Anyone else have a child who cries before school every day? What did you do?

[Uuuggghhh]

Dd cries before school almost every day. And, before bed, she cries then about going to school the next day too. It isn’t bullying. It isn’t anything worrying. It’s because she doesn’t like it there.

I do not know what to do. I am making appointments at open days of other schools (private) in the hope that might help? But could it? Or will it just be the same thing somewhere else?

What did others do?

Some things that may help-

Firstly, talk to the teacher. The teacher may be able to give you some context about how your DD is at school and there may well be things they can do to help - so for example if her best friend has left and she hasn't really settled it may be possible to do some work with the class on friendship and the teacher could set up a "circle of friends" for your DD.

Also, the teacher might say - oh, she's really struggling with X and then you know what to try and work on.

You could also try and set up some regular play dates (I know she's a bit too old really) with girls from the class to try and encourage some friendships so she has a positive reason to go into school.

Finally, this age is notorious for mean girl friendship behaviour. They just seem to fall constantly in and out of friends and there's lots of drama. Your DD might be in the middle of some of this, or she might be deliberately withdrawing because she doesn't want to get involved.

The teacher will know.

Definitely make an appointment to speak to the teacher.
Don't assume that private schools will be better just because you pay for them. Often the very competitive nature of them can be very anxiety inducing for children and kids from privileged families can be very unpleasant and entitled.

Did you speak to the school about it ? Is there any reason she doesn’t want to go ?

Have you reached out to SLT at school? At ours we have a member of the pastoral team meet any children that get distressed coming in, they go in through the office, avoiding the playground and straight to the nurture lounge to do a 15 minute fun activity / chat before heading to class. It's massively helped every single child that's used it so far

Thanks everyone. She was crying in bed again last night, and is upset again this morning, but DH taking her in and she’s on board with it. Last night we talked a lot about all the things we can do to try and make it better, and she said she’d like me to do them. We also talked about how we could try another school or another alternative if nothing worked.

I’m going to email the school today to set up an appointment! I am also going to get her a GP appointment to talk about anxiety and maybe CBT.

The problems, she said, after talking to her last night, is that her teacher is strict and humourless and her lessons aren’t fun, and she doesn’t have many friends at playtime anymore. She says it feels like torture knowing she’ll have to go in every day. She added up how much time out of her life it was!

My daughter was terrible all the way through junior school down to separation aniexty and aniexty overall, once she got in the class and after several minutes she was fine. It’s awful and heartbreaking especially when the teachers were having to drag her off me. I dreaded her going to secondary because she was going to have to get a bus and thought there is no way I can force her to get on that bus without embarrassing her. Luckily it was like she grew up over night the first day she had a wobble but she did it on her own and she has smashed every day. She’s 16 now and I can say how proud I am off her.

I suspect I was like your daughter at my primary school. I was miserable and there was no obvious reason. There was some low level teasing and bullying, but nothing major, I had friends (although not from my class).

It was just the wrong environment for me and that, plus my parents’ lack of action, left me with long lasting consequences.

We happened to move when I was 10, I went to a new school (private tbh) and it was as if I was a different person. So much happier and no mental health issues. I saw that it wasn’t me, it was just the wrong school.

I hope you can find a school that works for your daughter. We have deliberately found a school with a caring ethos for our children (not in London although not far away) as it was very important to me and they’re thriving.

Oh bless her. She sounds so sensible and self aware. And you sound so supportive.

What a lot of people/parents don’t realise is that school today is nothing like it used to be. It’s just an exam factory for the schools league tables. It’s joyless and lacks creativity (I’m a primary teacher who now home educates).
Teachers are under so much pressure to achieve targets that they are burnt out and end up not really doing what they went into teaching for. And children are just pawns in the game. They are just a statistic on a graph whilst being force fed an out of date boring curriculum.

As you can probably tell this is why I unschool my DC! And myself for that matter.

I took my DD out and home educated. School just wasn’t for her. She chose to try it again in Y9 (age 13) and thrived and is now in the military excelling at her trade.
not everyone is school shaped especially when they’re little. Some just need to be home in a more nurturing environment to be able to grow at their own pace ❤️

Mainstream schools are dealing with underfunding with more to come. They are also dealing with unprecedented issues with child mental health and low morale and recruitment problems of teaching staff. They have become sadly stressful and hostile environments. As a result there has been a huge boon in alternative provision such as homeschooling. Teachers who are leaving are setting up as private tutors and there are many subscription based home education websites, clubs and online schools that will follow the national curriculum.
I am waiting for a special school place for my daughter in the mean time I am using a combination of private tutor, online and paper resources.
she has been in mainstream education for years and due to her stress I find her standard of education shocking.
don’t assume that kids are learning that well in school.
we are now making up for her lack of education I feel.

Arrange a messege with the teacher, I had exactly the same thing in year 3 with my daughter, I had to get a private cbd therapist to help to get the school to listen to us, the school have to help if you're child has absences due to anxiety, hope all goes well

I was this child. I used to cry before school and beg not to go. I used to try to get sent home sick every day. By making myself physically sick. Mum just sent me to school with the advice that we all have to do things we don’t like doing. I hated school but performed ok. Secondary school seemed easier. Can’t say whether it has caused any long term damage. This is not a helpful comment.

That’s so sad 😞
Im sorry you had to suffer like this as a child. I sincerely hope that the outdated attitude of making children do very difficult things ‘to prepare them for adulthood’ is dying out. I also hope more and more people are realising how toxic an environment school can be for a young person/child.

I had a lot of time off at Grammar school and deeply regret it. If I tried hard enough to get out of it, my mum let me stay home while she was at work. I always caught up the work I missed but that wasn’t the same as being in lessons. Don’t let your child get used to being off!

I emailed her school today. Hopefully they’ll reply tomorrow! I wondered if I should say something when I picked her up, but didn’t as the teacher didn’t approach me. If I don’t get a reply tomorrow, I’ll ask her very nicely if she got the email!

I think my main worry about another school for her is that she’ll be the same somewhere else. I just don’t know. But it can’t really go on like this!

I Hope you’ll get a reply from the school soon.

But, from my own experience, you’ll have to be much more assertive with the school/teacher if you want anything to be done.
Dont wait to see if tte teacher approaches you. Go and see her.
And then when they’ll they will see what to do, ask them what and when. Ask to have a review with them to see if that helps etc….

De registered and home educated.
Mental health over school any day.

My 11yr old (yr7) is like this. He's complains of the same as your daughter. After having a meeting with the school its transpired they have had to set up support groups at lunch time because the 7, 8, 9 years are suffering with some level of anxiety since covid. They said its unprecedented and they've never seen anything like it. You're not alone 😔

When my son was in year 5 & 6 he would feel sick, get headaches and bellyaches daily, he has anxiety about school.
it wasn’t bullying but the pressure of going back after Covid and the workload , I kept him off when really bad and he’d tried to get sent home most days.

Speak to the school as they might know something that’s making her upset. That should have been your first point of call to be honest; as a teacher, it’s my bugbear that parents don’t want to reach out and communicate. Equally, school should have picked up the absence and the distress to the child and contacted you.

I’m assuming there’s no SEN needs or emotional needs?

Your daughter is at an age where she can understand that she needs to be in school. If she’s missing one day a week, that’s a whole half term each year. Unless you are willing to home educate, that’s a huge chunk of learning she’s missing out on. Her absence is probably contributing to her feeling out of place as she will miss important lessons and she risks falling behind.

She’s also learning that crying and getting upset will get her out of school. She might not like the teacher - tough. She will probably end up liking her teacher and if she doesn’t, it’s a life lesson to get along with people you don’t like!

I know it’s heartbreaking but you need to get her out of this habit and into school. She also needs to see you talking to school and that you are working together for her benefit. Good luck, she’ll get through it.

My daughter was exactly the same. We managed to get a flexi schooling agreement so she only went part time but even that wasn't workable in the end. She was then diagnosed as autistic which I had suspected for a while. It wouldn't be obvious to most onlookers. She is now in a private school in a class of only 9, with another 2 autistic children in her class and she attends full time with very few wobbles. There's a zero tolerance policy to bullying in the school and that's also helped massively. A boy in her class started trying to bully her and school came down on him extremely hard. In her previous school the class of 32 was too much for her and as she likes peace and quiet and following the rules she couldn't handle disruptive pupils. PM if you want more info on what her autism looks like.

Also I don't agree with comments about parents being too soft and children being fine once in school. Children don't fake this stuff for no reason. My daughter by and large appeared to be fine whilst in school but was hugely upset before and after, including suicidal ideation. It's a well known phenomenon called masking, where the child spends all their energy trying to fit in all day and erupts at home. Please don't ignore this, your child is trying to tell you something is wrong, not manipulate you. I got so tired of teachers trying to tell me I was too soft - clearly thst wasn't the issue as she attends the new school with very few issues.

I was like this as a child, throughout primary and high school - my attendance was crazily low because I would constantly get really bad stomach pains or nausea. My mom was quite easy going and let me stay off school when it was really bad, but I remember lots of nights spent sobbing about going to school the following day. I wasn't bullied, had a large group of friends. All my teachers liked me and because I was always one of the top 2 grades in everything the school completely overlooked the poor attendance (I even ended up being head girl in high school, alongside all this). But it led to things like making myself sick and self harm.

In high school I ended up having a bad injury and I had to work in isolation because I couldn't use stairs - this was my favourite time of my school life.

I'm in my thirties now and I'm being assessed for ADHD and various other things, and I think this is the explanation for the big feelings I had back then. I really wish my parents had looked for help for me, they were lovely/kind but I think everyone saw the good grades and left me to it.

I'm glad you've taken some steps to work through this, I personally don't think a change of school would be the solution if there's no clear reason for it, I think school just doesn't work for a big chunk of children. I also think that parents who expect their kids to "just get on with it" are bloody awful ☹️.

I heard back from her school and we have a meeting to discuss on Monday! I will try and get more out of her between now and then to have a good discussion with her teacher.

Thank you for all of this. I was watching her on pickup today, and it’s like she has stopped trying with the other kids too. She was sort of trailing behind and not chatting, etc. Breaks my heart as she’s such a wonderful person, but isn’t letting it show / letting many people in at the moment maybe?

We're all different and some of us just hate school. I used to cry every day at primary school and they were very cold and callous about it. I remember a girl reporting to a dinner lady that i was crying and the DL sneered down at me and said 'oh, its just barleysugars, she does that every day'. My mum completely dismissed everything, it just wasnt a conversation. I would get sunday dread and lie in bed praying that time would just stop at midnight so i wouldnt have to go to school.

If she was mine (incidentally my DD went to school after a few years of homeschooling and LOVES it!) I would switch schools and failing that, if possible, homeschool.