"School refusal" trend

Imagine dragging your six year old out from under the kitchen table while he’s sobbing because he can’t go to school. Chasing him up & down the road to try to get him into school. Forcing him because you COULD pick him up & carry him in. Imagine seeing him crying & screaming because it was just too much & he couldn’t do it anymore. Even with a diagnosis for SEN & an EHCP & he still couldn’t get the support he needed.

Seeing the promotion, that you’ve worked towards for the last 5 years go to someone else as you haven’t got the mental capacity left to put yourself forward for it. Clinging onto the job you do have by your fingertips because your caring responsibilities have quadrupled & that’s before the never ending meetings with various professionals (whose advice all differs by the way), to try & get your kid into school. No help for his mental health though as he doesn’t qualify for Cahms as their threshold is too high.
Imagine seeing your kid in a foetal position on your couch for the best part of a year. Unable to move from there except to go to bed. Unable to use the toilet. Unable to leave the house. Unable to be alone even for a few minutes. Imagine seeing your bright, energetic child so utterly broken by it all, they’re completely emotionless & flat.
I can’t tell you what we went through as a family, what we’re STILL going through.
Not a fucking ounce of it is because we can’t be arsed.

I would’ve been described as one of those children who refused to go to school when I was younger, but guess what? It was tough tits! I still went because there was no choice in the matter. And guess what? I’m now a perfectly adjusted adult who respects rules and authority, received a good education, have a good job and still love my parents who made me attend school against my will!

I come from an Indian background. Parents born in india and came over here. My sons dad's parents are born in the Caribbean. So, it does actually happen and has caused immense stress and shock but I can assure you it's not just my family, from a cultural perspective

It's true that it didn't used to happen

Despite posters stating how it absolutely DID happen? I was a refuser in the late 80's.

School refusal has been going on for years!
Back in the 70’s 80’s 90’s maybe the millennium it was called skiving or mitching!
Now a days people are recognising that children who doesn’t want to go to school have got a genuine reason why they don’t want to go!

I'm in my late thirties, always hated school and had low attendance, started actively refusing in secondary.

Heard all the usual - just force her in, it's because of TV/the internet at home. Didn't work. I'd rather be at home doing housework all day than at school. I started self-harming at school when I was pressured to go in. Everything then was focused on how I was the problem and how badly behaved I was for refusing school, even when I talked about crippling anxiety and suicidal feelings.

Had I been an adult talking about work that way I'd be signed off immediately and advised to look for a different kind of work that suited me better. But children who aren't suited to school aren't given alternatives.

In my teens I was diagnosed with 'school phobia' the apparent solution to which was to try to make me go to school even though it was the equivalent of trying to cure arachnophobia by dumping spiders over someone. In my thirties I was diagnosed with autism.

It's new, and it's not a trend. Current schools with their surveillance and datafication, performativity measures, and strict zero-tolerance rules would have suited me even less than the one I went to did. Not every child is suited to the narrow school system we have.

School refusal happened in the past too. But in children and younger teenagers it tended to be called 'truancy' or more colloquially 'bunking off', and once you were 16, it was just 'leaving school'.

Studies in the 70s and 80s (e.g. the National Child Development Study) suggested that about 45% of secondary pupils truanted sometimes, though only a much smaller proportion truanted continually,

Before 1973, the compulsory school leaving age was 15, so that it was a totally different situation from being expected to stay until 18.

One difference is that nowadays, with technology, it's more possible to study and prepare for exams without physically attending school.

Yes exactly this. In many cultures, education is like a religion. You simply do not refuse to learn or to attend school and children internalise that from a very young age. There are plenty of ND kids in those cultures too but they also understand it's not negotiable. They manage to muddle through and have to learn coping methods. But refusing school would be on the same level as a religious transgression, like drinking alcohol if you're Muslim or sex before marriage for strict Catholics.

I would also argue that school doesn't necessarily have to be an awful, sensory aggravating and entirely unsuitable place for autistic kids. ND children also crave social contact and friendships. In the 90s there were plenty of "geek cliques" who had fantastic times together and everyone could unmask or indulge in their special interests. Even today, in every school you'll find the group of kids who love manga, cosplay, games, books, fan fiction etc. Finding people on the same wavelength is an invaluable boost to mental health. The great tragedy of covid was that it took this opportunity away from everyone and parents and kids should have embraced the chance to get back into school instead of seeing it as optional.

The thread is about the rising numbers of school refusers. Surely that’s a valuable conversation but some posters like yourself are trying their best to shut down the conversation because they feel personally attacked. The world doesn’t revolve around you though and your opinion isn’t more valuable than others.

It did used to happen it was called 'bunking off'.

Hopefully they'll find a better job. No one should be miserable, hating it and crying every night about their job.

It's about my experience as a parent of a school refuser. What's your reason for being on here?

To judge?
To show ignorance?

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.

My son refuses to go to school although allegedly he's working on his own and tell me he's going to university. He goes in very occasionally so it's not complete refusal. But it does worry me, even if he does OK in his exams (somehow) as in gets passes, what does he think the working world will be like.

I didn't shrug over it but I really never found a way of making him do something he had decided not to do.

Yes, it was happening 40 years ago.

The only ‘school refusers’ I’ve ever had any experience of recently is either special needs, in mainstream when should be in SEN provision, so struggling every single day or those who were bullied to the stage of trying to take their own life.

in the past (I left school in the early 90s) there were plenty of us that refused school, I didn’t go for over a year myself. The difference was back then no one gave a shit, they either don’t care we weren’t there or didn’t do anything about it/didn’t tell our parents. They also didn’t give a shit when my PE teacher was abusing us girls either which was why so many of us wouldn’t go into school

It’s a cultural issue too. There’s no way this would fly in immigrant families, because it’s recognised just how lucky people in the U.K. are to have a world class, free education system. It seems to be more common with more permissive parenting styles… I do understand that it’s a huge multifaceted issue with no easy solution but the second gen immigrant in me has it ingrained that going to school and doing well academically is hugely important and to rebel against that is just unheard of

My daughter was a school refuser. Admittedly she had a CAHMS referral which was no use. I didn’t make her go to school as she hated it, but she still got her grades (from home) and she’s now thriving at college. School isn’t for everyone.

Did you know that emotionally based school avoidance was actually first identified in the 1930s? At that point it was known as 'school phobia'.
Or that current research shows that 92.1 % of children with attendance difficulties are neurodivergent, with 83.4% being autistic?
It's a case of can't not won't... neurodivergent children are the canaries in the mines of our collapsing school system. We have a recruitment crisis, a retention crisis, an attendance crisis and an adolescent mental health crisis; at what point will the government recognise that we have an outdated system in crisis, damaging those who are in it, adult and child alike?!

This is so true but not only the fact that children have woken up to the fact that they can’t be made to go to school, home is actually quite fun as they can go online and live their life virtually. I grew up in the 90s, staying at home all the time would have been seriously boring so school was preferable to that. Isn’t the case now. I knew people who occasionally played truant with their mates but not people who persistently did not attend school at all.

My reception age child often says she doesn’t want to go and I let her have days off. She was diagnosed with autism at 2.5 years and I want her to learn to self regulate now so I respect her when she can’t manage a day/days and then she’s always refreshed after a rest

You say you're talking children without SEN but I think you're missing the point that most DC who struggle with school do have SEN.

My friends daughter is a school refused at 13. Doesn’t surprise me, her dd has gotten away with murder since very small. No respect for her mum, used to hit her and my DF would just laugh it away. Has sworn and been allowed to from a very young age. She was not a nice child, really spoiled. Now her mum has the consequences of not disciplining her DD. My Friend works in education btw.

All I have to add is I hope everyone is choosing wisely with their vote.

Education is everyone’s issue, parent or not. It’s the future and will determine economic growth if you want to express it that way.

Or we can carry on as we are. War babies are the silent generation. We have enabled the current government to create a forgotten - ignored - underfunded - damaged generation.

Schools can be dreadful places. The violence at DD's first primary was just awful. And nothing was done about it when children were assaulting children (but an offender was swiftly moved on (managed move, PRU etc.) when they hit a teacher. DD used to cry all the way in and all the way home. When she was throttled by a nasty little shit she refused to go back. And honestly I don't think it would have been right to force her. We stayed on roll to highlight the horrendous environment. The school cared far more about their attendence stats than the safety and wellbeing of the children who made it in. We did some home ed, slid through covid then (finally!) managed to get a place at a calmer primary some distance away. But until we got a new school she was a "school refuser".

You can't compare it to work. Because adults have more agency over their lives and would go off sick or change job if they were treated the way children are too often treated at school.

I have a friend whose son went through this. Both his parents valued education. They have been beside themselves with worry. How do think they should force their six foot tall teenager to attend school and stay there? They have sought all sorts of help and tried different approaches. This was not a neglected or deprived child either.