Schools are institutions where a child or young person can experience stress. Anxiety that may befall a child on starting school. There are some children who are known as 'school phobics' and seem to experience severe emotional and possibly physical problems at the thought of going to school. Whatever the underlying cause of the refusal to attend school, it is clear that there is a situation which is causing the child severe stress that goes beyond the child-mother separation on first starting school. This is the child's way of coping with an immediate problem. In such cases, expert medical opinion needs to be sought and acted upon.

Bullying is of great concern to a number of children at school. It is of concern to parents that their child is not popular and is subject to bullying in one of its forms. Most of the bullying in school takes the form of exclusion from groups, or verbal abuse rather than physical attacks, which many regard as the only form of bullying. Bullying by text, e-mail, video and world-wide exposure through the internet are increasingly common. It seems that children are loath to inform on bullies as this will indicate, particularly in the case of boys, who are frequently told that they should 'stand on their own two feet', that this is an admission that they are weaker than their peers. Children who are bullied are frequently distressed and this stress may show itself in a dropping off in academic performance, arriving home from school later than normal. taking different routes to and from school or showing general stress and unhappiness. It is not unknown for bullied children to ask for different packed lunches or increased pocket money to 'pay off' those who are doing the bullying.

Children who are bullied need help, as do those who do the bullying. What form this takes will depend on the nature of the child and the nature of the bullying. Simply drawing attention of any incidents to the school may suffice, particularly where the school has an adequate support system in place. Counselling may also help some children. Intervention is necessary as it has been found that in some cases, there has been a permanent lowering of self-esteem in the recipient of the bullying which has affected their adult relationships. It may be necessary for staff to reexamine their own attitudes towards bullying in order to change the school and children's perceptions of bullying and this involves a mutual respect for each other. It appears much can be done in anti-bullying by changing the ethos of the school, organising awareness programmes, and taking action immediately any form of bullying is noticed.

Children may experience stress at school due to academic pressures which stem from their parents. Parents can place children under pressure to do well with the result that a child who does not come top in every examination and test feels they are failing their parents. Such stress can make the child ill and it is not uncommon for children placed in these circumstances to suffer from conditions such as eczema, asthma, bulimea, anorexia and even over-eating.

In order to counteract this, parents need to become less demanding and reduce their expectations. It has been observed that once parental pressure has lessened that the physical signs of stress in the child also diminish and can eventually disappear.