8 Year Old Faking Sick to Get Out of School

My 8 year old son has never liked school. Honestly, it's been a struggle to get him in the door since his first day at preschool. But when he's there, he does well - makes friends, gets good grades.This year (third grade) he has discovered that if you go to the office and tell them you're sick, you might get to go home. But for a while, his attempts at doing this were largely unconvincing to school administration. Last week, for instance, the school nurse told him "you can't go home just because your 'mouth feels weird.'"He upped his game today and had a full-on wheezing attack during [school activity that he hates]. This sounds scary, but it got a lot less scary when he forgot his dire medical condition as soon as he was removed from the activity. Still, the school had me pick him up anyway because it's a bad cold and flu season, and I get that! I will take him to the doctor just in case. When I got him home, though, he was bounding up and down our stairs like the picture of health, and he only very occasionally remembers to act sick when I'm in his field of vision - so I'm not too worried from a medical perspective.But long term, assuming this is indeed psychological, what the hell do I do? It's clear that even if he doesn't have a physical illness to address, he dislikes school so much that he is working himself into a frenzy to get out of it. Which is its own problem, and not a small one.He swears he is not being bullied. His teachers rave about his work.EDIT: There are absolutely no screens allowed when you're home sick from school and he knows this. I'm sorry I mentioned "bounding around" because I made it sound like he was playing - I was just trying to express to you all that he's not seriously ill. You have to go up and down the stairs to use the bathroom in this house and he moved happily not sickly when he did it, that's all I meant.I should have been explicit: he's choosing home that he knows is boring over being in school. He hates school that much. That's the problem I'm trying to solve. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2rAAGrF