To ask if you got your child back into school after EBSA?

@BackForABit that's horrific. I hope you found some relief for him.

@drspouse having just read the extract maybe I'm missing the point, but my son's exec function is so much a function of his mental state I'm struggling to see it as an independent variable. The answer to "could he do this?" is so often "it depends on his mental state". A child in crisis and at breaking point is more likely to display demand avoidant traits and more likely to present with exec function deficits.

I think it depends on how high the demand associated anxiety is, the potential consequences of not reducing demands vs reducing them and also how reasonable the demand is.

When my DS was 8 he nearly ended up in a mental health hospital. Eight. The self injury and distress was extreme. We were talking about putting our beloved baby into care. So we reduced demands. My other child (non verbal, autistic, learning disability) gets anxious brushing his teeth, we put lots of adaptations in (social story, no flavour tooth paste, special brush, compromise only 30 seconds brushing, specialist dentist visits), but we don't remove that demand because we know it could cause huge pain and dental issues and the tooth brush distress is minor.

Demand reducing, in my opinion, should be child by child, case by case. Some children it really is better if they don't go to school or wear pyjamas most days, most not.

Just marking my place as I try to get my daughter into school after a week off, after 3 years of sporadic attendance. She's hit a wall today and just can't even get up. I just want my daughter back, going into school would be great but I'm so worried now that we are heading towards EBSA. Lots of health issues which we can't get a diagnosis for, autism, PDA...gp appointment this afternoon where I'm hoping they will help. Feeling very hopeless this morning and I have to now get ready to go and teach myself. Worried about her, my job, everything.

It's a bit silly when politicians come out with things like "parents shouldn't let their kids stay home". Some children you can try many different tactics, changing the school, lots of resources thrown at them and it would still involve physically manhandling them in, which is just no good for anyone.

I once asked a school to spell out exactly where the line should be drawn with "just making him go in" - pulling him by the hand if he's screaming and crying? Picking him up and dragging? Pinning him down and then forcing clothing on him while he violently refused and then dragging? They refused to actually say it on the record. This was when he was 5, now at much older I wouldn't even be physically able to force him to school, even if I wanted to.

Absolutely.

As ds went through college and now work he's been much calmer because he feels like he has some control.

I do think half (most!) of the issue around EBSR is that people doesn't allow the child the time and control they need to manage the demands placed on them.

You'll probably remember when my ds was too anxious to attend his MS secondary.

We moved schools (named another Ms on ehcp after trying and managed move).

He was still anxious but he could attend.

I think you need to support the, to attend but also you can't just keep things the same and think that will work.

It's a combination of things. Helping them manage anxiety but also having a setting, set up or whatever where they are relaxed enough to be in a place to manage it.

The frustrating thing is when people think a child refusing school is just refusing. Like you said refusing to see anxiety. Refusing to acknowledge there's a reason they are finding it difficult and sometimes impossible to attend.

Strangely, he copes with university despite having huge numbers in his lectures. I have puzzled over why but I think it is a combination of low contact hours giving him the opportunity to destress, knowing he is able to walk out / not go to the lecture if he is having a bad day, being taught a subject that interests him and at a level that stimulates him and a lack of disruptive behaviour from the other students.

Yes my DD copes well at college doing her a levels, but couldn't cope with mainstream secondary. I think for similar reasons to your DS's.

But also she's older and has developed some of those skills that she was delayed in age 11, such as organisation and time management. This was a major reason why she struggled so much when she started secondary.

Also the college treat the students as adults, they wear their own clothes, call the teachers by their first name, they're spoken to more respectfully, and aren't given detentions for minor mistakes like forgetting a pen or wearing the wrong colour hair bobble!

Thank you @OneInEight, that's a really insightful analysis.

Not back to school but back to education which I felt was more important.

Exposure worked when anxiety was fear of the unknown. So when ds2 started a new placement (ARP, special school, home tutors) it helped especially when the provider was prepared to move at his speed rather than a preconceived timetable. So with the home tutors it took a whole year before he really began to trust them and for him to fully access what they could teach him.

Exposure did not help when the anxiety developed after a period of attending the placement especially if the provider expected any adjustment to come from him rather than them. So he attended mainstream successfully for five years but when it broke down in year 4 he never overcame his anxiety even though we persevered for eighteen months. Likewise with special school although he initially settled down once his anxiety levels were ramped up by a change of management he again never settled down (I think we persevered for six months this time). In both of these cases the schools never really were able to recognise when he was getting anxious and take premptive steps rather than letting it get to explosion levels.

Strangely, he copes with university despite having huge numbers in his lectures. I have puzzled over why but I think it is a combination of low contact hours giving him the opportunity to destress, knowing he is able to walk out / not go to the lecture if he is having a bad day, being taught a subject that interests him and at a level that stimulates him and a lack of disruptive behaviour from the other students.

DS is autistic, started refusing to go to school a couple of years of ago. A lot of work was put in to encourage him to attend, lots of involvement from various people. But he couldn't cope with seeing or being seen by any of the children in his school, and the resulting meltdowns were horrendous and violent towards myself and DH.

Short of physically forcing him, which would have been traumatic for all of us and counter-productive, I don't know what we could have done.

In the end he was offered a place in a small base in a different school, it took a lot of work but in the end we got his attendance up to about 75% - sometimes higher but he would have gone in late and missed registration, which was amazing.

He's now gone up to secondary, to a specialist autism base - he actually went in on the first day and we had no meltdowns in the last week of the holidays - some dysregulation but he managed it well. It still feels like we have a long way to go, but two years ago we wouldn't have believed we would be at this point now and I am so proud of him and grateful to the amazing staff at both primary schools who put so much work in to get him assessed and to get him into a suitable educational environment.

@Arrivapercy Because my dd didn't kick off school felt that she was "fine" and should be in school. When she was so unwell she couldn't get out of bed they thought she was fine and she should be in school. When she was declared unfit for school by a consultant they thought she was fine and were ordering me to attend meetings to discuss her return contrary to medical advice. It's all very well being smug in your ivory tower because yours were able to attend and FWIW my older ones attended absolutely fine with no issues. Your ignorance and arrogance have no place on this thread. Seven years later and dd now an adult we are still dealing with school trauma and LA are still funding a very expensive EOTAS package as a result.

My year 7 has to all appearances completed two days at secondary school with great success.

On both Monday and Tuesday evening she said she wanted to die and said she'd use a kitchen knife.

(She's OK and has gone in for day 3).

It's very stressful!

She has an EHCP and a diagnosis of autism. My mother thinks "labels are unhelpful."

distress…tantrums

Demonstrating how little understanding you have of distressed dysregulated DC with additional needs having a meltdown.

@Frowningprovidence yes the goals and targets and the belief that if he gets in he is fine (how many times was I told he is fine when he is in) because he didn’t act out or show any disruptive behaviour

then rather than going well done (his actual class teacher was amazing and did) you made it in for an hour it was let’s do 2 tomorrow

i get there are limited resources but letting us follow his lead just needed time and no pressures nothing else

This has to be one of the most outdated and ignorant posts I've read in a long time.

We are talking about children with clinically diagnosed neurological conditions here. It's got nothing to do with "affluenza" or anything that's happened prior to them starting school.

I'd agree with this. We did try a gradual approach to getting back into school but it only worked when the school was right and it was child led in terms of increasing hours.

We found schools and our LA were very keen on goals and targets and increasing them quite rapidly, like recovery would be a linear set thing. It was nothing like how my dh was treated when he crashed out of work for mental health issues where he led the pace.

DS is currently on his first day in yesr 7 - no idea how it is going to go!

he first burnt out in yesr 5 and was off for half a term, a 6 week timetable did get him back but in June 2023 he went again. It was awful and his mental health reached rocked bottom. We did get some therapy

what worked was time although they were very resistant to it, phone calls and arguments about how he needed to get back in full time even though a gradual child led approach was working

a thick skin on my part to push back every time they wanted to move at their rather than his pace - I got attendance involved as was frankly sick of it being dangled over me as a threat for not coming in line with their timetable

tje whole thing was exhausting and having a child led bespoke approach set out would have helped from the start. We both had the same end goal - I wanted him back, he wanted to be back and they wanted him back.
Singing of the same page would have been so helpful - and the truth I found often inconsistencies in what I was told

better training I think would help

The psychology of posters like you is fascinating. You've joined a thread asking for experiences of a situation you appear personally unfamiliar with, and have decided to tell a group of parents describing harrowing and challenging situations with their disabled children and children in mental crisis, that it's their fault for their permissiveness and poor parenting.

Do you have insight as to what motivates you to behave like this? You anticipate being flamed; is it that you crave attention? Or perhaps telling others what they are doing wrong makes you feel better about your life?

Nah. Some are far too conscientious for their own good and continued to comply until they were utterly broken and couldn't do it any more.

Result: they stopped going to school in their GCSE years. It would have been SO much better if we'd listened to them more earlier on. Then we'd have had a chance at finding something that they could manage in KS4 and they could have some semblance of mental health, and hopefully some GCSEs.

The idea that the rot set in because we were too permissive when they were a preschooler is bizarre and laughable.

A child can't learn when they are so flooded with rules and demands that they have no brain left over to use in their learning. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. You can compel a child into a classroom but it's the wrong battle if it leaves them with their head is all over the place so they can't even process what the teacher is saying.

What an earth are you talking about? My son was an absolute dream. Had usual temper tantrums as a toddler which were delt with (not by giving in to his "demands").

He started refusing school in year one when the sensory environment became too much for him to handle.
School were unsupportive and had a view much like yours. In actual fact he had undiagnosed autism and adhd. School would not offer any support even after diagnosis.
He was taken to school by me every morning after hours of battling. We would get to school and they would tell me there was no staff to support/due an ofsted visit/couldn't be fucked to educate him.
They started calling me to pick him up beacuse he was crying/hiding under a table.
My son was and still is traumatised by his school experience, I have never got him back and he is 15 now. He is certainly told no/has consequences. He goes outdoors every day. He has hobbies that aren't screen based and he eats a better more balanced diet than most adults I know.

Boils my blood when people (especially senior/professionals) say don't "let" them stay at home.

I literally had to peel my secondary school child off the banisters, the doorframe and then drag him out of the footwell of the car to get to school (for YEARS) and the situation never got better. It just got worse and worse with the school continually sending him home about 1 hour after arriving until he became extremely mentally ill.

If I had just listened to my instincts then perhaps that wouldn't have happened.

He has gone back to school after a very long time but only on a very limited timetable. (ASD diagnosis)

Nothing at all to do with the toxic environment of school today 🙄

What a blinkered statement.

DD hasn't been back for the start of Year 11. If she doesn't scrape together some gcse's she'll miss her chance to go to the nice, supportive, 6th form college and will end up at the local tech college which would be hell on earth for her.
She has an app on her phone to try and control her self harm, it was unused all summer and I can see she's spent a few minutes on it this week.