Does anyone else have an anxious child/ school illness faker, I'm exhausted already

[Snarrf]

DD is 13 and under SEN register for this ongoing issue.

She has school anxiety and last year was such a bloody battle

She was 98% fine over summer holidays which cements to me that this is a school issue, not genuine physical illness. (I know it is a mental illness though!)

She's been back in school a week. The first few days were OK and I stupidly thought maybe this year would be better.
Midweek she started saying she felt sick/tummy ache/headache. All the usual.

Phone calls at 2am to tell me she feels poorly. Texts. Refusing to get dressed.

Her brother has started at the same high-school and she's already made him late.

The school is very aware of all this and she is constantly in the office /nurses office.

She said she felt ill this morning and that she had thrown up. She was sent to school as advised (if I kept her off everytime she said she had been sick she would have 10% attendance)

The school rang to say her brother was sick and could I go get him.

He had awful stomach pains and struggled to walk home with me and went straight upto the toilet with the runs.

Thing is, DD is going to be livid that he was sent home when she is 'never believed'.

Im just so tired and fed up of dealing with this all the time.

I don't know how to deal with it.

"Tough luck. You're going to school."

Deliver here there yourself.

Why is school making her so anxious that it causes physical symptoms?

Yes I've been doing that for 2 years.

That's the approach I've always had.

Was hoping to find some emotional support from parents going through similar.

No idea. She has lovely friends, is smart, doing well academically. She actually really likes the school and the teachers.

She just doesn't want to be there. She has some other issues that aren't school related but probably contribute to her just wanting to be home but she's having ongoing counselling inside and outside of school for that.

Yes. My DD is primary age though. She was recently diagnosed as autistic. She is what used to be described as “high functioning or Aspergers” (though those terms are no longer used in diagnosis).

So masks her feelings while in school (and in front of most people, appearing sociable and ‘normal’ much of the time) and is academically capable, leading school to insist she was “fine”.

She wasn’t , and still isn’t even with support in place.

She is off school today - already - with nausea and diarrhoea. I don’t doubt that these symptoms are real, but I’m confident that they are triggered by anxiety - which usually starts on a Sunday night.

It is exhausting and it’s horrible to witness. Being scared is a horrible feeling. I know she beats herself up for not being able to cope, but it is genuine fear and not laziness or manipulation. I’m sure that is the same feeling for your DD. I feel for her, and for you.

The trouble is, with the "tough luck you're going to school" approach is that for some children school is a truly awful place and is not the correct environment for them to learn.

I would be trying to get to the bottom of what is causing the anxiety and trying to fix that.

I say that as someone who had a child completely breakdown in year 5 of primary school due to undiagnosed ASD. He ended up completely traumatised by being told he just had to go which was the initial approach.

And “tough luck, you’re going to school” isn’t encouraged anymore. You are looking at protecting your child’s mental health both in the short and long term.

When adults suffer from work-related stress, they are not marched in there and told not to be silly. They are signed off to recover, they go back on phased return, adjustments are put in place to support them. Why should it be different for children? Who are actually more vulnerable than adults

This. No advice OP but lots of sympathy.

Sounds a lot like my primary age DD who struggles with school related anxiety. She has a bowel condition as well as anxiety, makes it hard to work out what's pain from physical illness and pain from anxiety. As someone with anxiety I know it can be really hard to tell when physical symptoms are from anxiety or from an illness, so she might not be faking in that sense, she might struggle to work it out, get caught up in her head and cycles round getting more and more wound up. DD gets worried she's sick and will be sick at school and can't tell what's what. It's a big ask at this age.

I can't say I really know how to deal with it either. It's incredibly frustrating and I hate having to constantly make judgement calls on what she's experiencing. She's actually doing better this year after CBT, group therapy and an Autism diagnosis. We've changed from being anxious about going to school to being extremely anxious about being on time. It's fun having a kid screaming in the back of the car all the way to school because you've crossed over the time she's decided arbitrarily means we'll be late. Three Autistic DC makes out mornings pretty chaotic.

Her little brother has taken over as the child not wanting to go to school, though he's faking his physical disability being worse then it is that day rather then anxiety. It's unbelievably frustrating and I can't send him like I did his sister, if there's any doubt. He's missed so much school and a fair portion he didn't need to miss. Personally I'd have picked up both, this might be that day it's not anxiety.

DD thinks she is autistic. Her SEN teacher disagrees.

It's tricky because as she has come to believe this she has researched autism and over that last 12 months has started to take on the traits she has read about. So I'm not sure what's genuine and what's influenced from social media and Google.

The problem is you are trying to treat the symptom, not the cause.

Why is she so anxious about going to school? Is she seeing a counsellor? Tough love does not work for everyone. She might need someone who can listen and understand what she's going through. Teenage years are bloody hard, I'm sure we all remember if we haven't blanked out the trauma! She needs helping not forcing.

Has she had an assessment? Have you seen the GP?

This all sounds like a cry for help.

If she is pretending she is autistic - why is she doing that? Is she crying out for attention? Why?

She obviously needs some help - I would start with counselling and/ or going to the GP.

Examples

1-She's always been very loud, shouty, no issues with noise preteens. Been in a loud home environment and been fine. But now any noises she covers her ears and runs away. She requested noise cancelling headphones and wears them.

My sisters daughter is 2 and autistic. She is non verbal and does alot of 'flapping'

DD has never done that but now when she gets excited over something she does.

I'm not saying she is deliberately lying but I think she's just very stressed and has access to alot more information I ever did as a child.

I believe I have ADHD myself, so I do believe she may have some neuro diversity but I'm not sure what

She's had counselling. Inside and outside of school yes.

She's on a waiting list for an assessment but they've said it could be almost a year

I'm not saying she is deliberately lying but I think she's just very stressed and has access to alot more information I ever did as a child.

Yes, whatever is going on it is obvious that she is very stressed and not coping. So start with that. Don't make a big deal out of the whole autism thing - maybe she does, maybe she doesn't - it actually doesn't matter too much at this stage because what she actually needs is some emotional support to explore how she is feeling about school and why.

Sympathies OP. My dd then she'd 15 convinced herself she had a MH illness (BPD), she's bright and she'd done all the research so knew all the symptoms, to the extent she started adopting the behaviours, even to the cost of her own social life.

She convinced herself, me, a CAMHS worker, a counsellor, the school and the GP ... I felt really distressed by the "diagnosis", so eventually I paid £300 for a consultation with a highly experienced private psychiatrist at The Priory - who said there's nothing clinically wrong with her. Three days later she stopped exhibiting the symptoms. That was a year ago and she's been fine ever since ..

I could say the same of DD, friends, academically smart, wants to go to school, but when that anxiety hits she can't cope. There isn't always a reason, or at least one that would make sense. DD gets anxious people will look at her, or laugh at her, or no one will play with her or that she won't do ger work well enough or will feel sick but can't communicate with the teacher or that people will realise she's different to them. She also regularly says she wants to die. Anxiety can be a real mind fuck.

Have you considered trialing medication? I know a few children who are doing much better now with anxiety medication. They do all have SEN, ADHD or ASD, though I wouldn't count that out, it's not unusual for Autistic girls who previously could mask and cope to fall apart around this age as relationships and education get more complex.

• then aged 15, sorry

I agree completely but she's getting as much help as they can offer.

She just says 'I don't know' when asked why she feels this way.

I’d take your DD’s lived experience of herself over her SEN teachers experience (I’ve taught in SEN settings and I can tell you many staff have little training and understanding of autism, particularly the way it presents in girls)

I'm glad someone sees where I am coming from. I'm not disbelieving her at ALL. I can just see some changes that haven't been present since birth like you would expect with autism but that have started over the last 12 months.

When she was in year 7 she believed she was trans too, prompted by a non binary teacher I believe. It only lasted a few months and she moved into something else eventually but it worries me how easily influenced she seems to be.

I'm going to push harder for an assessment.

Even if just to rule it out.

Have you ever considered that she's just decided not to mask anymore?

My children are both autistic as they have got older, and more comfortable in their own skin, they have decided to mask less.

It's a good thing.

I wouldn't assume she is faking. Sen teachers are NOT qualified to diagnose or rule out autism.

This was me 30 years ago. Senior School was horrific for me and I was school refusing due to real physical symptoms. It was 5 years of hell for me and I left as soon as I could. I spent a lot of time in the Nurses office as it was my safe space. Nobody could understand why I was refusing school - I was doing well, all my friends were there, I got on with the teachers but it just felt wrong and scary and there were some really horrible kids there. I’ve been diagnosed with Autism this year and it’s all fallen into place - it was sensory overload, too much change all at once, it didn’t feel ‘safe’. I really feel for your DD.

Does she generally have a good relationship with you (or another parent/ trusted adult in her life) who might be able to talk to her?

What I would do (and it might not be the right thing but just through personal experience of working/ living with teens!) is try to talk to her in a way that puts her in the driving seat.

She's 13 so old enough to take some control of her life.

She will knows that this situation is not good and that not going to school is only goign to harm her in the long run. So give her some ownership of it - at the end of the day, no one can force her, but she must see it's in her best interest to go to school - so how can we work together towards something more positive here?

What does SHE think should happen, realistically? You can't do everything for her and you can't think of a solution if she doesn't help. She's on the waiting list for an autism assessment already - great. So what can we do in the meantime? Does she think she needs to move school? Or talk to the teachers somehow? Move to a different class? What does she actualy want?

I would ease off the 'parent-child' model and actually try to support her to work it through herself, treating her more like an adult. You might be surprised (or you know, she might carry on being difficult but at least you've tried!)