"School refusal" trend

[ruthxxx0]

Can't help noticing the spike in this over recent times...
In my line of work I'm coming across increasing numbers of families who have child(ren) who "refuse" to attend school... Parents pretty much shrug their shoulder and say things like "I can't make them attend" (we're talking about primary aged children). Or "they don't like the rules/teachers/uniform/the classroom decor..".
I'm from a generation and background where school attendance wasn't a "choice" for children to make then dictate to their parents.
Parents (being the adults!) were the ones who sent the children to school.
Today I met with a family who had allowed their 10 year old to pretty much stay in their bedroom for almost a year, not been to school and didn't seem under any urgency to works towards getting the child back to school.... No mental health concerns (not referred to CAMHS or GP either). The child just "didn't want to go" and parent was ok with this. Just for a quiet life, to avoid the child "kicking off". Like seriously... What's wrong with today's parents?

I totally get that @Catwontwork Not the same at all by after sleeping in his bed no problem for 4 years my DS for the last 2 months is insisting on being in with us every night. We've tried everything. But can't physically force him to stay in his bed. Like you can't physically force a child to go to school (once a certain age.)

BUT I do also think there are many parents who give in very easily to all things. And that doesn't help at all. My child's school has recently had to issue a notice to parents asking them to speak to teachers with respect, which I found shocking as it should be a given.

So certainly not in every case, but I do think that modern methods of parenting have gone from one extreme (a good thrashing) to the other (yes darling Jonny of course you can climb on the table and pull everything off.) Maybe the happy medium is something in the middle...

Re the issue of preparing them for adulthood and work, i don’t believe that school prepares them for that. In my experience, school is nothing like work, school is THE most inflexible, overwhelming and rigid environment I’ve ever encountered. Adjustments if needed are much more accepted in work, in my experience as an autistic adult with ADHD. And as adults, we have choices about the kind of work we do and the environments we put ourselves into.

There's an elephant in the room here....

Diagnosis and provision of support for neurodiverse children and mental health support for children is of course nowhere near perfect but it's improved vastly over the past few decades and yet school attendance, behaviour and it seems general happiness and ability to function in society seem to have become way more of a problem.

This isn't the problem of an individual child or parent to solve really but why is it happening? What is happening in our society that's causing the next generation of young people to be so incapable of coping with the normal pressures and expectations of society? We really need to figure this out or we're all screwed tbh

Not sure it is any great mystery; there are now waiting lists of three years plus for assessments, specialist mental health support exists in name only even for children way over clinical thresholds, SEND needs are ignored in schools due to the funding crisis, academisation has resulted in bonkers schools regimes punishing children severely for the most minor infractions (in the absence of any evidence base) which places those children who are unable to behave 'normally' or who can't cope with the stress of repeated sanctions, whether due to neurodivergence, mental health issues, adverse family circumstances, to find the environment intolerable. Thankfully workplaces are generally run on a more humane basis, no doubt due the more meaningful legal and reputational consequences of not respecting basic rights.

But neurodivergence and mental health support were barely even a thing in the 70's and 80's and kids still managed to get to school.... You're not honestly trying to say that a nd child was better understood and better supported back then than they are now??

But all children didn’t get to school. I can remember people on the register who didn’t.

For those who did attend, their mental health was probably wrecked, like mine.

Kids who couldn't attend school in the 70s had a better chance of not facing negative consequences for it. My dad, born in the late 50s, barely attended secondary school and nobody chased him up. My mother, from another country, legally left school at 12 and got a factory job.

There are positive consequences to raising the participation age and following up on young people who fall through the cracks, obviously. But one negative consequence is the pressure on those children very unsuited to school who in earlier decades would have been able to spend their time doing something else instead of being forced into an environment they find hostile and potentially traumatising. (My dad learned a trade and got CSEs at night school later on, in an environment that was better for him.)

There are clearly posters on this thread who have never dealt with the reality of a child with EBSA.
If my work was causing my mental health to be so bad that I couldn't go to work, would you suggest my husband forces me to go? Drags me into work? Takes away my book and my favourite chair and blanket that I'm using to comfort myself because then home will be so boring I'll go to work?
Of course not, you'd suggest I get some help, and take some time to recover. Maybe change my job as that is the root of the stress.

Yet with a child who is often awake till gone midnight on a Sunday night saying they don't want to exist anymore and trying to deal with the anxiety of going to school, "just force them in"

I work in healthcare services and YANBU, school avoidance is rife now. Definitely since COVID. I think it's a combination of poor adult mental health (having a knock on effect on their childrens mental health), less school resource, and more permissive/inappropriate parenting.

But sometimes going, facing your fear, and cracking on with the day actually helps.

I always feel anxiety returning to work after annual leave, the thought of it gets worse and worse. But actually, once I'm in, it's fine.

Pushing yourself (or a parent pushing a child) can be absolutely helpful in the long run.

Staying off school long term is absolutely not a positive way of addressing school avoidance. It doesn't help the child.

@Itslevioosanotleviosaa that is not the gotcha you think..

First you need to look at all the kids in special schools. Not just that, but while the law changed in 1070 about uneducable children, you can bet they didn't all actually make it into schools.

Then all the kids that were expelled and off rolled.

Then all the kids that DID skip school and truant, because they exist.

Sometimes, yes.

But what if you weren't fine once you were there? What if work continued to make you anxious, you hated your job, you were sick with anxiety every Sunday night at the thought that you'd have to go in on Monday?

Most people would say that you should be signed off sick and that along with seeking psychological help, should look for another job that doesn't make you feel so awful. Maybe something radically different to your current one. Not that your 'work avoidance' was negative and you should be forced to keep doing this job for the next five years, no matter how unsuited to it you were or how much you hated it.

Staying off school long term isn't ideal but it is absolutely better than trashing that child's mental health so badly that they continue to be affected in adulthood, out of a misguided notion that school is good for everyone.

Education is good for everyone. Our narrow schooling system is not.

Nothing at all to do with being stuck at school for months on end and hearing scaremongering messages about doom,gloom and death?

Feeling a little anxious about something and EBSA are not the same thing.

In that situation, having tried everything with the school (and having tried sending them daily for a while) I would either try a different school or home school.

I wouldn't allow them to be out of education long term.

Resilience is a popular term, but it's also incredibly important. For the child but also once they're adults and have to sustain themselves in this world.

Pushing boundaries, enduring hard times, amending expectations, all while receiving treatment, are all ways of increasing resilience. Being at home in their comfort zone isn't.

Lots of us go to jobs we hate because we need the income. We have mouths to feed. That's the real world, we don't always get to do what we want, when we want. Life doesn't always feel good. Of course we should help each other find happier alternatives but sometimes it really is just a case of having to push through and persevere.

Yes, very probably, hence the rise since COVID. But staying off school isn't a positive solution for the child in the long-term.

I think that’s dependant on the child, some people find school an incredibly distressing place and thrive out of that particular environment.

De register them and home school? Let then follow their passion? Its terrible m, that school can knock the creativity out of such creative, intellectual children. The system needs a complete reform. We are humans, not robots. Time for a change, maybe? Unpopular opinion but maybe we do need a change. The world has changed alot.

If they're accessing education at home, then I agree, that's potentially a better place for them, short term or long term.

But long term school avoidance, ie, not accessing the school they are intending to go to for an education, isn't positive. All children need a solid education. No problem with how that's delivered, so long as the child is learning and happy. Socialisation is very important but obviously there's plenty of ways of getting that outside of school.

Spending months on end at home, not accessing a decent education, and feeling awful, will affect them.

From my experience in my role, I realise all families are different, but often there are wider issues at play. Family issues and parenting is often a big factor.

For those asking about how these children get on as adults. My DS (diagnosed ASD & ADHD) never reached the full refusal stage, as Covid hit when we were approaching breaking point. When he went back to mainstream school after Covid he took an overdose. Following hitting rock bottom managed to secure him a place at a 14+ college, totally different environment where he managed (I won’t say thieved as we still had challenges) but he attended and finished at 16. He has worked every single day since his last exam. He is working in a field that interests him, understands him and uses his skills not focused on his weaknesses day in day out.

@WitchyWay

I think anyone on here would agree with your sentiment that school 'avoidance' is not good for anyone, hence all of the parents / carers who have tried everything they can to help their young people back into school.

If it was just 'a little bit anxious' or if it were simply a case of just pushing on through doing us some good' then there would be no need for this thread.

I don't know if you have read all of the posts on here or only the last few, but in the vast majority of cases, this is a not what we are dealing with.

In my own situation- I tried absolutely everything to get my DD in . You name it I tried it. But it didn't work as in many many cases it's 'can't not wont'

In the last 4 years, school (the anxiety and subsequent depression because of it) in my DDs case has led to multiple A and E trips because of self harm and overdoses, a year spent in bed with depression, therapy, cbt, hours spent in meetings with the school. Appointments galore, a patent EHCP application and more than half of her school missed in that time.

Changing schools (particularly with a ND young person) very often fails. An EHCP for a SEN school takes a year to be approved and in many cases they are not. Home schooling can work if the parents can afford it but in many cases the young person cannot engage.

There comes a point where mental health is way more important than education if it's the difference between living or not living.

Any CAMHS therapist will 100% agree with the above.

My daughter managed to get 5 GCSEs somehow. This isn't in any way reflective of what she is capable of achieving. She has so much potential. She started A levels and really tried. I am so proud of her for trying her best but in the end she couldn't do the school system.

All of her friends are currently at university open days and we are both gutted that it won't be happening for her.. certainly this time round anyway. It's been an extremely hard and isolating 4 years for all involved, especially as a single parent and another teen.

So whilst I would say - yes absolutely if all it is is a little bit of anxiety- don't keep them at home and as parents we should encourage all we can.. but very few cases start off as dramatic as ours and it can be hard to miss the signs of it turning into something bigger.

My DD started off 'a little anxious' re school, wanted to be at home. I had no idea she was cutting herself in her room at night after a day at school.

It's scary how quickly these things can escalate.

Sorry for the long post

Yes but you have choices. You can find a new job, you can skip town and abandon your family, you can choose to consider doing something to further your employment prospects, you can play the lottery every week etc etc

Granted some of those choices are hard nos but they're still open to you.

Children have school. And that's it. Zero other choice. It's not the same thing and you can't compare the two.

I'm so sorry your daughter, and you and your family, have gone through this.

This type of case isn't typical for our services (primary care) so admittedly I'm talking about school avoidance for children who aren't accessing secondary mental health care. There's LOADS amongst children with low level anxiety and depression too (and children with seemingly no mental health issues) who are accessing services due to school avoidance and it was those I was really thinking of in my posts.

I'm so sorry for you, I hope your daughter can find a way through all of this to a happier future.

Of course you can't compare them. But equally you're trying to compare being an adult at work with being a child accessing education. They're inherently different.

Children also don't have a choice over whether they brush their teeth, go to bed late, walk to school etc. Adults will always have more choice, albeit not really considering we're responsible for sustaining ourselves and dependents.

There is an evidence base on this you know. Not sure what capacity you work in but you don't appear to be familiar with current approaches. These a) attempt to resolve the issues in the environment that are causing school to feel so very unsafe in the first place and b) create controlled conditions in which a child can gradually start to reengage within their tolerances. Absolutely no pushing or forcing involved. It is pretty offensive to compare the emotional distress involved with your return from annual leave.