Psychosocial Strategies for Managing Social Withdrawal among Primary School Pupils

Abstract

This paper focused on psychosocial strategies for managing social
withdrawal among primary school pupils. Social withdrawal is a syndrome
of avoiding people and activities which one would usually enjoy or
participate. Psychosocial strategies are provisions of psychological and
social support and resources to a person for the benefit of the individual
to cope with problems or challenging situations. The underlying causes
of social withdrawal such as anxiety attack, agoraphobia, family crises
and a history of abuse, loss of a loved one, and nature and type of
parenting styles used have been discussed. The effects of social withdrawal
such as maternal deprivation syndrome, depression, emotional challenges
in a form of feeling of loneliness, shame, guilt, fear of others and
negative self-esteem have also been analyzed. The paper has discussed
the psychosocial strategies for managing social withdrawal. These include
psychotherapy, psycho education, self-help strategy, psychosocial
rehabilitation, modeling and training for solving social problems. The
paper recommends that primary school pupils should be trained and
coached on social interaction and social skills as well as be reinforced for
socially appropriate behaviours, to assist in addressing the problem of
social withdrawal among them.