AIBU to let my Year 10 child miss school sometimes?

If you’re able to pick them up from school early then always encourage them to go in and pick them up early if needed.

Often it’s the initial getting in that’s the biggest hurdle, but once they’re in then it’s fine.

As soon as they start not going in, it becomes a cycle and every morning they’ll have more anxiety.

But knowing that they have to go in but can leave if they’re struggling can really help to ease the anxiety.

Psycho-education.

Awareness + Acceptance + Agency = resilience.

Start by being aware of the physiology of your body and mind - first how physical body sensations (gut, chest, throat, head) become feelings/emotions (sad, bad, glad, mad) then intrusive thoughts and unhelpful behaviours.

End game is where to intercept and process the sensation/emotion/ thought in order to change gear to re-direct to a better response ie behavioural outcome rather than let it reactively run rapidly right through to unhelpful flight, fight, flop etc. behaviours.

Become aware and tuned in to bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts
and log them (when, where, what triggered it, how long did it last, what resolved it) - this is using ‘Mentalisation’ technique - where you are not all driven and consumed by your thoughts and feelings but you are allowing yourself to notice sensations, name your emotions and observe your thoughts as something your are ‘above’ - and you have the power to take control - to allow them to pass - to de-escalate by shifting gear with a coping strategy.

Having endured years of depression and anxiety where avoidance (flight) is the desire I have noted that it’s worse in the mornings and by 11 I am fine if I push through and get engaged with life. When your DC comes home from school how are they then?

This is the biology of depression and anxiety in the mornings:

Many people with depression and anxiety do feel worse in the morning. It’s a well-recognized pattern, especially in conditions like Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
A few reasons this happens:
Biology (your body clock)
Your mood is tied to your circadian rhythm. In depression, this rhythm can be disrupted, leading to what’s called diurnal mood variation—mood is lowest in the morning and improves later in the day.
Cortisol spike
Your body naturally releases more cortisol (a stress hormone) shortly after waking. In people with anxiety or depression, that spike can feel overwhelming—like waking up already tense or uneasy.
Sleep quality
If sleep is poor or fragmented (which is common with both conditions), mornings can feel heavy, foggy, and emotionally flat or anxious.
Thought patterns
Mornings can bring a rush of worries or negative thoughts (“I have to face the day,” “I can’t handle this”), which amplifies the feeling.

That said, not everyone experiences it this way—some people actually feel worse in the evening. But what you’re describing is very common.
If this is happening to you, a few small adjustments can sometimes help:

• Give yourself a gentler start (avoid jumping straight into stress)
• Get light exposure early (even just opening curtains)
• Have a simple, predictable morning routine
• Limit immediately checking stressful messages/news

I've skipped a lot of this thread as it's full of people saying take computers away as if that's all parenting is now. Also Resilience as if resilience is really some kind of personal quality not a term borrowed from engineering about metal strips and the bounce they can bear. Humans are not steels. Sorry if this is obvious or things have developed.

I sent my self-harming depressed y10 off in tears this morning. I am now wondering if I'm the bad parent for making her go because she has asd and the stress is cumulative and maybe I should have just let her have the day off to help her later on the week/month/year. If your DD seems more or less regulated and ok as a rule when you let her have the day off occasionally you might be doing it exactly right because she may be coping with school/life in a way that she wouldn't if you were forcing her in every day.

Basically there is no right answer except on Mumsnet which is full of A+ perfect parents of steel girder children.

This OP. Not to mention in missing school DC is only going to fall further behind and it'll be worse when they do go in.
Rather than letting her avoid learning I would be looking to scaffold her learning more by hiring a tutor for subjects she's struggling most. If she can cover some of the material at home on the weekend in a slower more manageable way with a tutor she might then find she can cope better on school.

School avoidance is the worst path to go down at this point. It's a path it's extremely difficult to turn back from; they attend school less and less and eventually refuse to go at all and end up with no qualifications and no options in life.

School is not optional.
For some reason, so many kids think that it is these days.
I do not know how they’re going to cope with a full working week.

My parents were barely around but I still just went in every day as that’s just what you did.

I teach my child that school is part of daily life and just something that they have to do, like every other child.

Not going in makes anxiety worse, so it’s a vicious cycle.

That being said, if she needs a day off let her have a day off.
Its not the end of the world to miss a couple of days here and there.

My rule (unless actually poorly) was that they have to go in on a Monday and Tuesday.
I find not going in for the weekend can heighten anxiety and so I didn’t want to make it worse by giving them a Monday or Tuesday off.

I also don’t allow screens if they’re home or to go out with friends in the evening etc.
They can use the day doing revision and tidying their room, reading etc.

You don’t want to punish them for being poorly but you also don’t want to make staying home more too fun.
I find some young people literally want to stay home just so that they can be on their phones or games all day instead.

It would help to know the following:

1. How many days has she missed this year?
2. Is she at home alone when she stays home?
3. What does she do with herself when she stays off school?

School attendance, particularly in Year 10 and 11 is extremely important. Missing school means, your child isn't there for vital lessons, to learn the material, that will help pass exams. No, exams aren't the be all and end all of life, but without at least maths and English, getting into college or finding a job will be tough. There aren't the entry level jobs any more for our young people, and employers are reluctant to employ someone young, when they can choose someone with experience. Life in the job market is tough out there.

First port of call is to speak to the SENCO and/or HOY and see if you can come to an arrangement, with your son's input, so he's in school. If necessary see if they will agree to a reduced timetable, and work to do at home. Work with the school and your son to find a solution, that he can at least tolerate. He's got approximately 12 weeks of Year 10 left to go.

What is the school doing to support you? If your child can’t cope with full time school, a plan needs to be put in place to support their learning, but also to avoid you getting in to trouble for their non attendance. Your title says occasionally missing school. But your post suggests it’s not “occasionally” but is more an EBSA. This needs a coordinated and supportive approach.

@IAgreeOP

'Reframing it' or dressing it up in therapy speak doesn't change anything other than trying to shut down conversation through a toxic be kind narrative.

I am doing absolutely nothing of the sort. Nothing to do with "be kind" whatsoever and if anyone's being toxic it's not me.

I've been really clear that in the vast majority of cases children need to be made to show up and learn to get on with it. Pushing past discomfort, all things being equal, is a good life lesson.

However there is a small number of children who suffer from mental health or neurodiversity problems of varying degrees of severity for whom school is a traumatic flashpoint. You don't solve this by forcing kids out of the door (in fact this is often physically impossible) and banging on about "resilience" without interrogating what this actually means.

I have two friends whose children refuse school: one has recovered, the other is coming out of it but in both cases its meant months of absolute hell for the parents and the children physically can't be persuaded to go to school. It's not as simple as just being "resilient"; it's a highly complex, and absolutely harrowing, situation.

I'm not clear from the OP's post whether this applies here. I don't think its great for kids to be told they don't need to go to school because they're not feeling it. But if a child is in the middle of a serious mental health episode you can bang on about "resilience" all you like but its for the birds if your child is self-harming, threatening suicide, locking themself in their room for days on end etc.

I'd like to see how some of you would manifest this "resilience" if you were in this position.

As someone who worked with young people with SEND and or autism who were in this situation i can tell you to ignore all these people with no experience of it or empathy. Talk to school and get them to come up with a timetable that works so they could be missing part days etc that they don’t need to be doing.

The school does not own your child.

I have been in the same situation and totally 100% understand the instinct. I gave in too much at one point and it becomes a spiral. I was unknowingly feeding a breeding ground for depression and low self worth. I did realise what was happening thankfully and we got through it.

Once staying home becomes an option it becomes a thought process every single morning. A mental battle which shouldn’t exist. It’s life - we all have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. What is the alternative? It’s not easy. It’s never been easier to make childhood easy and ‘magical’ but the adult environment is getting harder and with hindsight I now think we’re failing kids when we take obstacles and hardness out of their way too readily (obviously there are nuances to that). Of course there is equally need for understanding and kindness and sometimes if not caught early enough there is no option but to reset.

If anxiety is an issue (as it was for us) then avoidance is one of the worst mechanisms to develop. It weakens the ability to cope and spreads to other situations. It’s a cliche but building resilience for life is very important. It’s sink or swim and we have to teach them to swim, even if it’s just doggy paddle. Doggy paddle should be absolutely celebrated. What’s the alternative?

If they are at home, life is predictable of course. But good things don’t happen at home. The good day, the restorative and unexpected laugh with a group, the possibility of shared experience. You don’t just take away the hard thing, you close the door on the good things.

Achievement is so important for self confidence. I’m not talking about academic achievement at all but the feeling of doing the really hard thing (and the really hard thing is different for everyone). No confidence is built from avoidance.

I would insist on school (if it hasn’t developed into full blown school refusal which is a different animal to avoidance) but acknowledge how hard it is, celebrate them going, make sure life at home is as welcoming and upbeat as possible. Depending on budget, we found a family meal out on a Friday helped. We all looked forward to it as a celebration. DH and I talked about what shit weeks we’d had (even if we hadn’t) and how great it felt to get to the weekend. You could do this at home but we just had to get DS out of his bedroom as much as possible.

For me teaching resilience is making them understand that they have do the tough things, even if they dont like it, in the end they will be better for it. Alongside letting them know that I cannot do everything for them forever, so at some point they will have to be on their own and they will need resilience to get them through. I do a an 8yo though so I'm not where you are yet, but he is very quick to give up and because he is mg pfb I do more for him than I should. I tell him we are learning/building it together as my natural instinct is to just fix it so he feels better. I am more now trying to teach him its ok if things go wrong and how to sit with the sadness. It isn't easy.

I got 10A* in my GCSEs and my parents let me stay off school whenever I wanted to. I did feel overwhelmed by school sometimes and have no SEN to my knowledge. My parents trusted me to make the judgement.

I find the emphasis on full attendance a bit ridiculous, more so when it is asserted as a determinant of adult experience. I’m a senior lawyer and have never had an issue with work or meeting other commitments.

Yeah not a good approach to life, avoidance.... let's see how well that goes with his future employer.
Old habits die hard OP. The principles you teach your son now will last a lifetime

By not giving them the choice to opt out.

Speak to the school, discuss a reduced timetable, see if there is an alternative location where they can be at school and do their work without being in the lesson.

I work in a secondary school and we have provisions available for those that struggle with 5 lessons a day. You need to work with the school.

I would definitely speak to the school about dropping some GCSEs to lower the pressure a bit while still doing enough to get into college and do something more vocational. But allowing them to just skip school might make things worse. I can see it with some of the children in DD's year, they started skipping lessons due to bullying and friendship problems and their parents obviously were trying their best to be understanding and supportive but they started missing more and more school so now I'll be surprised if they pass the year, they might be held back and have to repeat the year (not uk) which will make things even tougher on them. That said, last year DD was suffering with stress that made her physically ill and I let her stay home quite a lot but also worked with the school to set up counselling to help get her back.

I don't think this is the right thing to do. You are setting a precedent for the rest of their life.

It’s tempting - my son often doesn’t want to go in. He’s very bright, no learning difficulties, but isnt very popular at school, struggles with social exclusion and has had problems with bullying (he’s year 6.) In my experience, on the few occasions I’ve capitulated, if his makes it worse and then he never wants to go. It doesn’t help him in the long run and he’s not a kid who would thrive being home schooled.
My daughter had big issues with anxiety in year 8 and 9 which made concentrating and processing content really hard. I’m so glad she never wanted to miss school because she always felt it made it even harder to catch up.
I’ve been on the periphery of parents whose kids have school refused and had big issues with non attendance (supported by their parents who no doubt felt they were doing right by their kids.) In none of the situations I’ve seen has this turned out well.

Op, this is one of those situations where context matters.

eg
my year 10 child has cancer and is expected to die within the year. Should I make her go to school? Clearly no.

my year 10 child is severely disabled and not capable of getting any marks in the GCSEs much less passing them. Should I make her go to school? Well - maybe talk to the school because a kid this severely disabled shouldn’t be put under this sort of pressure.

my year 10 child is due to get all 9s in her GCSE’s but is panicking because she might drop a mark in one of her mocks - talk to her, do some work on her perfectionism, reassure her that you love her etc etc.

the context really does matter and your initial post didn’t really give it.

make a new post with the context.

Yes, YABU. Send them. You can’t let them bunk off just because they can’t be bothered. What sort of message does that send?

I understand, those saying ‘resilience’ are missing the Learning difficulty aspect. This child isn’t by virtue of regular attendance going to meet the bar for the academic exams, they’re just going to be in a failing situation more. College will be better, once they can access an appropriate practical qualification. They just need to get through school first with the mental health and confidence to succeed in appropriate study. It’s a really really difficult balance in year 10 and 11 when you have a child who doesn’t meet the demands of GCSEs and the attached pressure. You want them to do their best, but not learn that however had they try it’s not going to get them to the goals that everyone is talking about of sixth form. They can end up disillusioned and reluctant to take next steps. If you talk them up, talk about a good future and take a bit of common sense and balance in your approach then it’s usually best.
listen to them, go with your gut as the first that knows your child best and review the situation regularly

'Reframing it' or dressing it up in therapy speak doesn't change anything other than trying to shut down conversation through a toxic be kind narrative.

I agree with others that teaching avoidance rather than resilience is not how to grow healthy, fully functional adults

I think I might be in a minority, but yes, I did let my children miss the occasional day. I trusted them to talk to me and not to overuse it.

No, this should be authorised absence on medical grounds (mental health, exhaustion, burnout). School should be putting support in place.
Note my use of should...