Faking sickness

Post Reply New Topic

Just wondering what people's views are on whether AS kids fake sickness or not, especially re going to school? If my son tells me he has a sore stomach, is it likely to be true? Or could it be that he interprets stress as being a sore stomach? How can you tell if they are well enough to be at school?

Doesn't everyone? "I'm anxious, my guts are all in a twist," and other such utterances. I always felt sick to my stomach about school when I was a kid, and would vomit waiting for the bus to come, in fact. Made the healthy breakfast thing kinda moot.

Actually, my mom used to give me a few tickets for what she called 'mental health days' when I could stay home from school and she'd call me in sick without question. This stopped me faking being sick, she could expect me to be honest if it was physical or if I just couldn't take it. Eased her mind. Improved our relationship, too, since I didn't have to lie and she didn't have to think of me as a liar and I felt like she respected my feelings about school being hard and painful.

I would say if your son doesnt want to go to school even if he is faking it there is a reason. Perhaps he is being bullied or finding the environment too stressful. I suggest talking to him and finding out what the problem is.

generally speaking, my kids only complain of stomachaches when they're stressed out & anxious. i'd check out and see what's bothering him

Stress often manifests as a stomachache, and that is not "faking it." Stress-induced stomach pain is real pain. It can even lead to real ulcers. It is not useful to act as though stress-induced pain isn't real, or that the stress doesn't have to be dealt with just like any other health threat would. Stress is a threat to health, and if your child's school environment is causing unreasonable levels of stress, you need to work with school to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it. You need to be your child's advocate, and if you are inclined to "blame" your child, you will allow the school to do the same (even if accidentally). The first thing you need to do is to get out of that mind-set yourself, so you can be the best advocate for your child, which is what you clearly want to do.

I used to "fake it" or get sick from stress. But I didn't go for mental health reasons in addition to other things, like me being bullied by the teachers and students. And I only would fake it because my Mom wasn't really supportive of me being absent for anything but physical illness (my school district has really strict absence and tardiness policies).

If you're really concerned about it, it's becoming a problem, and think your son is mature enough, why don't you talk to him about it? I would say that from personal experience, having a system like what Electric Kite describes would have been helpful for me, because I could have been more honest with my parents and better able to reach a middle ground with my school.

And if you have an understanding between the two of you, and he knows that you support his well-being, then you can help him deal with the issues which are causing him discomfort.

Don't all kids do this? But if yours is constantly faking illness to get out of school, find out if there is something seriously wrong going on at school.

Well, he is exhibiting agitated behaviour and close to meltdowns often. I put it down to trying to avoid work he doesn't want to do eg. maths & reading. He is actually good at maths, but he seems to lack focus to concentrate lately. Anything to do with art and he's away laughing. I really don't know what to do.

My son is ill when he doesn't feel that he has done his homework properly. eg He was given a project, that he didn't want to do because it held no interest for him. So it would take him an hour just to write a few lines. (So i ended up helping, probably a bit more than I should have - bulking it up with pictures off the internet). But because he knew more written work was expected he told me he was ill. If I could I made him go in to school (the teacher was fine about his project ), but sometimes it was easier to say to him 'I'll let you stay home today, if you promise to go in tomorrow', because of the state he was working himself into. He is proud of the fact he always keeps a promise, so it's what works for us.

What i'm trying to say is - the illness may be in their mind, but to them it is very real. So you have to make the descion when to send them in and when to keep them home.

And I am seriously considering using the ticket option for days away from school. It sounds like a good idea. Thanks for mentioning it.

I faked illness 2 times in the 1st grade. Ever since then, I wasn't allowed to stay home sick unless my mom felt my forehead or took my temperature and determined that I was feverish in some way.

I used to feel the ill effects of stress throughout most of 5th grade. But the symptoms went away by the 6th grade.

I faked sickness in grade 8 a lot, that was one of my worst years.

I've faked it a lot...I generally start out with a real sickness, then don't feel like going back, so I pretend to still be sick...

now that i think of it, we used to offer the kids 1 mental health day a month as long as they faithfully went to school for the rest of the month...........can't do it anymore, as our district has this awful, strict attendance policy

I used to feel sick in a certain classroom all the time. Looking back, I realize it was the dim, flickering flourescent lights. Normal fluorescent lights don't bother me, but they were really bad in that classroom.

psychosomatic illness caused by anxiety is REAL illness to the person experiencing it.

No, I do not believe that ASDers fake illnesses, but rather they make themselves sick with anxiety. I know I did, and still do on occasion.

When I was a kid I felt great on Friday afternoon but as soon as Sunday night rolled around I was coming down with something. My brother called it "fakeyitis". I hated school....I used to wish I was struck down with some horrible disease that would excuse me from school for the rest of my life LOL.