A recent survey reveals that anxiety and mental health challenges are causing a growing number of American children to miss school, with nearly a third of parents reporting their child skipped more than a week of classes for these reasons.
The nationwide survey of over 1,000 parents, conducted by The Kids Mental Health Foundation, found that roughly 40% of students reported feeling physically unwell, while one in five said exhaustion kept them from attending school.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic absenteeism has surged. Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shows that the number of students missing 10% or more of school days nearly doubled, reaching over 14 million in the 2021–2022 school year—equivalent to more than two weeks out of a standard 180-day school year.
AAP warns that frequent absenteeism is closely linked to declining academic performance and can leave students lagging behind peers.
Beyond anxiety, children cited a variety of reasons for avoiding school, including learning differences, perfectionism, bullying, grief, toxic authority figures, and concerns about personal safety.
Ohio mother Kelley McChristy has firsthand experience with school avoidance. “It’s important to recognize that there are a lot of physical symptoms that manifest in kids that are really related to mental health,” she said. “When a child says, ‘I’m sick, I’m not feeling well,’ and you can’t find a reason for it, it could be related to anxiety.”
Experts describe this phenomenon as “school avoidance” or “school refusal,” which occurs when children regularly experience distress at the thought of attending school.
The condition is often linked to underlying mental health disorders such as social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Research indicates that about 28% of children experience school avoidance, particularly those aged 10 to 13 or transitioning between schools.
In addition to anxiety, concerns about school safety, including gun violence, weigh heavily on students. While school shootings declined slightly to 330 incidents last year, guns remain a leading cause of death among children and teens, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Addressing school avoidance requires understanding the root causes of a child’s distress. Dr. Ariana Hoet, executive clinical director of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, explained, “Kids feel anxious, they don’t want to go, and as parents, we want to protect them. But the more we avoid situations that cause anxiety, the larger the anxiety grows.”
Treatment options include talk therapy to help children confront their fears, medications, and coordinated parent-teacher interventions. Support networks of parents facing similar challenges can also provide guidance and reassurance.
McChristy echoed the importance of community support: “I have been shocked by the number of people I’ve talked to whose children are going through the same thing.”
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