A question to all those who think school refusal in schools is increasing due to lazy, enabling parents...

[Edsspecialsauce]

The question I always have is why?
Why would we choose this?
I hear all the time that it's all our fault, it's just parents letting them get away with murder. Enabling their behaviour etc
How come you get families where one sibling is fine in school and the other has to be dragged in screaming?
Why would I choose to spend my whole time in the playground begging?
Why would I choose to be on a final warning at work due to absence?
Why would I choose to be on antidepressants due being completely burnt out after five years of struggling?
I'm a single parent and my DC is disabled. I could probably get benefits and home ed, so why if I'm not bothered about her education am I dragging her through the school gates, crying (I'm often crying too)
Every day, five days a week, for years.

You’ve got to love the gov’s latest round of ‘blame and bully the parents’ strategy. Labour’s policy focusing on school attendance and registers isn’t a whole lot better. I had to quit my job when my dd wasn’t coping at school (pre pandemic) - it was gruelling dragging her in, worse and worse, to be insulted and blamed by school staff and told she was ‘fine’ in school.

if only it was a case of just needing a bit of grit!m

None of these fuckwit politicians does the school run as anything other than a photo op, clueless.

Maybe we're more likely to listen to our children? Or we remember being dragged into school being told that it didn't matter how miserable we were, we were going to school and that was that?

My mother was definitely of the 'there is no school refusal in our house' approach. So there was no refusal because there wasn't a choice. I have been much more accepting of my own children's individual educational experience and finding approaches that suit them.

School Refusal isn't a choice.

Those who think it is haven't experienced it.

The End.

It's not a choice but it is possible to physically force a child into school (younger ones anyway) and make them be there. Ask my mother.

I wasn't listened to until I got to high school and told my mother I was considering just not going. At that point, she realised she didn't have the power anymore.

I really don’t understand the parents that say ‘my child wouldn’t have a choice. I’d drag them kicking and screaming’.

What would they do with a child too big to carry? A child refusing to get dressed? A child refusing shoes and coat? Refusing to leave the house? How exactly do they get that child to walk the 15-20 minutes to school? I really do genuinely wonder what their solution is?

so you’d take their electronics? Ok what if they still don’t?

It’s like every other possible thing on the planet though isn’t it?

A percentage of parents with “school refuser” children are the problem.

I say that as a parent of a “school refuser”.

I don’t think the problem is parents at all, and focusing on parents on this issue is the cheapest of cheap policy talk. But makes a nice headline along the lines of getting tough on crime, small boats etc.

it’s all shitty populist ‘policy’

I understand how it could happen.
My god I can completely see how it my child starts to refuse then I wouldn't be able to get her in. She's 10 at the minute. I can completely see how this could happen so I definitely don't judge

In case anyone hasn’t seen this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/urge-the-dfe-to-withdraw-the-harmful-school-attendance-advertising-campaign

@plasmeh the point behind the campaign is relevant in SOME cases.

Altbough, I do not like the narrative of the campaign personally.

How do you know which group is the minority or majority? Do you have a source of data on that?

I think people who say this must have kids who really do obey the instructions if they're threatened with consequences.

Because otherwise they'd understand surely?!

@purpleme12 exactly. My DD doesn't care if I took away all of her stuff. I've confiscated her tablet for months before, she doesn't care.

Both my DC hate school. I could easily be THAT parent.

Luckily I am not.
So yes, sometimes it is the parents enabling school refusing.

Sometimes it's down to other factors like a disability or a teacher they dislike or (as in my DC case) struggling with sitting still and getting constantly in trouble for it.

the campaign is not in any way an attempt to grapple with the very real mental health crisis with our children and young people, do we think the feckless parents (whatever percentage we imagine) will suddenly go ‘oooh I’ve seen a poster and found some grit’.

it’s electioneering dressed up as public health.

Utterly ignorant.

I was a school refuser in the late 60s/early 70s and apparently was taken to a psychologist/psychiatrist as a result.I have a vague recollection of being taken out of my school and going somewhere for a few weeks with just a couple of other children and then going back to school. So it definitely did happen back then.
My mother(now in her 80s) absolutely refuses to discuss it. I have absolutely no memory of the terrified screaming and refusing to let her go to the point hat I ripped buttons off her coat when a teacher tried to physically take me.(as told to me by one of Mum's friends). My Mum's generation would certainly see it as a mental illness and something to be ashamed of-hence her refusal to discuss it.

However, definitely did 'grow out of it' as by the time I went to my 4th Primary school (service child), I loved school and have worked in Primary schools for the last 25 years.

There definitely needs to be more support for parents and more training for staff. Year on year, there are more children with this, and yet, not enough money being put in to provide the emotional support that is needed.

i agree with op. Why on earth would any parent actively choose to keep their child home?? Don’t you think those of us with or who had school refusers would give anything for their child to happily go?

Yes mine would care however in the heat of the moment if I say 'if you don't do this I'll take away that' she won't care and it won't make her do it. Cos in that moment her want not to do that thing is far greater and that's all she can see. She can't see in the future at that point

We are in a lucky position. In 2019 I pulled my child from school and we home Ed. I know lots can’t do this.
School traumatised both him and I and watching the effect on him made this move inevitable.
we aren’t rich, earn less than average household, and we go without but ill do anything to enable him to get to adulthood whole and with MH issues

I remember 4 girls who left school in the 90's. The term used was school phobia. It was a Grammar school and I wonder if the pressure was too much.

But in primary what children are expected to do far far exceeds my experience in the 80's. I was a high achiever but never studied to the level they do in primary now.

Add in SEN to that and you can understand why some children can't cope. Plus the pressure teachers are under..... all in all, it's sadly a thoroughly miserable experience for many.

So there was no refusal because there wasn't a choice.

It isn’t about choice. My son refused to go to school when he was 7- it was a panic response to a situation he was unable to deal with, not a choice to be disobedient.

I tried;

*reasoning with him

• shouting at him

• bribing him
• walking to school with friends
• walking the long way round to give him time to adjust
• getting permission to take him in early before the rush
• getting permission to take him in late so he had a shorter day
• getting permission to collect him early
• sending him in with a weighted pillow
• singing stupid songs all the way there to distract him
• getting my wife to take him in instead
• School gave him 10 minutes each morning with his favourite ta to try and calm him down
• the head misses met him at the gate for a cuddle and to take him in herself

Still, the only way to get him there was to physically drag him kicking, screaming, biting and punching all the way, pulling furniture out of the house behind him and grabbing the door knocker or lamp posts all the way there. The teachers trying to drag him off me dislocated my fingers because he would not let go of my hand.

If I did get him in he would freeze- he never learned to write even, and I was constantly being called in because he worst frozen in terror at his desk and never attempt any work. The head said he needed 1to1 support but she didn’t have funding for it.

There actually was no choice in my household. I'm sure I gave my mother a very hard time with it but a good smack on the backside got me moving. (Not at all advocating this, just saying this is what got me in the gate in a different time).

I made different choices and pulled my child who was struggling out of school to home educate. After my own experience it was more important to listen to my child and make sure they don't look back and 1. remember I never listened, and 2. think of childhood as a time they wouldn't go back to.

Yes this. When DS2 was refusing to go to school, his dad (my ex) told me I should make him.
I asked exactly how I was meant to do that.
DS is approx 9 inches taller than me. His bed is roughly level with my face. I guess I could have dragged him off the bed, but one or both of us would have got hurt.
Oddly enough ex had no suggestion and offered nothing beyond "it's not my problem"

What helped was DS going to a specialist provision college where he feels supported and listened too. He gets up happily and attends. He can't manage the journey unaccompanied as his anxiety is so bad. But it's such an improvement.

I don't know why people think this, but I don't because I'm right there with you. Tonight I am sat on the sofa with a knot in my stomach about tomorrow. Can I really go through another morning like this morning and put my child through that? What about the sibling? Also stressed by the fallout? My job, my own MH? It's all suffering and it's so shit. My expectations are so low now. I don't care about achievements anymore. I just want her through the gates. Thought are with you.