A clinical perspective on school refusal in youngsters

Although many youngsters refuse to attend school at one time or another, school refusal is largely misunderstood by parents, educators, and therapists. Because youngsters who refuse school present with so many different behaviors, finding a treatment procedure that works well for all cases is difficult. As a result, many therapists have been forced to rely on their own makeshift approaches to address this problem. In this article, we present a way of viewing this population systematically from the perspective of two clinicians who are familiar with these clients. To illustrate this perspective, we rely on a description of school refusal, our clinic, assessment and treatment options, and three clinical cases. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.