What is Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.
This year, as I’ve continued to develop my educational psychology knowledge and my greater awareness of how mental health conditions and difficulties can impact education and students, there is a newish concept that has popped up. This concept is Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance. Yet there are a lot of myths and misconceptions around Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance, because some people falsely say it is the same as school refusal, it is a choice and it is simply children being lazy and silly. We need to find out the truth. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is, how it differs from other concepts like school refusal and what causes it. If you enjoy learning about educational psychology, mental health and applied psychology, then this will be a great episode for you.
Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by CBT For Anxiety: A Clinical Psychology Introduction for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
What is Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance?
Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is used to describe the group of children and young people who are reluctant to go to school because of emotional factors that they often experience and this causes them to have lengthy absences from school, as well as it is critical to understand that Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is not a medical or mental health condition in its own right.
In addition, “non-attendance” is used instead of avoidance or refusal because children in this situation often want to go to school so they aren’t avoiding it or refusing to go. In reality, these children genuinely feel like they cannot go to school, because the children are concerned that they won’t have control of the feelings that being at school triggers for them. The easiest way for the child to avoid these uncomfortable feelings is to simply not go to school.
However, a child can still be physically in school but experience Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance because they do not attend lessons. This means that they are not engaging in the full aspect of school life.
I understand that if you haven’t worked in education then that sentence is extremely weird. Yet as someone who has worked in education for 7 years now, it is a very normal sentence. It is normal for some children to come to school because they get dropped off by their parents or carers and then hide or just refuse to go to lesson for the next six hours. Once I was at a school all day and there was a young woman who just sat in the corridor playing on her Nintendo Switch all day, because she did not want to engage in the lesson.
Furthermore, Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance can develop suddenly or slowly over time with it being most common during adolescence. This is the age group that I tend to work with the most anyway, as well as it is equally likely for males and females to develop this difficulty (Ingles et al., 2015). Also, whilst it is difficult to accurately measure the frequency rates of the condition, the prevalence rates seem to be around 1% to 2% of children and young people.
On the other hand, whilst we won’t discuss treatment and support options for children and young people with Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance in this podcast episode. It can be very difficult to support children with this difficulty because these children and young people tend to have difficulties in communicating their distress (Thambirajah et al., 2008). As a result, some children might find it easy and it might be very clear to staff and parents why the student’s Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance has presented itself, but it might be less clear for others.
Additionally, Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance can impact children and young people in different ways. For some children, the negative emotions that school causes them to experience might lead them to miss a day here and there or just particular lessons, but for other children, their Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance might make them miss weeks or months of their education at a time.
I will add on a personal note that this is getting “easier” to notice because I’ve had various and very wide-ranging job interviews for different roles in education this year, and I remember in one of my interviews we were talking about the attendance team. These days the attendance team can run analyses on attendance records to see if a student is skipping a particular lesson so the student can be referred to the wellbeing team and the child can get support.
Penultimately, it's important to note that it is possible to have emotionally based school Non-Attendance and still recover quickly or "bounce back" after the initial upset of the morning. This is because as we know from various psychological models of anxiety, we understand that it is very rare for anxiety to quickly disappear once the perceive threat is removed. In other words, a child might be extremely anxious about coming into school because of the anxious and negative emotions that the time before school triggers in them, but once they're in their first class, they might "appear" calmer.
We need to focus on the word "appear", since just because a student looks calm, it doesn't mean that they are. We already have presence for this from autistic students. Just because they look regulated, it doesn't mean that they are regulated and happy and they could just as easily be masking their suffering. This is similar to what can happen to students with emotionally based school non-attendance.
Therefore, it's important that staff do not dismiss the possibility of emotionally based school non-attendance just because a student seems able to recover quickly after the initial upset of the morning.
Building upon this for our final point, Maynard et al (2015) shows us that almost 50% of all students who are characterised to clinical services for Non-Attendance have an anxiety disorder. This is further supported by Crump et al. (2013) who found that children with mental health difficulties have the highest rates of absenteeism from school. Therefore, we need to be focusing on providing children with mental health support at school.
Personally, I think we are slowly heading in the right direction because when I was at school just over 10 years ago now, there was nothing in terms of mental health support available at school. We didn't even have a pastoral team. Nowadays, judging from my work in schools and various job interviews over the past 6 years, there has been a massive increase in mental health support, pastoral support amongst others for children and young people. This is brilliant and this is a major step in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go. Especially, if we want to treat root causes of mental health difficulties instead of simply addressing the symptoms once the conditions has already manifested, but that is beyond the scope of this podcast episode.
Anyway, there is an interesting problem with the literature in the United Kingdom when it comes to autism and non-attendance. Since the limited research base in the United Kingdom suggests that autism has no specific link to non-attendance, whereas international studies, like Munkhaugen et al. (2017) from Norway, shows that there is a relationship between autism and school-based non-attendance. This is something that needs greater exploration in the United Kingdom to see if these effects are limited to Norway or not.
Why is Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance Different From Other Concepts?
Whilst Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance used to be called things like truancy, school refusal and school phobia, this modern term has gained popularity because this addresses the concept more holistically. For example, school phobia according to studies like Hanna et al. (2006), Suveg et al. (2005) and Kearney (2008) define school phobia as something referring to fear-based absent from school but young people are rarely phobic of school and this term is largely frowned upon in modern literature.
On the other hand, Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is different from school withdrawal because Kearney et al. (2004) highlights school withdrawal is when parents keep their child home on purpose for economic purposes, to prevent abduction from an estranged spouse and to conceal maltreatment amongst other reasons.
Interestingly, in more recent years, school withdrawal would now come under “educational neglect” as the parents are not meeting their children’s needs around their education. Therefore, if I ever came across this in my education work, then I would have to report it as a safeguarding issue because this is childhood neglect.
In addition, Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is different to truancy because as Kearney (2008) points out, truancy generally refers to illegal, unexcused and non-anxiety-based absenteeism, as well as this can be linked to social conditions like poverty or homelessness. This is not related to a child’s emotions.
Finally, Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is different to school refusal as explained by Maynard et al. (2015), Berg (1997) and Kearney (2008) because school refusal is a psychosocial event that is defined by a prolonged absence from school with the carers’ knowledge and the idea of going to school causes severe distress in the child. At this point, it does sound similar to Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance, but the difference lies in that school refusal can occur in children with lowered anxiety through avoidance of the school setting and this results in negative reinforcement.
What Causes Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance?
There are a wide range of factors that can cause or increase the likelihood of emotionally based school non-attendance in students. These reasons are important for us to know about because by identifying the causes and the potential risk factors, educational psychology services can create interventions and support schools to implement them and decrease non-attendance.
Some initial causes of emotionally based school non-attendance can include transitions, for example, emotionally based school non-attendance increases around the time that students move from primary to secondary school (Goodman and Scott, 2012; Nutall and Woods; 2013).
Nonetheless, one of the most important reasons why emotionally based school non-attendance happens in the first place is that the behaviour can perform one of four different functions for the student according to Kearney (2008). This means that once we identify why a child is doing emotionally based school non-attendance, then we can help them resolve the difficulty or find a more adaptive behaviour to help them cope with the stressor.
Also, these four behavioural functions can be divided into two functions that positively reinforce the behaviour of emotionally based school non-attendance, and then another two functions that negatively reinforce it.
For example, the first behavioural function that negatively reinforces emotionally based school non-attendance is “avoiding social activities and/ or situations”. This is when a child or young person experiences difficulties engaging with their peers and/ or adults within the educational environment. Equally, students might have difficulties with the more evaluative aspects of the school environment, like speaking or reading aloud in class, exams, class sports or eating around others at lunchtimes. These social situations can put academic demands as well as social pressures on the student, so some students might find these types of situations anxiety inducing.
Leading to emotionally based school non-attendance, because the student doesn’t want to experience these negative feelings.
Secondly, a student might use emotionally based school non-attendance to avoid school-related stressors. This category is used to describe non-attendance at school that’s caused by the child’s negative feelings, mood or attitudes linked with school activities. For instance, a child might get very anxious about class transitions, getting to school or the social situation outside the school gates before school starts amongst others. These school-related stressors can might make students want to avoid these situations entirely because they’re anxiety-inducing.
Again, this leads to emotionally based school non-attendance so the students don’t have to experience these negative emotions.
In addition, I would like to add here that to some people this might sound like these students have no resilience, they just need to “get on with it” amongst other degrading and unhelpful thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Yet when we consider the other information that we’ve learnt in this podcast episode, this makes a lot of sense. Such as, most people who experience emotionally based school non-attendance have mental health difficulties, so they are already struggling, in emotional distress and they are probably wanting to avoid even more distress.
As a rape survivor and someone who focuses on empowerment, if we take this angle, then I actually applaud the children and young people. They’re doing what’s best for their mental health using a maladaptive strategy but they’re protecting their mental health instead of making it worse. We shouldn’t be ignoring this courage. Instead, and this is what happens in good schools, we should be working collaboratively with children and young people to create a support plan, provide mental health support and give them other ways to improve their mental health instead of doing emotionally based school non-attendance.
Another thought before we learn about the positive reinforcing functions of emotionally based school non-attendance, I would add from a special educational needs background, this makes perfect sense. For children and young people with autism and other neurodivergence conditions, transitions, changes in the day, social interactions and reading in class can be immensely, immensely stressful and students can have what are akin to “breakdowns” over it. This is a very overwhelming situation for children with special educational needs. I understand why they believe it is better to simply not attend school at all.
A final thought is that I know I am being very open, compassionate and understanding towards children who fall under emotionally based school non-attendance, but this isn’t the same as agreeing with it. I know that children attending school and having an education is the best thing for them and as an aspiring educational psychologist, I need to move heaven and earth to ensure that a child has the best education they possibly can. That is my honest belief. Yet as a part of that aim, I need to work with a child and their social support system to ensure that the child is in school, they can remain in school and they can thrive and learn. That’s why I try to be as understanding as I can.
Anyway, the first behavioural function of emotionally based school non-attendance that can positively reinforce the behaviour is “reinforcing activities”. This is a child or young person who wants to be outside of the school setting because they see the activities outside of school to be more positive. Such as, spending time with friends and family at home and playing video games.
Equally, “attention needing” is another positive reinforcing function, because this describes when a student is struggling to engage in school activities because they prefer to remain at home with a significant adult. Like their parent or carer. In this situation, the student might not see school as a negative place and the function of emotionally based school non-attendance isn’t to avoid school. In this situation, it’s closer linked to the desire to remain with a significant adult and separation anxiety.
I want to use this last point in an example because at first, it doesn’t make much sense. Therefore, if a student lives at home with their father after their mother left them and it has always been just them and dad, then the idea of leaving dad might be scary and anxiety-inducing. What if they go to school and dad leaves them like mum did? What if dad needs them and the student isn’t around so the worst happens and now the student is all alone in the world?
Another example is you have a student with a parent who has stage 4 cancer. What if the student goes to school and then the parent dies when they’re at school? The student might see the six hours at school as a massive waste because they could be spending time with their dying parent. Also, I understand that this next sentence edges into another function but still, what if the student might not be able to focus at school because they’re always anxious about their parent being dead by the time they come home and so on.
Leaving a loved one or a significant adult can be very scary, and it’s important that we always remember to work with the young person to understand their life, their situation and the other factors that’s causing this behaviour. And if working in education for 7 years has taught me anything, it is that children and families will always find a way to surprise you.
What Are the Risk Factors for Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance?
As we move onto our final section, it’s important that we focus on the fact that emotionally based school non-attendance cannot be treated as a single mental health condition by schools or mental health professionals, because each child will have their own reason and range of factors contributing to their non-attendance. Therefore, this is one of the reasons why we need to be aware of the various risk factors that can increase the likelihood of a given child experiencing emotionally based school non-attendance.
Typically, these risk factors are environmental as well as contextual factors, and these can be very helpful to schools and educational psychologists, because we can adapt and create interventions to resolve these.
One type of risk factor that can contribute to emotionally based school non-attendance is family as well as community. Since if a child or young person has high levels of conflict within the home, they live in problematic or unsafe neighbourhoods, they have parents or carers with mental health difficulties as well as if they have guardians who lack the capacity to look after them, then these risk factors can lead to emotionally based school non-attendance.
On the other hand, the attitudes of the parents and carers themselves can contribute to non-attendance. For example, if a parent or carer have had difficulties in their own experience of education, they have poor relationships, conflict or difficult interactions with school professionals, they have little interest or involvement in their child’s academic life, or they adopt a disciplinary approach to school non-attendance then these factors can all play a role too.
Thirdly, the school environment as well as ethos can be risk factors for emotionally based school non-attendance. Since a child and young person might have experience of bullying, not feel valued, fall through the net because of poor attendance processes within the educational setting, have poor relationships with teaching staff, have a lack of sense of belonging, feel unsafe at home, have a lack of involvement in extracurricular activities as well as perceive behaviour management policies to be harsh and punitive. These are all important risk factors that can lead to emotionally based school non-attendance.
This is one of the reasons why I am a massive supporter of restorative approaches within education because these approaches can resolve a lot of these risk factors.
Finally, learning, teaching as well as the curriculum can contribute to emotionally based school non-attendance. Since if a student sees lessons as boring, they don’t feel supported with their academic amongst other needs, they see learning tasks to be unachievable, they struggle to access the curriculum because of a lack of appropriate differentiation and or unrecognised needs and they lack opportunity to experience success in their learning. These are all risk factors for emotionally based school non-attendance.
One thing I want to comment on quickly is that when I was writing the paragraph above, I was a little surprised, and I had a bodily reaction to some of these risk factors, because to me, some of them are so obvious and I know the psychological theories that would resolve these issues. And yet, this is a very good reminder of a few things. Firstly, it’s a humbling reminder that just because something is obvious to you because of your psychology background, it doesn’t mean that it’s obvious to every single person. Secondly, this is proof that educational psychology is critical because we need to educate others, share our theories and practical techniques with them so everyone benefits. Finally, it reminds us that there are stark inequalities in education depending on the quality of teaching staff, postcode, local government and so many other factors.
Clinical Psychology Conclusion
As someone who is passionate, excited and fascinated by the intersection of education as well as psychology, I really did enjoy today’s podcast episode. We got to learn about a great area of educational psychology that has implications for mental health as well. And whilst we’ll be learning about the treatments and interventions for emotionally based school non-attendance, it was really important that we all understood what exactly this concept was.
Therefore, as a brief reminder at the end of this episode, emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is used to describe the group of children and young people who are reluctant to go to school because of emotional factors that they often experience and this causes them to have lengthy absences from school, as well as it is critical to understand that Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance is not a medical or mental health condition in its own right.
I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
CBT For Anxiety: A Clinical Psychology Introduction for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Have a great day.
Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading
Corcoran, S., Bond, C., & Knox, L. (2022). Emotionally based school non-attendance: two successful returns to school following lockdown. Educational Psychology in Practice, 38(1), 75-88.
Corcoran, S., Kelly, C., Bond, C., & Knox, L. (2024). Emotionally based school non‐attendance: Development of a local authority, multi‐agency approach to supporting regular attendance. British Journal of Special Education, 51(1), 98-110.
Emotionally Based School Non-attendance (EBSN) Guide for Professionals by Solihull Educational Psychology Service (2023)
Hamlin, D. (2021). Can a positive school climate promote student attendance? Evidence from New York City. American Educational Research Journal, 58(2), 315-342.
Kearney, C. A., & Graczyk, P. A. (2020). A multidimensional, multi-tiered system of supports model to promote school attendance and address school absenteeism. Clinical child and family psychology review, 23(3), 316-337.
Kearney, C. A., Benoit, L., Gonzálvez, C., & Keppens, G. (2022, November). School attendance and school absenteeism: A primer for the past, present, and theory of change for the future. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 7, p. 1044608). Frontiers Media SA.
Kearney, C. A., Dupont, R., Fensken, M., & Gonzálvez, C. (2023, August). School attendance problems and absenteeism as early warning signals: Review and implications for health-based protocols and school-based practices. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 8, p. 1253595). Frontiers Media SA.
Kearney, C.A. (2008). School absenteeism and school refusal behaviour in youth: A contemporary review. Clinical psychology review, 28(3), pp.451-471.
Musenga-Grant, L., MacFarland, K., & White, A. (2025). Exploring the voices of children and young people in relation to emotionally based school non-attendance. Educational & Child Psychology, 42(2), 5.
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