I used to work in Paediatrics and would be asked to use exposure therapy for kids for their ‘needle phobia’, and nearly every time, upon further assessment & exploration, the child’s anxiety was absolutely proportionate to the blood-test situations they’d been in previously (being held down, rushed appointments, no pain relief offered, parents scared themselves of needles, being lied to and told ‘it won’t hurt’, being gaslit and told ‘see it was fine wasn’t it?’ etc).
And nearly every time we got a referral like this no one had checked whether the child wanted to do the exposure therapy or not - most of the time they did not.
I would cop a lot of heat from the wider team when I said ‘exposure therapy isn’t appropriate right now, let’s do some team training about making blood tests less scary for kids, or work with the parents first, etc’.
So thank you for this very well explained perspective!! I feel very validated!
I cannot like this enough. When they were trying EBSA on my AuDHD son, I clocked that it was exposure therapy while filling in the forms. I pushed back and said "if exposure therapy worked, it would have worked by now as my son has been exposed to school for years". Shortly afterwards I discovered Dr Naomi Fisher and had never felt more validated in my life. It was at that point that I stopped doubting myself and my gut feeling about my son's needs. We then we took him out of school (4 years ago in October) and after a period of recovery from burnout, unschooling and some online school (just to appease 'the system'), he is now thriving in college while studying a subject that appeals to his interests. He has gone from being unable to leave the house to achieving distinctions, having college friends over and he is currently at a college friend's house playing board games. I honestly feel if we had followed the school's advice my precious son may not be with us. Instead, he has just turned 17 and is very happy. I will be eternally grateful to Dr Naomi Fisher for establishing herself in this space. ETA: my point in mentioning 'distinctions' is that when happy and doing something interest-based, one does well (in this case, within the constructs of the UK mainstream college system etc, etc).
Really great post, thank you! This will be extremely useful for me as I work closely with children and EPs about Emotional School None Attendance (ESNA).
Amazing post thank you Naomi.
I used to work in Paediatrics and would be asked to use exposure therapy for kids for their ‘needle phobia’, and nearly every time, upon further assessment & exploration, the child’s anxiety was absolutely proportionate to the blood-test situations they’d been in previously (being held down, rushed appointments, no pain relief offered, parents scared themselves of needles, being lied to and told ‘it won’t hurt’, being gaslit and told ‘see it was fine wasn’t it?’ etc).
And nearly every time we got a referral like this no one had checked whether the child wanted to do the exposure therapy or not - most of the time they did not.
I would cop a lot of heat from the wider team when I said ‘exposure therapy isn’t appropriate right now, let’s do some team training about making blood tests less scary for kids, or work with the parents first, etc’.
So thank you for this very well explained perspective!! I feel very validated!
I cannot like this enough. When they were trying EBSA on my AuDHD son, I clocked that it was exposure therapy while filling in the forms. I pushed back and said "if exposure therapy worked, it would have worked by now as my son has been exposed to school for years". Shortly afterwards I discovered Dr Naomi Fisher and had never felt more validated in my life. It was at that point that I stopped doubting myself and my gut feeling about my son's needs. We then we took him out of school (4 years ago in October) and after a period of recovery from burnout, unschooling and some online school (just to appease 'the system'), he is now thriving in college while studying a subject that appeals to his interests. He has gone from being unable to leave the house to achieving distinctions, having college friends over and he is currently at a college friend's house playing board games. I honestly feel if we had followed the school's advice my precious son may not be with us. Instead, he has just turned 17 and is very happy. I will be eternally grateful to Dr Naomi Fisher for establishing herself in this space. ETA: my point in mentioning 'distinctions' is that when happy and doing something interest-based, one does well (in this case, within the constructs of the UK mainstream college system etc, etc).
Really great post, thank you! This will be extremely useful for me as I work closely with children and EPs about Emotional School None Attendance (ESNA).
Couldn’t agree more ✊🏼