Hi there, I am getting close to my wits end . For the last 4 years my 15 yr old has been refusing to go to school. His attendance for this year is currently just above 50:%.
There are so many issues with him and I have exhausted all possible avenues that I am aware of to help him.
It started off with his father who I split up with 11 years ago basically taking his new girlfriends side when my DS was having any issues staying with them , which in turn made my DS not want to stay with them anymore , which led to his father's girlfriend basically making his father choose between her and their kids and our son , he choose her and their kids so my son has not seen his father for nearly 3 years.
He started not wanting to go to school after this , making up any excuse , feigning illness , he has no sleep pattern whatsoever and worst of all IBS brought on by stress.
He is so clever , stubborn and thinks he knows everything like normal teenagers , doesn't see the point in school , if he doesn't respect a teacher he doesn't see the point in putting in any effort in their class.
He wants to be a lawyer and I have told him until I'm blue in the face that unless he does well in school , and that means actually turning up then he has no chance but this still doesn't make him want to help himself.
We have now gotten.into a vicious circle of him having an IBS flare up and refusing to go to school because his symptoms are basically chronic constipation which then causes leakage and him soiling himself ( school have been amazing btw saying he can use the staff toilet and keep a change of clothing in the staff room ) but he still refuses to go because he says it's embarrassing, but then because he doesn't want to be at school this causes him stress which leads to another IBS flare up.
Gp only wants to treat the symptoms not the cause so he is on medication to regulate his bowel , we've been referred to CAMHS twice , first time they offered counselling through relate which didn't help , second time a couple of months ago they discharged him after seeing him twice saying they couldn't help , he had to help himself and that is the most frustrating thing because he doesn't want to help himself because in his eyes having an IBS flare up is a perfect excuse to not have to go to school.
Anything I suggest gets thrown back in my face, yoga, stress techniques , exercise , diet control, etc and I really am at a loss what to try next.
He will be going into his final year at school after the summer holidays and all I want for him.is for him to achieve his goal of going to college to do A levels in law, psychology, sociology and politics but if this carries on for another year it just won't happen.
I tried to get an appointment with my GP this morning after another unsuccessful battle to get him in to school but all I got was a phonecall back from my gp advising us to stop his IBS medication for 48 hrs then start it again.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
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Any advice where I can go to to get help with 15 yr old DS who doesn't want to go to school.
8 replies
HelenLM · 18/07/2017 10:51
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