To think the term School 'REFUSAL' should be banned?

[taratill]

I think it is a terrible term to use for a child who is unable to attend school and is an excuse for schools, LEA's the government to blame mental health problems / anxiety problems in school on the child.

I have first hand experience of this and had a child who was classed a school 'refuser' as a result of the fact that he had massive anxiety/ undiagnosed ASD and was unable to attend for a period of 6 months last year. Rather than give him support, in the first instance, when he started to get anxious and not want to go he was branded as naughty and defiant and quite ridiculously threatened with exclusion because he was scared to go into the class room. His anxiety wasn't addressed and he started to threaten to self harm and was eventually deemed until to go to school by mental health workers.

Happily now we have got to the root of the anxieties and have a good new school he has gone back but needs a number of interventions in the classroom/ school environment to cope. If he had had these and school had listened in the first place he may never have had to have time off, sigh!

I've read on a post today some quite judgemental comments about 'school refusal' and think the term itself is so damaging as the implication is that it is the child or the parents fault.

Just really winds me up, that's all.

Refusal is a poor term because it implies choice that doesn't exist.

I agree. Again, it's more akin, in many cases, to constructive dismissal. That acknowledges that a workplace environment can become so hostile that a reasonable person would no longer be prepared to turn up. We don't say those people are work refusers.

Persistent absence is actually more neutral I think.

Perfect I agree

As long as it is used neutrally, and as a truly umbrella term.

Completely agree OP as we have also had a terrible time with DC having school phobia. I would be angry if my dc was termed a school refuser because mental illness by law is meant to have parity with physical. If a child with Crohn's disease for instance missed a lot of school because of their unpredictable bodily issues (I speak from experience!) they would be marked as ill and rightly so. My DC had unpredictable mental health issues. I would sit with her in the car, outside the school for hours, every bloody day, nb putting my job at risk in doing so. CAHMS were negligible tbh. It took time and a lot of different tries at different strategies until she finally started to recover from her illness and is doing ok now. TBH she is still not quite there and I wish to God I had the skills and patience to home school. But that would be a disaster 😳 because I'm no teacher!

Unravelling exactly that !

The fact that so many parents feel compelled to homeschool because there is ‘no other option’ is a damning indictment on the way schools view disabilities and mental health issues

but we have to start from a factual perspective that a child is refusing to attend school. Actually, they are not refusing. In cases of SN/anxiety they simply CANNOT go to school. It isn't a "I can't find a uniform, so I won't go to school" it is a debilitating feeling that simply prevents them from being able to function enough to realise that school is somewhere they should be.

When you see & deal with a school induced anxiety attack/panic attack/meltdown then you can pass judgement on what school "refusal" is & is not.

When my daughter is trying to get out of my moving car in order to be able to stay at home because her anxiety around having a relief teacher is through the roof, you will see that she is NOT refusing to go to school, but she is trying to escape a situation that makes her feel like she is about to die (that's the best way she can describe it to me)

OP, I totally agree YANBU. I had 'school refusal' as a teenager. So on top of my massive anxiety about going to school in the first place, an extra amount was heaped onto me. I wasn't just scared of school, but I was a terrible, rebellious 'refuser'. I missed at least one day per week, out of sheer panic at walking down that school path. The main reason for the fear was the teachers. (I was a little alternative, and the teachers at my school REALLY hated that).
As soon as my daughter was born I decided she was never ever going to go to school. Now she's 3, and goes to nursery a day a week, but I still swear that if she EVER hates school as much as I did, she will just stop going and be educated either at a different school or at home.

I will never forgive my parents/teachers/the system at the time for not understanding that children could have school-related anxiety. The self-esteem crushing elements of my school life still affect me today.

YANBU. I particularly dislike the way the child then becomes described as a school refuser. I've recently been given a questionnaire to complete for my child with SN that asked me to rate how much of a burden he was. Now I understand where they were coming from (how much his difficulties impact on family life) but I'm not going to refer to my child in that way.

I had a school ‘refuser’ but she refused to go because of extreme anxiety not just because she couldn’t be bothered.
Most people don’t understand it at all and just think you should just make them go in.
But school refusal is an anxiety disorder in itself and we were referred to camhs.
However it’s (usually) tied up with other types of anxiety, separation anxiety or general anxiety disorder, social anxiety etc so it’s not usually just a case of getting them to go in to school and they’re cured you have to work on the other issues along side it.

frayed I've had that form too. It beggars belief that it's written by a child health care professional for hundreds of thousands of parents to fill out. Sometimes despite progress and understanding, we hit the Middle Ages again and it's bloody shocking.

Frayed Hem

OMG, That's just such a shame! Was it a local government form by any chance?

UnRavellingFast I though the whole questionnaire was pretty badly designed but I was really agog at the "rate your burden" question. I've left it blank and written underneath why I haven't completed it. Wonder if I'll be marked down as a "question refuser".

Dionysus it's been sent home from school. DS1 is in an ASD base in a mainstream school so I was a bit taken aback as they're very hot on the language they use, but it seems this questionnaire is an old one which could do with an update!

I've recently been given a questionnaire to complete for my child with SN that asked me to rate how much of a burden he was Wow, that's horrible!

I had a paed tell me, in front of my daughter, that she sounds like a nightmare to live with when I was detailing her sensory issues! Needless to say that she took that on board and now quotes it all the time

I am in this situation at the moment, can't believe the bureaucracy I am having to go through as I worry to get help for 'school refusing (crap term)' daughter. Even at her first CAMHS assessment the school attendance officer is wanting to get them to say whether she is unfit for school because otherwise they are in trouble. This is an appt where the pace should be slow to assess my very private daughter who is frightened of crying in public. The active I have gone through in the last weeks is full time lobbying to get help for my dd and to stop the school prosecuting me! Hell. And for her to be labelled as if it is a wilful intention is highly inaccurate

Yes I’m also unsure how much can be achieved by an ‘in school’ mental health nurse.

To describe a child with a disability as a burden is disgusting

Refuse - indicate or show that one is not willing to do something.

Willingly - readily, of one's own free will.

Compare this to:

Unable - lacking the skill, means, or opportunity to do something.

Can you see the difference the language makes? I think it makes a huge difference to the way people perceive the problem and where the "blame" might lie.

Change the language around this issue and change people's perceptions and the way it is handled.

I went to a school open day recently for prospective pupils/parents and the Head teacher showed us the school's strapline and said it had taken many months of discussion to get it just right and really portray in those few words the ethos of the school.

Most schools these days have straplines and presumably put a great deal of effort into considering the meaning and perception of each word, so I think it would be erroneous to think that words don't matter.

brokenshoes yes I agree and go look at it from the child’s perspective to be told ‘you are refusing to go to school’ is very different from you are ‘unable to be at school at the moment how can we help you?’

That language can make all the difference especially in the early days of refusal because the first implies fault /defiance of the child (you are expected to be at school so not going is behavioural and a choice) v (you are clearly struggling with something about school, what is it and how can we help).

The irony is that less judgmental language / approach could nip some long absences in the bud. Treating it as behavioural will only serve to heighten and reinforce the anxiety😢

Exactly. My child has never had extended time off school due to anxiety, more like the odd day here and there when it has been too much.

Previously, I sometimes told the school it was because of a tummy ache or generally not feeling well, because I know how the truth would be perceived. My child is " fine" at school apparently and I should take them in their pyjamas if that's what it takes. But there are times when I am so exhausted with coping with my child's anxiety at home, that I couldn't deal with the disapproval from school, so I have to tell a white lie to save my own sanity.

These days though, I do say it how it is, and if my child is too anxious to go on a particular day, then that is what I say.

Yes I’m also unsure how much can be achieved by an ‘in school’ mental health nurse. Well if they are anything like the in-school psych my daughter saw, not a lot. The Psych told me that my dd's sensory issues were because I allowed her to have them, and if I were stricter, she would stop, and said that she coun't possibly be autistic, because she made eye contact and was talkative...hmm, OK!!

Fast forward several months (and many instances of feeling like a failure on my side) we get an ASD dx!!

taratill - schools are not mental health experts. You can't expect a school, therefore, to choose the right "label" for a child who is refusing to go into school. You can expect them to be more open to trying to understand the reasons behind it and to help the parents seek appropriate external advice and diagnosis (albeit with chronic underfunding, this can be like banging your head against a brick wall), but frankly, they are not qualified to tell the difference between different types of school refusal, so I think YABU to expect them to do this, especially prior to any kind of diagnosis of asd, anxiety, spd, etc.

they are not qualified to tell the difference between different types of school refusal

In that case parents should be believed when they tell schools that their child is struggling to be in school because of anxiety/ASD/bullying/another reason not yet identified, but not the child simply not going because they can't be bothered.

brokenshoes
Or schools can stick with the facts which is 'the child is not attending school' and leave it to qualified professionals in their respected fields to assess the reason.

brokenshoes - no, I don't see why they should automatically believe everything parents tell them, either. It's not as if children haven't died in the care of their parents, because schools chose not to question their explanations of their children's behaviour. School refusal is what it says on the tin - the reasons behind it are invariably extremely complex.

But, as has already been established on this thread, getting seen by professionals can be a very long process. It took us 5 months from initial referral to be seen by paediatrician and a further 10 months from there for my child to be diagnosed with ASD.

And that was relatively quick!

Even with an ASD diagnosis and anxiety which has been recognised by the school since my child was in the attached preschool, I still get told to "be tough" with my child and get them into school.