DD won't go to school

[BoldPinkPoster]

My 14 year old will not go to school. Says she doesn't care. She's been referred for ASD. I'm at my wits end and ready for a breakdown. School have been great but they've said they're not concerned until her attendance falls below 30%😭

Echo previous posters to look up the ‘Not Fine in School’ fb page.

It’s very common for ASD girls to struggle at secondary school. I was a teacher for 20 years. The last 10 years have been really tough for all pupils, never mind ND ones - budget cuts, bigger classes, less support staff, no provision for vulnerable students etc etc.

My own DD (ASD) loved primary school. But couldn’t cope with secondary. She had a part time timetable when she was 15, and still struggled. By 16 she’d stopped attending altogether, but did some work at home on her own. She sleeps a lot - 9 hours a night, and at least one nap, plus lots of time alone in her room decompressing. One ‘thing’ a day - whether it’s an appointment, our for lunch, a dog walk, a shift at work (she works part time as a waitress and has thrived there) is enough for her. She can’t cope with the transition from one ‘thing’ to another and gets overwhelmed.

Incidentally, my other DD is neurotypical and would gladly spend the day at home - but she’s just a typical lazy teenager and I force her out of the door every day. Parenting a ND teen is not the same!

Make sure you keep the emotional effect on you away from her as far as possible -she doesn't need to know this is driving you crazy, that's your business. As far as possible, make life boring between 9 and 3. No phone, no gaming, no netflix or whatever. Keep to a routine, get up early enough for school each day, everything switched off by a certain time at night. Ask school for an educational psychology assessment. If she has friends that you know, ask them to call for her on the way to school and keep in touch with her as much as possible. Someone nice at school should also be reaching out as much as possible, inviting her in, even coming round-some schools will do this. Consider visiting school after hours and identifying with her the parts of school she finds most difficult. Some kids do go back, with support and particularly if they have friends at the school.

I’d bundle her in the car and drive her there and refuse to start the car until she goes in to school.

my ds14 is like this he has a LD & autism and school refuses, he attends a Sen school so there a bit more understanding. It’s a regular thing of me sitting in the staff car park until he gets out and goes into school. Once he’s in - he can’t leave on his own accord as they have locked doors and cctv.

give it a go.

I’d also ban any electronics when she’s home and should be at school.

‘I’d bundle her in the car’

How exactly? She’s not a toddler, you can’t pick her up under your arm. There comes a point when you can’t bundle a teenager into a car without physically manhandling them.

Yes great idea, let’s take away the only contact our children have with the outside world, the only means of maintaining friendships and regulating emotions. Let’s force them into an environment that they have verbalised is damaging them. The shortsightedness is astounding. I hope you feel guilty when you look back and reflect on your behaviour, or worse still cause your child untold emotional and physical illness, or worse they take their own life. There is far more to life than conforming to societal norms, or exam results.

When she says she’s tired - is she? Does she go to bed/sleep at a reasonable time? Is she falling asleep or lethargic during the day, even when she’s not done much?
Have you taken her to the drs?

I was like this at 14 - had an unknown virus & afterwards just so tired, wanted to go to bed straight after dinner, slept for hours. Drs diagnosed ME / CFS. I ended up having to have a home tutor & reduce my GCSEs from 12 to 5 & sat them all at home with an invigilator.

It may well be related to her potential ASD diagnosis, but check its not medical too.

I’m so sorry to hear this. My Y9 DD is the same. We’re paying for private counselling. She’s not even doing the steps she’s agreed on with her counsellor though. CAMHS rejected her GP referral and said she could get ‘counselling at school’ 🫣 It’s ridiculously stressful. Sorry no ideas but sending lots of sympathy!

Do you mean the local authority’s duty to provide alternative education provision?

If you do I can promise you it’s a long hard slog to get it. No one waves a magic wand and tutors turn up on the doorstep

Lots of sympathy here, two ND dc, one school avoider who is fine now. I agree that keeping 830-4 or whatever school hours are, to no phones/games
and based on school work is important - that’s not about punishment it’s about making it clear learning, even if not in school, happens in those hours.

it doesn’t sound as though school is being very helpful…do you have any local charities for ND teens? I’d contact them for help.

It's common for people to come on these threads and arrogantly parade their ignorance. People who think neurodiversity can be punished out of a child by being stricter and taking their phone away. It would be laughable- if it weren't a tragedy for the children and parents affected.

Thank you to everyone that gave me great advice. I'm not sure how to navigate round the messages so can't reply to you individually.

it’s important to remember that kids now virtually have no support from CAMHS. This support is left to schools, who are unqualified for this.

I feel like this generation have been guinea pigs also having access to unregulated social media. Covid meant that all there learning was using devices. I remember a pharmacist being critical of me picking up meletonin to help my child sleep (she has OCD) and said my child shouldn’t have so much screen time. It was lockdown, she was learning every day via screens!

perhaps if the ‘system’ took early intervention seriously, we wouldn’t have this invisible group of teens lost in the system. For o e of my children, there was little CAMHS support for anorexia. As parents, we were essentially left to cobble a plan together and support our child. How fucked is that? You wouldn’t have to do that for other life threatening conditions!

I am just going on a friend's experience but admittedly it was about 8 years ago. I guess it depends on the area too.

Yes, it certainly is the LA’s responsibility. It can be difficult to get and IPSEA have a template letter to adapt to request this.

It’s section 19 of the education act

Whilst you are correct in this, f she is ND today, she was last week too and managed to go to school

Need I say more????

FFS! Please do some very basic research you educate yourself on ND before you start offering advice.

Some of the ignorance in the comments baffles me.

Have taught many, many ND kids, thank you.

Tbh, I speak to many teachers of ND children,l for my job in primary and secondary schools, this seriously does not at all make them experts in ND.

I probably spend as many waking hours with their ND kid as the parents do most days. The op's kid hasn't even been diagnosed with anything yet (at the age of 14!!)

Are you aware of masking? The most switched on teachers I know understand masking and that a child may present very differently at home.

many children are diagnosed that late, many as adults. Waiting lists in my neck of the woods are more than three years

My DD missed a lot of year 10 and 11. Things are a bit better now they are at college.

In reply to this advice, firstly my teen is bigger than me. I can't bundle her anywhere.

If I did manage to get her in a car and locked her in I'm 100% confident that after 10 minutes I'd no longer have a drivable car and the only place my teen would be going would be hospital. The panic being trapped like this would cause would mean she'd be using arms and legs to smash her way through the windows. Yes that would rip her body to bits. She wouldn't even notice in her panic.

Would that be me "just letting her get away with it"?