"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?

Isn't this exactly why parents ought to speak to the school and seek help? I think the OP works in a school, hence her example.

Everyone experiences problems, but surely an education should be encouraged despite life's many challenges. If nothing else, it's good for children to build resilience.

Interesting about Fridays.

Our council (and many across Scotland) have cut hours so school shuts at lunchtime on a Friday.

Now imagine you have a kid who can't just about convince themselves to go into the school building, but can't go into the classrooms. She sits in the 'support base' which is actually just a holding pen for SEN kids and is given no curriculum work to do; one day my 14 year old came home and had coloured in a picture of Stitch...

If she can't cope by Friday am I risking her going back to self harming and suicidal ideation to send her in for no benefit to her whatsoever, and potentially huge detriment? I am not.

Christ. There's no hope at all with that attitude.

I truly intend to retire before we have to start employing this generation, although there's little hope of many of them being suitably qualified or motivated for the sort of great jobs we can offer anyway.

For most parents it’s not a trend. It’s a nightmare where a parent is unable to go out to work because their child cannot attend school. A school that probably can’t meet the child’s needs. The education system needs an overhaul. Plus there seems to be a lot of judgement and a lack of understanding from staff…

@Summerose , that's not how resilience is built that's how trauma is installed. Also, many parents do talk to schools but they haven't the resources to help or just cannot be bothered as isn't their issue.

Ultimately every child does have a legal right to education but it's the legal duty of the parent to provide that so that's either via electing their child goes to school or they home educate.

A couple of things have changed since ''my day''. My mum was a sahm and I feel that that's a bit rarer now. If I'd statyed at home she'd have been relentless, haranguing me, shaming me, pressuring me, catastrophising.... She might have got me out of the house and into school through the medium of making me feel so bullied at home. I would have been just as depressed anxious and unsupported though. But hey, I would have been at school.

Also, of course, the tinternet............ 17 seasons of it's always sunny in philadelphia on netflix and my son has watched them all (I know that from his viewing profile).

I really don't consider myself ''permissive'' though. It's more like I accept that his path will be a bit more circuitous than school, 6 H1s, college, masters, big high falutin job.

You know autism is genetic, right? And when one sibling is diagnosed the likelihood of a second being identified goes up humongously?
Making people feel worse doesn't make them behave better; rewards and sanctions do not have a longterm effect on changing behaviour! Do you know what does change behaviour? Having your needs met! Having realistic tailored expectations to meet instead of one size fits all! Feeling like you have a say in your own destiny!

People Do Well When They Can
If they're not doing well, there's something stopping them, and we need to work out what it is, and how we can bridge it.

If a child needs a wheelchair, taking away their Internet and getting cross isn't going to miraculously heal their physical differences, is it? It's the same for emotional/social/neurological differences. You can't change someone's neurotype by bossing them harder.

@Summerose you can't imagine that parents like us have not repeatedly begged for help from the school and local education authorities?

There is no help. None.

At one point I’d have probably agreed with the ‘just make them’. Having now being on the other side of it, it’s genuinely not that easy.

For weeks I had to drag DD11 into school crying and sobbing everyday, have you any idea how emotionally draining that is? Then one day she just said, no I’m not going. She said you can give me any punishment you want, take anything off me, I’ll do any jobs you want in the house but im not going. She would kick and scream if I went near here. And when I said ok you can stay home today, she just relaxed like a baby. It’s awful.

We’ve made progress she’s back in school with adjustments but I worry every day that it will get two much again. Im certain shes got ASD but she masks at school so there reports don’t match mine so any diagnosis feels impossible.

Those children will have hopefully recovered enough to be aware of their needs and or end up in assisted living.

My job as a parent right now is helping my son recover and teaching him how to regulate my modelling and therefore, allowing him to go on to living a life that works for him. As adults, we get to decide what job we take on, who we interact with. We have much more autonomy, which helps. When they become of an age, they'll have more autonomy over their lives in terms of jobs and interaction. And mental health and neurodiversity is no longer taboo, though there is still a lot of learning and awareness to be made but we are much further on in terms of progress than 10 to 20 years ago.

I once was ignorant and would judge parents, but here I am, one of those parents who will be and has been judged for my situation
It's been a real eye opener

Even in terms of autism, I thought I knew but actually, it was very much the opposite and not what's always said re eye contact and being non verbal etc. There's so much more to it.

My sister went through this stage a whilst back. My mum tried every thing to get her into school. She was attacking my mum and the siblings and locking herself in rooms. School didn't know what to do or help. Camhs wasn't interested. My mum asked social services for help, they said she didn't require it as no safe guarding concerns. If my mum walked her in one gate she would climb back over the gate and go again. Police would be looking for her and she was 12 doing this. In the end my mum gave up. 2 years later she's finally been diagnosed with Autism and other things and basically spends her days on tranquillizers. It's so much more than someone accepting their kid doesn't want to go to school. My mum needed her to go for respite from her but no.
She's now out of school fully and my mum has no idea when she will ever go back. She receives no education at all.

This!! This is exactly it. When we pictured our family life we didn't expect it to include our child suffering from school related trauma, we didn't expect to have battles with the system, we didn't expect out 5 year old to try to take his own life because of how much he hated school. We didn't think one of us would lose their job because of how much time they needed to take off to be at home for our child. We didnr expect we would end up home educating. We thought we would have a child who would enjoy and flourish at school like we did, we thought both us parents would have careers.

You really really think these parents haven’t asked for help?

Op has thrown a grenade and walked away.

For those that understand, do not engage it's wasted energy

My youngest son has severe OCD. I coaxed him out to school every day, thinking it was better for him to be there. And in some ways it was, certainly from a social point of view. But he struggled so much and it broke my heart to see how much it took out of him, just to get through a normal school day. Eventually it all got too much for him and he refused to go. He didn't scream or kick or shout. I just had to look at the raw pain on his face to understand that school was absolute torture for him. So yes, he's a school refuser. With a mum who is an absolute rule follower in every way. And yet, still withal, I allow him to stay at home. And I imagine that the vast majority of parents have their own private and complex reasons for keeping their children at home.

I also work in a profession with such families- yes it is seeming more common but personally though, i agree that you can't force an older child to be somewhere they don't want to be....all you can do is try and encourage them to stick with it to get the grades they need to go on to do something more exciting (not that everyone is successful through that route) Ultimately, all kids are different....some who love academic learning will fly, others just aren't academic and school is not set up enough for practical hands on learning (especially high school)
I was a teenager at school in the early 2000's....I was generally a passive and compliant kid on the surface, scared of authority, from well educated privelidged background, but by year 10 I realised school was not teaching me anything I could use in the sort of career I wanted, got bored and bunked off lessons often until I was able to be shot of the place a year later.I think probably now kids are less scared of their parents and teachers (thank goodness) so the ones who would have turned up at school but then played up in class/bunked off/sat there miserably hating every day know that they don't have to put themselves in that environment in the first place.
That said,there are some kids who sadly would like to do well and be in school more, but family problems and traumas prevent it being possible.

When I work with families, if school is affecting their mental health significantly and they are genuinely unhappy there, and nothing can be done to change that, I will always advocate them being moved to another school or taken out, even for a short time, of the school environment, to recover and re-group before then ideally moving to a different school.I know I would do the same for my daughter's when they are older.

That's not to say they should be sitting at home gaming or whatever all day- they shouldn't- they need stimulation, learning, socialising boundsries and structure still, but school is often a 'one size fits all' box, and when you add in things such as bullying aswell, why should a distressed kid have to put up with it all.If someone hates a job they get to leave, so why should children and young people be imprisoned in a place they are unhappy...

@Catbustotoro 🙄 yes I know. I have an autistic teenager myself. plus I have a daughter who has issues with going to school.

i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say if you stay home but you can’t have your phone. Part of the problem is addictions to phones and I think breaks from them are good. If they were at school they wouldn’t be allowed to have their phone all day anyway.

My eldest was school refuser but year 8-11. School ruined his MH.

If I had a gun at the time I might have tried holding it to his head as I was desperate.

I would never have refused school as a kid. My mum would have beaten the living shit out of me. I think that's frowned on now.

My ds got 3 A at A level. And has been in his bedroom ever since medically unfit to work in the two years since. I have had a decade of being petrified of his suicide. He is off to uni in September. I'd love to have a stable child. You don't get to choose unfortunately.

I would rather have him here uneducated than jump on a train track as so many local kids do.

In the end he still got into a top uni with top grades dispite bearly any education for six years.

I don't know why modern schooling does this to so many kids. Also there's no family or community support behind us. Even my closest family agrees with you OP that they could do better. They just sat there and judged me. In fact that solidified my urge to hide most of my struggles from them. All of my kids have SEN. Why is there more SEN? I don't know but ours is a genetic duplication so as much as I'd love it to be me or in my mind it's a real tangible thing. My family even think the geneticist is wrong. So easy to dismiss everything even Drs and science and point the finger at me. It's easy and lazy thinking. I'm past caring.

School 'others' people like us and so does society. We are freaks who people don't understand. I'd love to buck my ideas up and be normal but what can you do?

I don't know, I think it's worth discussing our personal experiences on a public forum so that people understand how hard it can be, when your child tries to get ready for school but ends up banging her head against her door instead as she gets so overwhelmed.

I mean, at what point in a morning like that should I just 'make her' go or physically get her in the car? People who judge without learning can absolutely and utterly get fucked.

My mum (who was diagnosed with autism very late in life after being misdiagnosed with BPD all her life), basically stopped going to school at the age of 14 and left with no qualifications at all. She ended up taking her exams at night school as an adult.
I am also autistic, and spend a huge amount of time either in the toilets having panic attacks or setting off for school but not going in. I still managed to get straight A's and be educated to postgrad level.
The point I am making is that this isn't new, its just that absence figures were not recorded then, so schools didn't push it so relentlessly.

My DC isn't allowed internet access or TV (unless a school based reading or maths app) on the days they cannot go to school. I still have to work (from home). It's boring for them, and frustrating for us both. No fun at all. They still beg to stay at home almost every day.

My sister was a school refuser in the 90s. She wasn’t the only one. It’s very common among autistic people who are undiagnosed and unsupported. Im a lot older, and also was a would be school refuser who wasn’t ‘allowed’ to do so, so I sat in a corner catatonic most days. I know which of us is the least messed up as an adult.
nothing is wrong with parents, they just don’t force their distressed and terrified kids into school like previous generations did. And rightly so.

also. We just had a global pandemic which massively disrupted education. You think that isn’t going to have an impact?

How did your parents get you to school then?

I do wonder If there is any correlation between Gove's curriculum reforms (Make Education Joyless Again),and the increase in school refusal.

Years ago when I had anorexia my parent's friend told them to just make me eat and everything would be okay. I suspect, just make the child go to school would be the same - nigh on impossible to achieve, and if it were possible, have catastrophic emotional effects.