Hi everyone and welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan. My guest this week is Bronagh Starrs. Bronagh is a psychotherapist, expert in contemporary adolescent mental health. She’s also an author and she has spent decades working with young people and their families. Her new book, I Can’t Go In, is about something that an increasing number of parents are finding themselves dealing with: school anxiety, and what happens when a child becomes so anxious that they simply cannot get through the school gates. So I wanted to talk to Bronagh about what school anxiety actually looks like, how you can tell the difference between a child who doesn’t want to go to school and a child who genuinely can’t face it, and why some of the things we instinctively do as parents: reassuring them, encouraging them, bargaining with them or putting pressure on them, which don’t necessarily help. We talked about what parents should do when the school run becomes a daily battle, the role schools can play, why some children are particularly vulnerable to school anxiety, and whether things like neurodiversity and parenting styles can play a part. And, importantly, we talked about what schools can do to help. Because understanding that your child is anxious is one thing, knowing how to help them through it is another. This is my conversation with Bronagh Starrs – enjoy and I'll be back next week with more.
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