcome your anxiety, you can tell your parents about your anxiety and ask them how to deal with it.
If necessary, you can also seek a psychological counselor.
If you are a parent, don't rush to get angry, first stabilize your emotions.
For children who have difficulty starting school, parents should learn more about their feelings and needs.
Avoid judgment during the chat, and give appropriate affirmation and support to the child.
If a child is unwilling to go to school because he has difficulty in a certain subject, parents can help the child formulate a study plan based on the child's specific situation and help him overcome the difficulties together.
When dealing with the issue of children going to school, parents must have a sense of boundaries and distinguish what the children have to do and what the parents have to do - learning is what the children have to do, and what parents have to do is based on Provide support and dependence as much as possible according to the child's needs.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Dai Jiajia