To ask if you got your child back into school after EBSA?

[drspouse]

I know I'm going to touch a total nerve here, but those who know me will know I've got skin in this game. DS is ironically in a very unsuitable SEMH specialist school but we have no problems at all getting him there in the morning. He has, however, been in a primary PRU where he struggled to go in and the deputy head said "he's not anxious" when he was hiding inside my cardigan.

Bridget Phillipson says parents must not "let" their children stay at home.

www.facebook.com/bridgetphillipson/posts/pfbid04qzL7fcPQb1bifL62gWuZu3ykHApzSJUTZRb3fnQh68JmXNbF97PdmJDejZxCpHHl

There's a recent report (which I slightly question as I'm not sure who they asked - if they used a snowball method then once they got a few parents of neurodiverse children that's going to skew their sample) saying that over 90% of children persistently missing school have ASD or ADHD. If anyone has the link feel free to put it below.

I'd like to know what worked for you, or what didn't work.

I am not personally of the opinion that low demand, or socially isolating setups are good for children. I'm also aware that some alternative provision/EOTAS setups can involve a lot of interaction with other children/a variety of adults, so it's not necessarily more isolating than school. But I'm firmly in the camp of "if you avoid it you will be more anxious" and that's how we worked with DS when he was anxious - gentle introduction, sitting at the doors of the school playing a game with his excellent TA, and ignoring the deputy head when she said he wasn't anxious (luckily the TA ignored him too).

Thank you @OneInEight, that's a really insightful analysis.

Strangely, he copes with university despite having huge numbers in his lectures. I have puzzled over why but I think it is a combination of low contact hours giving him the opportunity to destress, knowing he is able to walk out / not go to the lecture if he is having a bad day, being taught a subject that interests him and at a level that stimulates him and a lack of disruptive behaviour from the other students.

Yes my DD copes well at college doing her a levels, but couldn't cope with mainstream secondary. I think for similar reasons to your DS's.

But also she's older and has developed some of those skills that she was delayed in age 11, such as organisation and time management. This was a major reason why she struggled so much when she started secondary.

Also the college treat the students as adults, they wear their own clothes, call the teachers by their first name, they're spoken to more respectfully, and aren't given detentions for minor mistakes like forgetting a pen or wearing the wrong colour hair bobble!

You'll probably remember when my ds was too anxious to attend his MS secondary.

We moved schools (named another Ms on ehcp after trying and managed move).

He was still anxious but he could attend.

I think you need to support the, to attend but also you can't just keep things the same and think that will work.

It's a combination of things. Helping them manage anxiety but also having a setting, set up or whatever where they are relaxed enough to be in a place to manage it.

The frustrating thing is when people think a child refusing school is just refusing. Like you said refusing to see anxiety. Refusing to acknowledge there's a reason they are finding it difficult and sometimes impossible to attend.

Absolutely.

As ds went through college and now work he's been much calmer because he feels like he has some control.

I do think half (most!) of the issue around EBSR is that people doesn't allow the child the time and control they need to manage the demands placed on them.

It's a bit silly when politicians come out with things like "parents shouldn't let their kids stay home". Some children you can try many different tactics, changing the school, lots of resources thrown at them and it would still involve physically manhandling them in, which is just no good for anyone.

I once asked a school to spell out exactly where the line should be drawn with "just making him go in" - pulling him by the hand if he's screaming and crying? Picking him up and dragging? Pinning him down and then forcing clothing on him while he violently refused and then dragging? They refused to actually say it on the record. This was when he was 5, now at much older I wouldn't even be physically able to force him to school, even if I wanted to.

Just marking my place as I try to get my daughter into school after a week off, after 3 years of sporadic attendance. She's hit a wall today and just can't even get up. I just want my daughter back, going into school would be great but I'm so worried now that we are heading towards EBSA. Lots of health issues which we can't get a diagnosis for, autism, PDA...gp appointment this afternoon where I'm hoping they will help. Feeling very hopeless this morning and I have to now get ready to go and teach myself. Worried about her, my job, everything.

I just read this on PDA (I'm not convinced reducing demands is a good thing, though I know I'm totally going against the grain here, we have had good results with DS by increasing them gradually).

discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057420/

It says that the difference between demand avoidance and regular ASD is mainly executive function which makes total sense as that's what helps you switch from thing A to thing B.
One of the phrases ADHD Dude suggests is "get your brain unstuck" and he suggests calling your child's EF their "brain coach".

But it also strikes me so much what I read Heidi Maver's child said "school just needs to be less busy and noisy" - in other words school needs to change but of course as a child with a very fixed mindset it's hard to see how it could be different.

Total ramblings there from me I'm afraid.

I think it depends on how high the demand associated anxiety is, the potential consequences of not reducing demands vs reducing them and also how reasonable the demand is.

When my DS was 8 he nearly ended up in a mental health hospital. Eight. The self injury and distress was extreme. We were talking about putting our beloved baby into care. So we reduced demands. My other child (non verbal, autistic, learning disability) gets anxious brushing his teeth, we put lots of adaptations in (social story, no flavour tooth paste, special brush, compromise only 30 seconds brushing, specialist dentist visits), but we don't remove that demand because we know it could cause huge pain and dental issues and the tooth brush distress is minor.

Demand reducing, in my opinion, should be child by child, case by case. Some children it really is better if they don't go to school or wear pyjamas most days, most not.

@BackForABit that's horrific. I hope you found some relief for him.

@drspouse having just read the extract maybe I'm missing the point, but my son's exec function is so much a function of his mental state I'm struggling to see it as an independent variable. The answer to "could he do this?" is so often "it depends on his mental state". A child in crisis and at breaking point is more likely to display demand avoidant traits and more likely to present with exec function deficits.

I think I see what you're saying but it is a fact that people with autism or ADHD have poorer EF than people who don't. Maybe you're thinking of EF as something other than the large range of things it is?
It's one of the reasons why things are often seen in black and white for example.
Obviously abilities are going to vary from day to day and be highly dependent on health, mood etc. but that's going to be true of most people.