This is a part of the podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Returning to School After Burn Injury. Sarah Stoycos discusses how to help a child who is not adjusting well to school after a burn injury. 

You know, most kids do just fine going back to school, but it's also okay and normal for a, you know, for some kids to really struggle. And so if, if you notice that your child is, you know, getting very upset and avoiding school and not wanting to go back or struggling to sleep at night, or reporting, you know, feeling scared all of the time … so maybe struggling with things like anxiety or depression and low mood or post-traumatic stress … I think that there's a time when it would be good to reach out for more professional help, so to talk with your outpatient team, ask about mental health treatment, and just additional support, especially if you think your child may be struggling with psychological distress and it's getting in the way of them returning to their normal activities. Or if the siblings or yourself the parents are struggling in that way and it's getting in the way of the way that they'd like to parent or live their life, that would be a time to reach out to your healthcare team and ask for referrals and seek more formal treatment potentially with a psychologist or a mental health counselor.

So there are a few things to just be on the lookout for such as if you notice that your child has gone back to school and they come back, maybe not looking like themselves or, or feeling down, it's important to ask them, you know, how did it go? And it's okay if hard things happened, you'd love to hear about it and work on it together with them. It, you know, it, we hope this doesn't happen. And I think it's really important to involve the schools, to make sure that the teachers are also looking out for signs that the child may be having difficulty adjusting back to their school environment or integrating into a new school … and the parent calling and asking, you know, was my child sitting with other kids at lunchtime? Does it seem like they're interacting in the more interactive classes and getting that information and checking in on the child, paying attention to potential isolation, or unhelpful or mean comments from other kids that may be close to bullying, looking out for those things so that you can help the child if that is happening and make sure we address it early. 

Visit https://msktc.org/burn and get the answers you need from experts who conduct innovative and high-quality research, provide patient care, and work to improve the health and overall quality of life for people with burn injury. That’s https://msktc.org/burn.