"School refusal" trend

My sister went through this stage a whilst back. My mum tried every thing to get her into school. She was attacking my mum and the siblings and locking herself in rooms. School didn't know what to do or help. Camhs wasn't interested. My mum asked social services for help, they said she didn't require it as no safe guarding concerns. If my mum walked her in one gate she would climb back over the gate and go again. Police would be looking for her and she was 12 doing this. In the end my mum gave up. 2 years later she's finally been diagnosed with Autism and other things and basically spends her days on tranquillizers. It's so much more than someone accepting their kid doesn't want to go to school. My mum needed her to go for respite from her but no.
She's now out of school fully and my mum has no idea when she will ever go back. She receives no education at all.

Those children will have hopefully recovered enough to be aware of their needs and or end up in assisted living.

My job as a parent right now is helping my son recover and teaching him how to regulate my modelling and therefore, allowing him to go on to living a life that works for him. As adults, we get to decide what job we take on, who we interact with. We have much more autonomy, which helps. When they become of an age, they'll have more autonomy over their lives in terms of jobs and interaction. And mental health and neurodiversity is no longer taboo, though there is still a lot of learning and awareness to be made but we are much further on in terms of progress than 10 to 20 years ago.

I once was ignorant and would judge parents, but here I am, one of those parents who will be and has been judged for my situation
It's been a real eye opener

Even in terms of autism, I thought I knew but actually, it was very much the opposite and not what's always said re eye contact and being non verbal etc. There's so much more to it.

At one point I’d have probably agreed with the ‘just make them’. Having now being on the other side of it, it’s genuinely not that easy.

For weeks I had to drag DD11 into school crying and sobbing everyday, have you any idea how emotionally draining that is? Then one day she just said, no I’m not going. She said you can give me any punishment you want, take anything off me, I’ll do any jobs you want in the house but im not going. She would kick and scream if I went near here. And when I said ok you can stay home today, she just relaxed like a baby. It’s awful.

We’ve made progress she’s back in school with adjustments but I worry every day that it will get two much again. Im certain shes got ASD but she masks at school so there reports don’t match mine so any diagnosis feels impossible.

@Summerose you can't imagine that parents like us have not repeatedly begged for help from the school and local education authorities?

There is no help. None.

You know autism is genetic, right? And when one sibling is diagnosed the likelihood of a second being identified goes up humongously?
Making people feel worse doesn't make them behave better; rewards and sanctions do not have a longterm effect on changing behaviour! Do you know what does change behaviour? Having your needs met! Having realistic tailored expectations to meet instead of one size fits all! Feeling like you have a say in your own destiny!

People Do Well When They Can
If they're not doing well, there's something stopping them, and we need to work out what it is, and how we can bridge it.

If a child needs a wheelchair, taking away their Internet and getting cross isn't going to miraculously heal their physical differences, is it? It's the same for emotional/social/neurological differences. You can't change someone's neurotype by bossing them harder.

A couple of things have changed since ''my day''. My mum was a sahm and I feel that that's a bit rarer now. If I'd statyed at home she'd have been relentless, haranguing me, shaming me, pressuring me, catastrophising.... She might have got me out of the house and into school through the medium of making me feel so bullied at home. I would have been just as depressed anxious and unsupported though. But hey, I would have been at school.

Also, of course, the tinternet............ 17 seasons of it's always sunny in philadelphia on netflix and my son has watched them all (I know that from his viewing profile).

I really don't consider myself ''permissive'' though. It's more like I accept that his path will be a bit more circuitous than school, 6 H1s, college, masters, big high falutin job.

@Summerose , that's not how resilience is built that's how trauma is installed. Also, many parents do talk to schools but they haven't the resources to help or just cannot be bothered as isn't their issue.

Ultimately every child does have a legal right to education but it's the legal duty of the parent to provide that so that's either via electing their child goes to school or they home educate.

For most parents it’s not a trend. It’s a nightmare where a parent is unable to go out to work because their child cannot attend school. A school that probably can’t meet the child’s needs. The education system needs an overhaul. Plus there seems to be a lot of judgement and a lack of understanding from staff…

Christ. There's no hope at all with that attitude.

I truly intend to retire before we have to start employing this generation, although there's little hope of many of them being suitably qualified or motivated for the sort of great jobs we can offer anyway.

Interesting about Fridays.

Our council (and many across Scotland) have cut hours so school shuts at lunchtime on a Friday.

Now imagine you have a kid who can't just about convince themselves to go into the school building, but can't go into the classrooms. She sits in the 'support base' which is actually just a holding pen for SEN kids and is given no curriculum work to do; one day my 14 year old came home and had coloured in a picture of Stitch...

If she can't cope by Friday am I risking her going back to self harming and suicidal ideation to send her in for no benefit to her whatsoever, and potentially huge detriment? I am not.

Isn't this exactly why parents ought to speak to the school and seek help? I think the OP works in a school, hence her example.

Everyone experiences problems, but surely an education should be encouraged despite life's many challenges. If nothing else, it's good for children to build resilience.

We have a "school refuser", school's answer was to lock him in a cupboard or padlock into a blackout tent so he couldn't escape. Needless to say we de-registered him and now home educate.

School refusing doesn't mean incapable of learning, just the need of the right environment to regain confidence and a safe place to allow curiosity to flourish which leads to learning.

The issue with this is that the child is then being punished for a situation that is out of control. If we are off work due to stress or mental health, we are actively encouraged to do things that help us, even if it means seeing friends or gaming or whatever. These young children are the same, they need to recover in an environment that is safe to them and pushing them to not having that won't help them get through it.

You're right op, we should bring back the cane and show all these school refusers a healthy dose of discipline. We should certainly make them fear staying at home more than going to school. Hell, we should cane the parents for not picking up a child as big and strong as them and forcing them into school to be educated on how long their skirt length should be and how to put up with sensory overload. We have already started punishing the teachers by ensuring that pay rises, if any, are well below inflation while raising their workloads so that's a start I suppose.

We certainly shouldn't look at why Specialist schools and units are being closed and children with extremely high needs being put into mainstream classrooms. Or why mainstream schools are being made to take on children who's needs can't possibly be met while their funding is being slashed.

Kids won't possibly grow up and get jobs that suit their interests, because we all know that there is no variety in employment at all. You tell em.

I think this is definitely true. I skipped loads of days / lessons in the 90s no one really cared. Maybe a phone call home to the landline that no one answered as they were at work or I answered and pretended to be my mum.

Whilst there are lazy parents, there are a number of very real mental health conditions behind school refusal too. I have encountered multiple parents who truly have done everything possible to get their child back at school but their child sometimes can’t even describe what is stopping them from going. It’s truly heartbreaking for all involved.

Sadly our government taught parents and children that school is optional through their mis handling of the pandemic and lockdowns which has worsened both mental health and lazy parents. A recipe for disaster

So the day when children might be most exhausted from coping all week? The day that most adults have identified as being a good time to reduce social pressure by working from home? The day when children might feel safest to be at home with family who are physically available?
Gosh, I wonder why it peaks on Fridays...

I have a friend whose two teenagers refuse to go to school. One has just been diagnosed with ASD. The other just stays up late talking to friends and then sleeps in and couldn’t be stuffed going. Their grandma lives with them so they stay home with her, message and chat to friends, walk to the shops ect. The asd teen has friends who are unschooled so she chats and hangs out with them. I get the asd teen to a point, but if it was my child I would let them stay home but no phone or technology until after school. My kids occasionally don’t want to go but if they stay home their is no phones or iPads til after school.

The older teen staying home cause she’s tired I wouldn’t put up with. She is attending a specialist private school for senior which is costing her parents a fortune and then just not going. But she ‘still wants to go there’ so they keep paying. And going into debt too cause they aren’t wealthy.

If you have worked in the field you will understand the approach professionals take to resolving issues of emotionally based school avoidance are addressing the factors that are making the school environment feel unsafe to the child (often linked to a combination of bullying and neurodivergence). Blaming the child or the family is not helpful or effective or fair.

It's true that it didn't used to happen. And now it does a lot. Is it the internet maybe? Kids can lazily entertain themselves if they stay at home. In the 80s it would have been a book or nothing.

Why on earth would kids still have access to the internet when they should be at school?

It should still be "a book or nothing".

What happens to these children when they get to 18? Do they go to work? Or stay in their rooms?

I think these are the children OP is talking about, but those parents are unlikely to be here admitting they just have no interest or will to get the kids to school.

There was a report recently saying attendance falls 20% on Fridays, coinciding with the day most work from home 🤷🏾‍♀️.

But how does anyone know if their child has SEN? The situation for SEN support is so incredibly dire. It's 5+ years wait here for an autism assessment and when my 8 year old was self harming and saying he wanted to die regularly all the GP would do was send me a leaflet. Unless they are very actively suicidal then it's a massive waiting list if CAMHS even accept the referral. There is zero chance of getting a Dyslexia or SpLd diagnosis through school, so kids are left to struggle and not know what is wrong and that obviously impacts their self esteem and confidence. So unless you can pay it's very possible to know something is wrong, but not exactly what that something is. And it can cost thousands to get an assessment of what the issues are, before you can even start getting some support in place. (Again at parent's cost of course!)

I'm not being defensive. I'm simply adding my experience and highlighting to those who think it's due to slack parenting that this isn't always the case. Of course threads like this are triggering for myself and others, due to the ignorance and tone deaf comments.

I'm all up for a conversation around this.

I agree with posters saying it's always existed. Back in the day, I used to feel I couldn't cope with five days in a row so I'd sometimes take wednesday up to spare myself the relentlessness of five days in a row. I was in the bottom stream and the teachers were awful to me. I have adhd and I was never going to be a straight As kind of student but they would shame me. I used to either read on the beach or wander round town.