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.

I used to work for CAMHS. If a child was referred with "school refusal" my first question was "What is the problem with the school?" rather than "What is the problem with the child/family?"

School is a social construct. It will not be the right thing for everyone.

My 10 year old school refused, technically I could have picked him up and dragged him there kicking and screaming. I did that from time to time.

Forcing him in to an unsuitable environment, caused him to attempt suicide on several occassions (by trying to - throw himself out of a second floor windows, out of moving cars and under a gritter truck).

I deeply regret trying to force him into an unsuitable environment, it caused a complete breakdown and meant he couldn't leave his bedroom (due to trauma) for 6 months or re-enter any form of education for 4 years.

Turns out that he, like many children who school refuse, had undiagnosed autism and other SEN.

Now that his needs are met he has fully reintegrated into 6th form and will be going to university this year (living away from home).

He ALWAYS wanted to be educated but was failed by mainstream school which couldn't meet his needs and preferred to blame me, rather than recognise his needs.

Did your mum experience that?

This post made me cry as I'm not the only one going through it, my youngest since Christmas has refused to go into school so school put her on a reduced time table and still refusing to go in,to the point I've had to give up my job as I'm on my own it's so so hard and all I get from school is aw we can't force them in but also can't help you get her in im struggling so much that I cry every night now as I can't do it

I do worry about this.
I can easily see this happening to my child if she hates school so much

I will have been in education for 30 years next year.
I've been a Head of Year. I've been the teacher on the end of the phone who rang chirpily to ask about whether your DC were still sick (what a palaver those calls were, before Attendance Officers became substitute EWOs).
I've worked with ASC students.
Nothing, bloody nothing prepared me for DC3.
Wrangling an octopus.
Being reverse headbutted.
Teeth sinking into my flesh like a terrier.
I once fireman's lifted him into school, having thrown him in the car and went the back exit, where I pleaded for help.
He is now as tall as my shoulder and strong as an ox. I'm 5 ft 4 in my fifties. No chance of forcing him out the house as he gets older. Zero.
The government have let Special Needs Education crumble. Schools with no budget, SENDCOs whose hands are tied, Quality bloody first teaching to address the elephant in the room, Wait and bloody watch, EHCPs as rare as hen's teeth - trying to get one even more like finding golddust than the statements they replaced and many not fit for purpose as the LA try to wriggle out of incurring expenses. Waiting lists which mean too little, too late with everchanging goalposts.
I couldn't do the HOY/AO roles now, not knowing what I know. Reasonable adjustments in terms of start times or part-time timetables are becoming the exception. CAMHs overwhelmed, parents given virtual parenting courses and various help orgs - if my other kid doesn't want to come in as she's ND/socially awkward and avoiding anxiety-causing situations, she's not going to go to art therapy or anger management either.
I'm with you OP.
I live day to day.
I dread mornings.
I still work in a school but part-time.
Hanging on by a thread.
Trying not to drop plates.
Desperate to keep my job.
Where I see kids like mine every goddamn day and kids whose literacy levels and unmet needs mean that the glue is being thrown at the wall, dripping down and nothing is sticking. Let down by the system, by the government, by the lack of 1-1 support, by the lack of money; a government who paid, they paid the bloody OFSTED twunts throughout Covid, but no fucks to give for the backlog of cases struggling to get a diagnosis - that will bring sod all but will validate they weren't that parent. As you can see, I am mad as hell and I'm not alone. I stand with you all.

God I'm so sorry you're in this position. It sounds so hard. I hope you can manage to get some help with it eventually

@Mumz0612 are you on the Facebook page for parents who have children struggling to attend school? There’s thousands in this situation, that one single page really makes me feel less alone. Hugs 🤗

I'm not here yet but I'm sure it's coming. My child is clearly pda, independent school not coping, son is bright but struggling. I've no idea what to do.

stevebheadteacher.wordpress.com/2023/08/29/school-on-fire/

I found this on fb recently and I can imagine this is exactly how my child feels. She has struggled with going to school since yr2 (just after covid) and is now in yr4 diagnosed ASD last year and school are applying for EHCP. I just hope things get easier.

All these people younger than me saying school refusal wasn’t a thing etc. I was a school refuser. My mum got constant threats with court. I had a policeman who used to come to the house in a morning to try to make me go. I still wouldn’t.

it was noisy, people didn’t follow the rules, the teaching was poor. I was better at home reading.

If I had hit my son he would have cried harder, but he wouldn’t have changed his behaviour because he isn’t in control of it.

He has autism with pda, severe adhd (and dyslexia, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and a speech disorder, as well as a chronic illness/disability)- he can no more control when he has a panic attack than I can control when I sneeze.

Hitting children might frighten some little ones into obedience, but what do you do when they are big enough to hit you back (and you don’t have any kind of bond or relationship to fall back on with them).

I had a teeny taste of it. After Covid lockdowns my child developed an anxiety about school. She wouldn't go in for weeks and it took time to get her to go. Thankfully we had an amazing support worker who got her, and she started to go back in. Watching your child get so distressed about going into school was awful. She's a high achiever, always had 97-99 percent attendance prior. I take my hat of to those who have traumatised, anxious children and have a daily battle with school and judgy parents.

To all of those currently going through it, keep going

Keep in mind that forcing into unsuitable situations, and I don't mean when they just don't fancy it but when you can see your child is traumatised, doesn't make a child resilient, it breaks them.

Ask school/ the LA for support.

Seek diagnosis.

Ask for EHC needs assessments.

Ask for alternative provisions if the child can't be in school.

Trust your own judgement.

In my experience (not a parent mainly professional observation but also friends/family) it is 95% due to inadequate mental health support for either child or parent.

Feckless parents exist but are a small minority.

Schools normally know this but are battling lack of resource and pressure from above

If there were that many school refusers where I teach, I'd be looking to see what we were doing wrong, not the parents!! That's a ridiculous prevalence. We've had 3 school refusers that i can remember in the last decade. And none of those were the parents' fault. Several school refusers at once and I'd look to the common denominator- the school.

I dragged mine to school for far too long.
I wish I’d advocated for him sooner and harder.
He ended up having a suicide risk assessment after being found at the train station at 3am. I didn’t hear him leave we the house.
I fought the school for 2 years to get him alternate education. It was too late by that point, the damage was done and he didn’t trust anybody.
He’s 16 now and enrolling in a military college and really looking forward to it

There are some lazy, enabling parents out there..

However most people are absolutely clueless as to the hardship of being a single parent or parent of a disabled child let alone both.

I've lived it. You deserve a medal OP. Pay no attention to idiots who will never understand.

The lazy parents excuse has never made sense to me either. Have these people ever looked after a child? It's not fun and relaxing 24/7, it's much less effort to send them to school and crack on with your day.

I ‘let’ my child stay home as it got to the point where school seemed to think it was enough if she went in for an hour to play with kinetic sand whilst crying. Most days she was so paralysed with anxiety she couldn’t get out the car, and her mental health was declining at a rate of knots. I don’t feel lazy I have to say! I juggle work and supporting her with a virtual school, and it is exhausting. BUT she is succeeding, she is learning, will take GCSEs in the subjects she needs and wants to, and gaining confidence and independent study skills. Honestly she has blossomed and shows huge maturity. I admire your tenacity, and presumably your child wants to be in school and you are supporting her to do that, but I think it’s blinkered to see attendance at school as success and anything different to that as failure.

This.

I can't believe the pressure even KS1 kids are under now. My mother kept my reading diary from year 1 or 2 and it was "dontbehorrid read pg 22 and pg 23 of book" probably biff and chip. My child 30yrs later has to read a whole book, take a test on it, then math/english/spell/tables app. And don't forget to practise the common exception words.

After spending the school day revising things I didn't do until GCSE, onomatopeia, nouns adjectives and conjunctions. We re bizarrely cramming their heads with precise terminology like they're computers. And why isn't there an outcry and research about the huge increase in ASD/SEN, what's causing it, UPFs? Air pollution?

My child's not a refuser but reluctant, when he's physically bigger what do I then who knows.

Oh I do love the fact that you're implying that those of us that couldn't force our suicidal / neurodivergent kids here are feckless, jobless and irresponsible.

My child who I let down and didn't end up going to high school, ( I had to give up my career because he was so poorly / traumatised) has done just fine. He's not dead at 17 and is on course for 3 A*s at A Level. Is that failure in your eyes?

@Youcannotbeseriousreally You do know that even when you force an anxious child to school, they’ll be in contestant fight or flight and absolutely NO learning will be going on in their brain? They’ll just be trying their hardest so survive the thing they see as a threat, and realising that they have nowhere to turn.

More ignorance.

Keeping my son at home isn’t “letting him fail”- all anyone learns when they are in a state of terror is survival, not math or grammar.

Home education is him succeeding.

We are in the midst of this, before Christmas her attendance was around 66%. This month it is 0%.

Daughter is in yr5, has social anxiety, is selectively mute and possible ASD. We have been on the waiting list for a diagnosis since Oct 22 and I was recently told there would be another 2yr wait. Have filled a form out with supporting documentation from school to hopefully increase priority.

She will also not go out and about. She used to love her Razzzamataz class on the weekend but she can't get out of the car as there is always one or two people waiting outside the building. It's heartbreaking to see her sobbing because she couldnt make it inside on our way home.

School are being supportive and since last week I have managed to get her there for an hour or so doing play sessions with the ELSA support or Senco but she refuses to wear her uniform and I have to be present as she believes they will force her into class. She trusts none and that is starting to extend to me as I am encouraging her to go to these sessions.

School thought she coped well when in school and it was a difficulty returning after holidays. She masks and picks her fingers when at school as the pain takes her scared feelings away. Last term there was many a day where she would come home with blood totally covering her hands or multiple plasters on her fingers when school notices.

She is completely burnt out, can't make simple decisions at home. Screams and shouts when you ask a time question, OCD tendencies are occurring and she is in tears as she doesn't know why she has to do it.

A CAMHS referral has gone in but how many years will we have to wait for that, I'd excepted.

I have a meeting with the attendance welfare officer on Thursday, that will be fun.

How can I help her when a diagnosis is potentially years away, how can we apply for an ehcp without diagnosis. They are telling me a diagnosis is needed. I have read it isn't but as funding is so little I hold little hope without one. She is losing so much education.

I work full time, I am having to spend hours at school and carry on working g into the evening. I am soo drained.

How much damage am I doing to her by encouraging her to go to these sessions.

We are lucky that we can just about afford a private diagnosis and will do if the priority form does nothing to speed things up.

I am soo angry that she is being failed. it feels like she doesnt matter.

Sorry, just needed to vent.