WFH causing school refusal to increase.

[rivalsbinge]

I read a thought provoking post on LinkedIn a comment about school refusals being so much higher since WFH became more "normal"

In essence the thought was a lack of everyone up, dressed out the door, it's now kids up breakfast dressed smart, out the door with parents in PJs or leisure wear going back home to work and the kids knowing that parents are at home makes them more likely to want to also stay home.

Obviously the parents do work but the kids (age dependent) are not seeing this and are thinking work/ school is now optional.

I did think this poster may have a valid point but interested in what others think, I'm also not talking about SEN and other considerations.

Are the cages you speak of for safeguarding?

There seems to be a push from the powers that be to get people back in the office. It's obvs to do with money. When wfh people don't use the trains/buses, buy coffee/lunch, shopping in the lunch hour, commercial buildings not being let, companies down sizing.

This schools thing is just another thing they blaming. As PP upthread says, most mothers back in the day didn't go to work, children still went to school because we did as we were told to and there was discipline. It was also easier to keep a child at home if sick as mum was at home,

School refusal is nothing to do with wfh.

Many offices are now at least partially back in (two or three days a week) and lots are now starting to move to five.

Lots of jobs never could be done from home - teacher, cleaner, driver.

I'd be surprised if this was a major driver.

I saw this, but surely back in the ‘80s when a lot more Mums stayed at home this would have been more the case? If Mum stayed home with younger children, that would have made school feel more “optional”?

It seems like more anti-work from home sentiment rather than anything meaningful.

@Phineyj I'd like to see this as well, I suspect we have a few more years of WFH to come and will no doubt be able to see links and behaviour changes, it would be interesting to survey the children.

Yes, I’m not saying they’re not necessary. Sadly they are but when I was at school in the 80s and 90s you could walk out of school anytime you wanted. In secondary many did this.

There was a thread on here last week about WFH in your bed.

Yes, bizarre environments really. Where else would you sit in a room with 30 other people. A training day even in my job which is really full on wouldn’t have this system.,

i didn’t know many people who didn’t work from home in the 80’s, not many mums worked outside the home where I lived. I call bullshit really.

Absolutely, I remember this. Particular children disappearing into the woods and we would all get very excited and shout “NATHAN’S DONE A RUNNER!” and watch the teachers try to chase them. Weekly occurrence.

Uh huh. Was it full of people saying they did it, full of people shocked that anyone did it, or some balance of the two?

Back in the day, there was no attendance officer or attendance targets. Kids just didn’t go to school if they didn’t want to. If I wanted a day off school I didn’t go to school. I didn’t need to refuse.

I think it's absolute bollocks, to be honest. My mum was a SAHM - I knew she was at home all day. Many women were in the 70s and 80s. We all went to school.

I also don't know why anyone who worked through lockdown with children at home would ever want to do that voluntarily.

I do believe there's been a cultural shift, but it's more that 1) parents don't seem to respect schools/teachers like they used to, and 2) SEN children are now expected to be in mainstream school for the vast majority. When I was at school they just didn't go to school. Also I don't think there was such a focus on attendance when I was at school - some kids just didn't go much and it didn't seem to be a big deal. Those were undoubtedly the children with chaotic family lives.

I read that. I think it's nonsense. My mother was a stay at home mum so no working not even from home. I never felt like school was optional

And yet despite MN screaming that schools are basically prisons, English performance in metrics such as PISA is steadily rising. Perhaps a focus on attendance might be contributing?

I am not surprised by this result. For every employee that apparently works 20% more effectively at home, there is at least another one who utterly takes the piss. There is far less accountability if people aren’t in the office, and it’s easier to have a kid at home.

It’s always easier to blame nasty companies rather than parents accepting they are the biggest influence in their kids lives and most problems start at home.

And for those of us saying that our mum was a SAHM and never let us stay, the culture of parenting was very different in the 1980s.

I agree with phineyj. It's an interesting hypothesis but that's all it is at the moment.

Me and DH are hybrid workers and have been for 5 years. My youngest has been struggling with school for the last year. It's not at the all out school refusal stage yet thank god but her attendance is at just under 90%. There doesn't seem to be any link to us being at home or in the office when she gets upset about going in. But of course we're just one family. Her friend who has parents who work outside the home frequently takes advantage of that by simply not going into school when they leave before her.

I can't help but feel it's the school environment to blame more than anything. My daughter's school has some great teachers and she's doing well academically despite her attendance but the building itself is a shit hole, her classes are big and chaotic. Perhaps if there was more investment in education it would be a more pleasant place to be.

I was a child in the 2000s/2010s I doubt it's much different from today. My mum stayed home everyday and it never made me think school was optional

These things aren’t absolute.

Does WFH cause school refusal? No.

Could it be a contributing factor in some cases? Yes.

I wfh 80% and my children are well aware when I'm dressed for wfh and when I'm in the office. 6yr old with sen can try to school refuse and is peeled off me at the door but I couldn't work with either of them at home due to the level of concentration required and the unknown calls coming in.
When I know he will struggle, normally after any sch break, I dress for the office and wear my badge to throw him off!
I can imagine this becomes really difficult if you've got secondary aged ebsa children.

I really don't see how. In fact I would of thought it would have the opposite effect ie the kids who's parents are actually at work all day take advantage to bunk off at secondary age anyway.

Like I say not only was my mum a sahm my parents were also divorced so I never saw dad going to work either never made me want to stay home. Just sounds like pure nonsense to me

I don't know, I WFH when DC was smaller and he had absolutely no problem understanding that I was working. I was up and dressed, at a desk with my laptop, often on the phone for meetings. I did used to phrase it as "going to work" though, and of course we'd been out together because I'd done drop off.

Those mentioning stay at home mums in the 80s and 90s have forgotten that those mums wouldn’t have been such wet lettuces as so many parents are today, kowtowing to their children’s every weep and wail.

I’ve been a SAHM, freelance and now a hybrid worker. I channel my mother, who went on the basis that if you weren’t dead, you went to school. What anyone else is doing is irrelevant.

Correlation does not equal causation.

School absences have increased since Covid.

WFH roles have increased since Covid.

Some "genius" bloke (and Ofsted inspector) deduced the two are linked and said that being home in your slippers sets a bad example for kids.

He also mentions (as an aside) the rise in anxiety and depression and lack of services, but you know, it's all about the slippers.

There's an article in the Sunday Times.

Yeah, this makes sense. With WFH, kids see their parents at home in PJs, and it probably makes them think staying home is the norm. Without that “out the door” routine, they might not feel the need to go to school.
Of course, there are other reasons for school refusal, like anxiety or changes in the school environment. But WFH could definitely play a part, especially if kids don’t see the clear separation between work, school, and home life.