"School refusal" trend

Not all of them do return unfortunately. We are managing two mornings a week but only when it’s PE and it’s outside. My daughter started feeling trapped in school due to feeling anxious and dealing with emetophobia which lead to a flight response, she’s only just now been able to have a door shut. Very very small steps.

when we did force her in at the beginning it made everything 10 times worse and lead to her running away from school near busy roads in a state of panic.

Anyone that suggests you just drag them in is very misguided.

To those who have had this expert, what happened that created a change in your dc so that they returned to school?

Or parents who completely cooperate with the school and all the professionals who get involved when your child has EBSA, are are desperately trying to get their child back into school.

And we did physically force DS into school once, and I deeply regretted it. It was so damaging to him. At one point he wouldn't just not go to school, he wouldn't leave the house in the daytime at all in case he saw someone from his class. A girl from his school posted a note through our door to say how much he was missed and that triggered a meltdown. He couldn't bear to see or be seen by anyone in his year.

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Yes

And yet these children often have siblings who attend school perfectly fine. Is that in spite of their feckless parents?

of course!

Nothing to do with EBSNA.

The underlying causes were there before covid. Unfortunately the lockdowns are often invoked as a reason for breaking the social contract between schools and families, with the latter accused of taking attendance less seriously thereafter. This is largely cobblers and an unhelpful distraction. My DD is a textbook school refuser and ‘fortunately’ went through her first bout before Covid so we can’t attribute it to that in any way. In her case, the first lockdown actually gave her some valuable breathing space and she returned to school in the September very happily - to a supportive teacher, which made all the difference.

I mean, when there was a worldwide mass over reaction in 2020 and we denied the right of children to education in a school
setting, some of us actually saw this coming. To expect young children to be deprived of school for a year and then just swam back in like the over reactions never happened was a bit of a reach.

There's probably more to the story, like he's been abused by a woman and gets distressed as a result.

Right, well I’m sure there’s more to it, like a toxic home environment.

I'm unconvinced - of course school is very much presented as a default and if you sign up to go it is expected that you follow their rules (including attendance, uniform, behaviour etc). But there have always been people doing other things because they don't think school would be suitable for their children - think of the 25,000 'governesses' in the 1851 census educating children at home, or the real young people reflected in the situations in the story 'Little Women' - which has 2/5 of the main characters schooled, one with a home tutor, one home educated due to social anxiety and one pulled out of school due to disagreement with the school's methods/the school causing harm (physical punishment) and home educated whilst another placement can be found.
Or the reason we have such long summer holidays now - because people would take their children out for the harvest, as they didn't consider attendance to be more vital.

Like many on here, I would probably have been smugly judgmental once upon a time had we not been through this ourselves.

Schools and teachers are increasingly overstretched and so adequate pastoral support is often falling through the gaps. Dr Naomi Fisher explained it well recently (see pics).

Yesterday, I took autistic DD2 for a tour of the small new private school she will be attending from September. Everyone was so kind and understanding. She came out on a real high and has repeatedly said how much she is looking forward to starting. These students often aren’t trying to swerve learning - the environment just isn’t right for them. We are really lucky we can throw money at the situation (and good therapy to get her to this point, while
she’s been on a CAMHS waiting list for 19 months), most can’t and it shouldn’t have to be like this.

Well said. The new paradigm is a place where attendance is percieved to be a choice. In the old paradigm there was no choice.

I'm guessing you're in the wrong line of work. Have you considered something where empathy and professional curiosity aren't necessary?

@OnlyHerefortheBiscuits it's obviously part of a wider plan. Without knowing the background, it's difficult to comment. But if it keeps the boy in school and isn't disrupting the classroom, then it somewhat works.

The clients are voting with their feet

I was absolutely shocked when, chatting with my 8yo niece she casually mentions that there is a boy in her class who gets to leave the classroom whenever he wants because he doesn't like women in authority. (Female teacher)

I thought she had the wrong end of the stick. Asked my sister. Nope, it's correct. Boy can leave the classroom when he feels himself getting angry because a woman is giving him instructions 😱😱😱😱

Thank you to those who have shown empathy on this thread.
To the others, I actually don’t blame you for not understanding it. I used to be like you. I thought it might have been a simple case of dragging her out of her bed or switching off the WiFi. After all, I was strict-ish when she was younger and she had never put a foot wrong prior to this.
Well, let me tell you, it’s the most soul-destroying and stressful thing.
Don’t judge until you have walked in the shoes of a school refuser’s parent!

@ExtraOnions if you see this I could really do with a handhold and to know how you have managed this. It is exactly the situation we are now in and I'm besides myself

Can we think about the fact that there are a generation of parents who went through the “old school” system and came out traumatised, now diagnosed with autism or ADHD and are understanding that their children are going through what they did.

Or shall we just go back to the “lazy parenting” rubbish.

Families struggling with school attendance are anything but lazy.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to fight for a child to receive the support they need to get an education when the standard stuff just doesn’t work for them and those in the top level jobs only have a smattering of autism awareness?

Do you have a clue how much effort it takes not to let your child see that their inability to attend is impacting YOUR mental health?

Do you know how draining it is to advocate for your child even though you’re exhausted.

We are parenting HARD here.

eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/294302/8D2D81FC-D2E8-4089-BDCC-90FE8F803D9C.pdf

I’d love to know your ‘line of work’ . You cannot begin to comprehend how upsetting this is for parents and children. I have met many parents in this situation and not one of them is as you describe. We don’t need further judgement thank you. Arsehole