"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 mean, when there was a worldwide mass over reaction in 2020 and we denied the right of children to education in a school
setting, some of us actually saw this coming. To expect young children to be deprived of school for a year and then just swam back in like the over reactions never happened was a bit of a reach.

The underlying causes were there before covid. Unfortunately the lockdowns are often invoked as a reason for breaking the social contract between schools and families, with the latter accused of taking attendance less seriously thereafter. This is largely cobblers and an unhelpful distraction. My DD is a textbook school refuser and ‘fortunately’ went through her first bout before Covid so we can’t attribute it to that in any way. In her case, the first lockdown actually gave her some valuable breathing space and she returned to school in the September very happily - to a supportive teacher, which made all the difference.

Nothing to do with EBSNA.

of course!

And yet these children often have siblings who attend school perfectly fine. Is that in spite of their feckless parents?

Yes

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Or parents who completely cooperate with the school and all the professionals who get involved when your child has EBSA, are are desperately trying to get their child back into school.

And we did physically force DS into school once, and I deeply regretted it. It was so damaging to him. At one point he wouldn't just not go to school, he wouldn't leave the house in the daytime at all in case he saw someone from his class. A girl from his school posted a note through our door to say how much he was missed and that triggered a meltdown. He couldn't bear to see or be seen by anyone in his year.

To those who have had this expert, what happened that created a change in your dc so that they returned to school?

Not all of them do return unfortunately. We are managing two mornings a week but only when it’s PE and it’s outside. My daughter started feeling trapped in school due to feeling anxious and dealing with emetophobia which lead to a flight response, she’s only just now been able to have a door shut. Very very small steps.

when we did force her in at the beginning it made everything 10 times worse and lead to her running away from school near busy roads in a state of panic.

Anyone that suggests you just drag them in is very misguided.

I think I read that school refusal is a trend that has been observed in every country - even the more authoritarian ones like China with very different parenting techniques.

My flatmate at Uni was a straight A student, got a first in her degree etc. Her sister was a year older and had refused school after turning 13. There was nothing her family, the school or social work could do to make her go. This was in the early 90s. I’ve also listened to the actress Rebecca Front (who is 60) talk about being a school refuser when she was at primary school. She ultimately went to Oxford University. I don’t have personal experience but I hear these people and know that it isn’t a new phenomenon (but may be a bigger problem now especially post covid) and isn’t simply about parents who are soft or don’t care.

It is a "thing" but my view is this:

Free education is an absolute privilege. Not every country in the world has it.

So, take it if you want and if you don't, who cares. There shouldn't be any sanctions at all if you don't want it.

No-one should be begging anyone to take this fantastic gift, unless a child has SEN and to deal with this, there should be more specialist school provision.

If an area can't provide the exact provision and is unlikely to be able to do so and the child refuses to partake whatever is on offer, then don't drag them there.

We need to get over the belief that every child must be educated. The chance is there but if they don't want to go, then let them stay at home.

My autistic DD is very rule abiding so
would struggle into school crying, calling me over and over again with extreme anxiety. We went on like this until she became too mentally ill to be there and the school told us to keep her at home because she wasn’t learning and they couldn’t care for her. It was very traumatic for her and us. She had a few weeks at home and then struggled back. Seeing the damage it did to her was just awful. I regret encouraging her to go during that period as it has taken ages to build her confidence back up a little. We managed to move her to a very different school which helped and their SEN team have provided lots of therapy. She is also under the care of CAHMS. Tomorrow she will be doing her first GCSE, but there was a time when i couldn’t see how she would have been well enough to even be in school, let alone take her exams. I can totally sympathise with parents who are doing their best but their school can’t provide for their neurodivergent child. It is a nightmare and not everyone gets the opportunity to find a better, different provision for them like we luckily did.

I pay £50 a day (more now! Thanks Labour!) as I have a child with anxiety that started due to her severe medical problems when she was younger. Some days she loves school, other days she just cannot make herself go. She will kick and scream and lock herself in the toilet and threaten self harm. The local state school made it worse with all their military style rule and regulations….so we have to live on the breadline to pay for her to go to a private school. I literally had £10 to feed us with this week!

Who in their right mind would put up with this life if they simply had the choice of telling their child to ‘get to school’!

"Lonely castle in the mirror" is a novel that explores this issue in the Japanese context (where it is a bigger and longer-standing problem than here). Written with younger audiences in mind, but very beautiful and moving for adults.

My natural tendency is often to blame parents for a lot of problems, but on this issue I don't see any real basis for it. Other posters are right that this happens all over the world, in countries that are far more traditional than ours, with more and less technology, with better or worse education systems etc.

My experience has just been that in the past, and in less controlling cultures, students just quietly drop away, and no one notices. In the past they would have just dropped out, and gone to work on a family farm, or with a family friends business, or just stayed at home if they had nothing else to do.

Education was less strict and compulsory, and there was less pressure, less social service intervention, less knowing what was happening outside of your close circle etc. So it just happened, and we didn't know about it.

Many children, for a whole variety of reasons are not suited to 'modern' education. Never have been, and never will be, regardless of what parents do. This thread alone lists many of the potential issues that are out of a family's control that can lead to this.

Really, we just need to be providing alternatives. There should be paths through life that don't require an identical education for all.

In the old days, kids were afraid of their parents punishing them. Now we have swung to the other end of the spectrum where people were having a shrieking meltdown on another thread because someone held a toddler by the arm to prevent him bashing an elderly dog over the head and the notion of punishment is treated as though it's incredibly cruel, instead of just cause and effect.

Someone will be along to monitor and correct my usage of language shortly, we are not allowed to discuss anything in clear terms without being accused of being out of touch, cruel, abusive etc. etc.

Society took away parental power, with the intention of stopping abuse. Stopping abuse was a worthy goal, but sadly abusive parents are still abusive, and its the rest of society that now tolerates intolerable behaviour regularly from kids. You see it on threads here and all over the internet, regularly and, of course, in every day life constantly.

Parents are genuinely scolded and harassed if they raise their voice to their children, no matter what the child is doing. Gentle parents (or as they are properly called permissive parents), not happy with their own kids being badly behaved, harass anybody who tries to be firmer and sanctimoniously lecture everyone else (there will be one along shortly to start on me I daresay).

30 years ago, permissive parents were looked down upon, now authoritative (not authoritarian but authoratitive which was the gold standard until recently) parents are berated and harassed and demands are made that they treat children - who are NOT little adults - like little adults.

As always, we have shifted way too far in the other direction.

Parents of badly behaved kids won't even allow anyone to say their kids are badly behaved, we are never allowed to simply point out bad behaviour without a three hour pop psychology lecture and a demand that we consider that the child may be SEN or neurodivergent or the parents may be (insert excuse here) and should therefore be allowed to do - well pretty much anything is what it comes down to. The reality is that no matter what is wrong with a child (and I am not allowed to say that either, but I will anyway) they should always be taught to behave within social norms and those that can't have to be excluded from certain activities.

And now, that is not happening, to a large extent.

I can remember when badly behaved kids could be removed from classrooms. Now they move they rest of the class.

And it's only when the kids become teenagers they realised they've messed up badly.

Too late by then as once a badly behaved child is a teenager, it would take a bashing to get them to comply - which of course would not be acceptable and definitely not something I want to happen, and in many cases would not be realistic anyway.

And that is why parents who have given away and been forced to give away their power don't try to force their kids to do things they cannot force them to do - because if they try to exercise control at an early age people jump on them and when it's too late it's just too late.

We often get our school refused in but an hour or two late. Our school sees us get our other two children in for the gates opening on each of those days. They've seen me having to resign from my job to try and manage my. Child's anxiety. They've seen me cry when it's just too much.

The school system is wholly inappropriate nowadays and so many children just can't cope with it all. Many more cope but don't thrive. It needs investment and it needs to be adjusted so it is a more hospitable environment.

I disagree that it's because parents are too permissive. My DD only goes in at all because of not wanting to disappoint me. She is never badly behaved in school - she is so quiet as to be more or less invisible. I'm sure to people who haven't experienced it, it can look like poor parenting but if you haven't lived through it your opinion isn't really valid. Many of us on this thread have said before it happened to us we couldn't understand it either. Unfortunately, many schools also lack understanding.

OP, tell me you have no clue without telling me you have no clue.
Jesus wept.

My mother was a school refuser in the 1960's ,- it really is not s new trend.

you have clearly never had to get an over stressed 10 year old autistic who is 5ft and nearly the same height as you into school.
when he loathes the teacher he has to be locked up with for 6 hours. When she stressed him out to the point where he cries multiple times a day, refuses to let him leave the classroom to decompress and he’s now diagnosed with school related anxiety and emotional school avoidance.
yeah it’s really hard. Even worse, his brother sees it all and occasionally tries the same tricks. Luckily he is 7. But my older son has ran off, got to the school gate and ran off. Got into the car and ran out the other side. Got to school and walked straight out the front gate. If there’s no help (and there really isn’t) then where do we stand as parents??

"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."

Either they de-registered and falsely claimed they had made suitable home education arrangements or this is just not true. Absolutely no school or LA would accept this and the family would come under substantial pressure to get their child back into school.

If a child does "refuse" there is no good way of forcing them into a school, I mean are we actually going to advocate for physically dragging children in? Restraint? Because that is what it would involve for many of these children.

And yeah, it used to be well known and accepted that during the first few years, parents had to win, to be the person in charge. The first time you let a child win a tantrum, argument etc everyone knew you were setting yourself up for months of tantrums. Kids are smart, they know when someone will discipline them and when they won't. These days, many households - many of them who write in to mumsnet - are at the mercy of their badly behaved children.

Powerless parenting has caused hellish situations for many parents. Sadly, it causes hellish situations for the rest of society too.