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.

Sunshine Support are doing a webinar about emotionally based school avoidance soon. Their webinars are really good.

in my experience ‘tough luck you’re going’ isn’t a great approach. Her anxiety is as genuine as any physical illness and putting pressure on will only increase anxiety.

have school offered a reduced timetable?

Also op let me tell you,I also had counseling it makes zero difference. (You say double the usual allocation -that doesn't sound good to me. Seems like they have a lot of children needing counseling...)
They also organised a lunchtime get together with a few other girls and a form teacher for us to sit and chat and make me more comfortable. Didn't work.

They sent letters home. So what?

These are all things that appease you but don't actually help the issue for your daughter.

I'm sure if my parents actually took some time to talk to me properly or spending type with some kind of calming techniques or something maybe things would have been better but what they actually did was rant and rave to me about how I was wasting all their money.
You can see clear as day from my school reports I was not a happy girl and I had to burn them a few months ago because I felt so anxious even seeing them around the house!

My parents would've said I had nice friends too but the reality was I just didn't care about them or anything to do with school. Obviously some days wee ok, some were better than others. I definitely remember having had some fun and laughs and stuff but there was definitely a lot more bad days/weeks.

Sorry posted to soon. Year ten was horrific.

She failed all her mocks.

Year 11 we found a good clinical psychologist and they had weekly sessions for six months. Then monthly. This helped hugely as she was able to talk through her worries without judgement and given coping techniques.

She managed to scrap through passing everything and some good high grades too.

She has been diagnosed with l
Slow processed though she is super bright. She can't seem to juggle her time in a workable manner. Gets behind and panics.

School supported her well

We are now in sixth form and things are going bad again. (After a decent summer) she has missed two days already. It's so stressful. We are going to discuss support with school or maybe she needs to leave and do college or an apprenticeship. I dont know what to say to you but if you can afford to go private do it.

Is the cost of a family holiday and it's so worth it.

Well unless I ask DD to sign up here on MN and give you her view I can't prove it.

I do know that she's told me many times she loves her school and teachers and that she wouldn't want to be at any other school and she can't understand why she feels this way about school when she does like everything about it.

Was it never raised that the root of your anxiety wasn’t the school. It was your parents and how they parented you?

Op

does she have a SEN teacher solely because of trying to avoid going to school? Or another reason?

They gave her double the amount of sessions usually available to students and you manage to twist that into a bad thing?

Each pupil is entitled to 6 sessions of counselling (most don't need it obviously) but the funding is for 6. They allowed her to have 12 to try and get to the bottom of it and somehow that 'doesn't sound good' to you?

Right.

How is she when she gets home from school?

I'm just wondering if you can get her to write down a sentence or something to say "today was good and I enjoyed it" or something so that you can show her again in the morning that she is ok when she is there. That was she's kind of talking to herself and should believe it.

I'm not sure but I'm just trying to think of stuff. I feel sorry for her as it really is an awful feeling.

I always forget how MN is the only place I've ever known that manages to make everything into a negative. It's really bizarre.

Op

you are picking up on one poster and ignoring the others

I think you said she had counselling, but what model did they use

Did they give her acceptance techniques? It can be hard if there really isnt (and its not clear whether there is) a problem but instead is 'just' a feeling of anxiety which of course overwhelms her and creates genuine physical reactions like tummy ache, weakness, sickness, shaking etc etc

She might have had some intervention around calming techniques, naming the feeling, relaxing the body parts but has she also had acceptance therapy where you learn how to note the feeling but not let it direct your choices and behaviour. You accept the feeling to some degree but by doing that you minimise its power, you dont spend effort and time trying to fight it but choose to ignore its presence

She's always in hign spirits when she gets home. Tells me about what's gone on in the days. Talks about friends and lessons. Tells me if she's been on the office.

As the evening goes on and bedtime approaches and that means sleep and getting up for school, that's when she starts to get grumpy.

Then she says she can't sleep. Will keep coming in my room till the early hours.

You don't like what I'm saying because what I have said questions your choices.

I'm replying as I can. I'm in the middle of cleaning

Sometimes children tell a parent what they think they want to hear especially if they have ASD/ social communication disorder. Dd went to school seemingly quite happy, she had friends was thriving academically until she couldn't. I didn't force her because it was obvious the anxiety was becoming overwhelming. She already had a diagnosis of autism, CAMHS input determined anxiety and depression on top. She had therapy and medication and two years out of school until she went to an independent specialist school which catered far better for her MH.
Rather than believing that she is looking for symptoms of autism and then displaying them, don't you think she could have been feeling "different" and so looked for answers instead?

Just because of the school avoidance and the amount of time she spends in the nurses office.

Yes that makes sense about the sleep thing.

Is she doing all her homework? That was definitely one aspect of anxiety because I hadn't done it or made enough effort etc.

Maybe you can plan to record her when she's had a good day (agree with her before hand obviously that you would do that and see if she is keen to try) because I think if she does see or hear herself then it might help her.

Does she have friends round to the house?

My DD started off like that. It is the anxiety generating the symptoms she probably isn't faking them. The symptoms will only get better when the anxiety is sorted.
With my DD it wasn't just school contributing to the anxiety it was her dads behaviour ( we are divorced last 10 yrs). Her therapist has diagnosed PTSD, school have decided it's not the place for her and taking it to the LA Education panel to try for alternative educational provision.

I'm sorry to say this to you but as someone who has personally been through this as a child, your battle with her is never going to be as great with the battle she has in her head. This anxiety will never go away unless it's a specific difficulty that can be addressed to make her feel at ease. If the problems she faces at school are too immense or overwhelming/not practical to 'fix' then making her go to school like this will make her permanently anxious and stressed. Unecessary pain for her. You may have to consider home schooling or another approach even if it is incomvenient to you. Please don't do the tough 'dump her at school' thing anymore. Tell her you want to help her and say 'let's try and sort this out, what do you want me to do to help you?'.

I'm sorry but 'dump her at school'?

How condescending. I'm doing everything I can to try and help her. All indications so far from both school and outside counselling sources have said that's the best place for her. I'm not dumping her anywhere. Fuck right off with that.

Not saying this to start a bun fight but I was this child and I WAS ill, undiagnosed kidney condition plus migraines . I remember being told to just get on with it by my parents, told off for asking to go to the toilet by teachers. It was horrible.
My mum was a nurse and had the mentality that you only stayed off school if your head is hanging off.
When I was eventually diagnosed I was off school for 4 months during treatment.

Parents don't know everything and we do our best with the knowledge we have. And ine information given to us by trained professionals and doctors.

For someone to imply that I'm simply sending my daughter to school because it's 'inconvenient' to have her at home and I'm dumping her at school like an old dog I don't want anymore is bloody offensive.

Blood tests and assessments (urine and stool samples as well as physical examinations inc an ultrasound around 18 months ago ) showed no physical abnormalities.

The thing is schools have different priorities namely attendance statistics and possible GCSE scores. They have a vested interest in having your child present not necessarily a vested interest in her mental and emotional health. You talk about counselling but have you got medical help? Maybe she needs medication, she definitely needs assessment, speak to your GP and ask for a referral to CAMHS at least or if you can go private for an assessment at least.

It was a figure of speech but actually ia exactly how it feels when you are forced by a parent to be left at a place that makes you feel so overwhelmingly bad. I can understand your defensiveness s that is natural but you did ask for people's advice and thoughts and mine is just one of them. As an addition to what i said, do you think she is worried about leaving you? Sometimes children don't want to leave a parent when there is alot of stress/illness at home. It's just another aspect to maybe have a look at. Above all please stop making her go in for now. All the best