SIOUX CITY | Your daughter complains of a tummy ache.
She says she can't go to school and then asks, "What's for breakfast?"
Your son says he feels feverish and needs to stay home, but then plops down in front of the TV to play video games.
Daniel Gillette, vice president of behavioral health for UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's, said it's common for children to engage in malingering or pretending to have an illness they don't really have.
"That's the classic, 'I want to stay home and watch cartoons. I don't want to go to school,'" he said. "A child knows they're not really ill and they're just trying to get out of going to school. There's either something they want to avoid or something they want to get from the illness."
Mothers and grandmothers are usually pretty astute at detecting malingering, according to Gillette. But for those who struggle with it, he recommends checking the child's temperature with a thermometer. If the child has an appetite, he said that's another sign that they're probably feigning illness.
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Take away screen time while a child is home sick, and if they're malingering, Gillette said they're likely to recover in a hurry. A child who's really sick, Gillette said, won't care if he or she can't watch TV or use a tablet.
"When a child is really malingering, usually if they find out they can't do any of the fun stuff that comes with staying home they change their mind about just how sick they are," he said.
Children with psychosomatic illness, however, aren't consciously faking illness. They might be sick, but are exaggerating the symptoms of that illness, or their sickness could be brought on by anxiety or depression. Gillette said bullying is one of the most common causes of psychosomatic illness.
One out of every four students (22 percent) report being bullied during the school year, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.
"They may not really be medically ill, but at the same time they're not pretending. They really think they are (sick)," Gillette said.
The big challenge for parents is figuring out what's causing psychosomatic illness. Gillette said having a good channel of communication with your child is key. Talk about what's going well at school, what's not going well and what the child is worried about, he said.
"Sometimes it's going to be something that's just a child not understanding a situation. Talking to them can help them get through it," he said. "Frequently it will be helpful to talk to the school about what's going on and maybe the school can do something to help."
