Not going to school is it depression or school aversion

Not going to school may be a manifestation of depression or aversion to learning, which needs to be evaluated in conjunction with psychological assessment. There are differences between the two in emotional response, behavioral motivation, duration, physiological symptoms, social function, and other aspects.

1. Differences in emotional responses

Depressed patients are often accompanied by persistent low mood, loss of interest, and a lack of enjoyment in any activity, including subjects or social activities they originally enjoyed. Learning aversion is more manifested as resistance to specific learning scenarios, and may still maintain normal emotional responses in other areas. The former has diffuse mood disorder characteristics, while the latter's emotional problems have situational limitations.

2. Differences in Behavioral Motivation

Learning aversion often involves specific triggers such as exam pressure, teacher-student conflicts, etc., and avoidance behavior is purposeful. The non school behavior of patients with depression is often accompanied by a widespread lack of motivation, often expressed as not wanting to move for no reason, and even feeling difficult with basic daily activities such as washing up.

3. Differences in Duration

Symptoms of aversion to learning often occur in stages and are related to academic stress cycles, which may be alleviated during holidays. The symptoms of depression persist for at least two weeks and are mostly in a depressed state every day. They do not improve rapidly due to environmental changes and have stronger pathological persistence characteristics.

4. Differences in physiological symptoms

Depression is often accompanied by somatic manifestations such as insomnia, early awakening, changes in appetite, weight fluctuations, and chronic pain. Some patients may experience rhythmic changes with a heavier morning and lighter night. Although aversion to learning may also cause physical reactions such as headaches and abdominal pain, it is mostly concentrated before school and there are no organic lesions detected during physical examination.

5. Social functional differences

Adolescents who are averse to learning can usually maintain basic social relationships and have relatively normal emotions when interacting with friends. Patients with depression often experience comprehensive social withdrawal, including avoiding contact with family and friends, and this social dysfunction is also significant in non learning scenarios.

It is recommended that parents record specific details of their children's emotional and behavioral changes, including key information such as the context of the attack, duration, and accompanying symptoms. You can first observe the response through supportive measures such as adjusting the learning pace and improving the teacher-student relationship. If there is no improvement within two weeks or if there is a tendency towards self harm, you should immediately seek professional evaluation from a psychological or psychiatric department. Maintain a regular daily routine, increase parent-child exercise time, avoid excessive questioning of academic performance, and listen to children's true feelings with a non judgmental attitude. The intervention and evaluation of school psychologists is also an important auxiliary diagnostic channel.