Should I have grounded DD?

[didistutter56]

First week back to school this week, and by Friday morning DD (8) is saying she feels sick. It’s a fairly common occurrence in the mornings before school, I’ve always been someone who has some slight nausea in the mornings as well so the general rule has always been that unless there’s actual signs of illness, she has to try and make it into school. DD had stayed at her dads the night before so he let me know, I spoke to DD and she went into school.

By lunchtime I get a call off school saying she’s quite upset saying she still feels unwell, stomach ache, etc. Off I go to pick her up and she’s clearly okay once I’ve got her in the car. I’ve always thought DD is a highly sensitive person (as am I) very big emotions, struggles with loud noises, big crowds and what not. So I chat to her in the car about what’s wrong and after a while she says she’s feeling nervous and worried about her new teacher and being back in school, so we chat about that and how I understand it can be a big change but the only way to work through those feelings is to stay in school and you’ll settle in quicker. She understands but starts crying.

Once home she has her lunch whilst i finish off the work I had to do, and she spends a couple hours with my gardening. After tea I’ve allowed her to play out for a couple of hours.

Her dad dropped round to drop off something he forgot to pack in her bag, saw that she was out and then went ballistic at me on the phone later. How if she was at his house and she had “lied” about being unwell she would have been grounded, that she’s “playing me”, she’ll be pulling this sort of stuff all the time now because she knows she can get away with it and I’m letting her play out because I don’t want to have to deal with her.

I said back that I can’t prove she’s lying, I have no doubt she probably was feeling unwell for the reasons she said and I have no reason to doubt her. And that if I’m grounding her for feeling unwell at school, what’s going to be the punishment when she actually does something serious?

Admittedly I probably am a bit softer with DD, but her Dad shouts at her a lot about things that aren’t that big a deal IMO, if he thinks she’s messing about or even just this week he’s shouted at her in-front of me for taking too long to get in the car and blocking the pavement when people are trying to get past, and being “fussy” about what she wants in her packed lunch.

School have spoken to me about her attendance in previous years, it’s always around 93 or 94%, which they want to be higher, but with her last report she is doing better than the average expected standard in 8/12 of her subjects, and doing as expected in the other 4 and got a glowing report from her teacher.

id love to know how you would have handled this and whether it would be something you would have grounded your child for?

I'm not sure why so many people are equating not being able to play out with being punished.

It's totally okay to say to a child that they can't go out to play after school because they struggled and need some down time instead.

@didistutter56 The national average of attendance includes children that frequently spend time in hospital or have to take days off for medical appointments that they can't avoid.

94% isn't good attendance for a child that isn't unwell.

Schools haven't been back long and she's already come home sick but been allowed to go out and play with her friends. Not being allowed out as a consequence would have given her an opportunity to deal with emotions she didn't like.

Where did you get the idea that school funding is affected by attendance? Schools are harassed by the DfE and Ofsted if attendance is lower than target but they aren't given less money!

You need to ensure your DD understands that bunking off school isn't an option together with working with school to agree mutual approaches to improving her attendance.

This should include - on your part - showing her that staying at home isn't "rewarded" and that going into school is better than being bored at home. If you don't make home boring, she WILL play the 'not well' card again. And again.

It’s not really “grounding” her is it? It’s more like a natural consequence: if you are too sick to go to/stay in school the whole day, you are too sick to play out with your friends. That’s standard with my kids. They don’t even bother arguing that it’s unreasonable of me anymore.

I think you dealt with the situation very well. I can't imagining punishing a child in these circumstances. She didn't lie to you, she was genuinely feeling unwell. The root cause of that seems to be nerves, but that doesn't mean she invented the pain.

Your ex sounds dreadful. Shouting at a child is never acceptable. He probably thinks he's a better parent than you are, but he is just an old-fashioned disciplinarian. Authoritarian parents are damaging to children, just as overly permissive parents are. It sounds to me as though your approach is in the sweet spot between these extremes: authoritative (not authoritarian) and understanding.

I think you dealt with the situation very well. I can't imagining punishing a child in these circumstances.

It's not a punishment to say that you can't go out with your friends if you don't feel well enough to go to school, is it?

If my children are off school or been sent home I never let them play out or go to a club that evening. While they may well have a good reason for not being at school it’s easy for them to see it as an easy option if there is no consequences. It does sound like your daughter feeling of sickness is caused by anxiety and genuine at the time, you need to help her deal with and understand how she is feeling. Don’t let missing school be an easy option.

would say to an adult who was off work for mental health issues they should never leave the house to do anything enjoyable?

Op your dd had very real physical symptoms as a results of anxiety. You 100% did the right thing letting her play out. Never punish a child for poor mental health.

"Grounding" a child for lying is a punishment. Her ex thought the child should be punished because he interpreted her actions as lying and manipulation. From the OP's posts, I don't think the child lied, it seems she was genuinely unwell due to anxiety.

My daughter is very similar. Diagnosed with selective mutism and anxiety and currently perusing a neurodiversity evaluation on the recommendation of our GP. She masks 'hard' all day so school never see the struggles we see at home.

I think you need to work with the school to get the guidance teacher / wellbeing person / whatever linked in so that she can help with some options to keep her in school. Do they have a nurture room or similar? Can she step into the hallway if she needs to? There are lots of accommodations that are possible once you get the right supports in place.

One of my daughter's many anxieties is missing school so she'd never come home - in some ways I think it's lovely that your daughter was actually able to reach out to you. But if she did need to get me one day, I wouldn't 'punish' or restrict her at all after we worked together to come up with a better plan for next time. Mental health is tricky and preteen girls are susceptible to all sorts of challenges so I'd never want to punish my child for not being able to do something because her brain just isn't working for her that day. I do think it's worth a think about if a quiet afternoon at home would be more productive than running around outside, but my daughter thrives outside so it could be a great option for her after an awful day.

Sorry, I agree with him. Too sick to be at school is too sick to play out.

And attitudes like that is why Camhs are busting at the seams. This is an 8 year old little girl who was righly sent home struggling with her mental health. Your response would be to remove pleasure, her chance to socialise appropriately and to further cause her mental health to decline.

I think you mostly handled it well, you got to the bottom of what the issue was and she trusted you enough to explain.

But I wouldn't have agreed to her going out to play. I would have said that as she had to leave school, then it's not appropriate to play out.

You can be fair, but still have expectations.

Unwell at school equals to unwell to garden or anything else fun.

Sorry - I was referring to the posters saying it was a punishment to keep a child at home if they're too sick for school.

Ah, come on - missing one evening of playing out won't harm her - in fact, I would argue that she would actually very much benefit from a quiet evening at home if she's struggling, and then she can go out with her friends after a good nights' sleep and some time to rest.

There's a balance (imo) between grounding her and just allowing her to carry on as normal. Nobody's saying to keep her locked in her room all weekend or saying that she's banned from any kind of socialisation until Monday.

The thing is she is unwell. Anxiety is a medical condition! Just because she isn’t physically throwing up does not mean her mental health should take a back seat.

She needs support to address her anxieties not punishment and if her dad is constantly raising his voice at her this will be contributing to her mental health.

Also why are you allowing him to raise his voice at you, step up and request him to speak to you in an appropriate manner , if he refuses terminate the call or walk away, show your dd that adults should speak to each other respectfully.

@YeahComeOnThen

It shows her that whilst Mum understands her feelings and emotions has listened to them validated them and will act upon it, you still have to do certain things you don't want to in order to do something you do want to.
She may only be 8 now but it won't be long before she is at secondary school and at that point if she is used to being able to stay off school with no consequences then it will be a lot harder to get her to go . It doesn't need to be treated as a punishment.

You think a lack of boundaries is helpful to a child's mental health?

Sorry OP but I would also crack down on her attendance, despite her intelligence. She needs to learn some resilience, else it'll come back to bite her in the workplace.

Even when we're not feeling 100%, we push ourselves to work hard. That's what I'm showing my kids anyway. Digging deep. Pushing forwards. I think it's a valuable, healthy, declining life skill.

@LongLiveTheLego would say to an adult who was off work for mental health issues they should never leave the house to do anything enjoyable?

I wouldn't. Because they are an adult and I can't tell them what to do.

I had similar with my son.
He kept getting sent home from school ill and being totally fine when he got home.
Turned out that one of the teacher was bothering him considerably.
However, what I did if he got sent home from school was make him go to bed and lie and read. He wasn't allowed tv or to play out. Just so that being at home wasn't fun.

It is pretty obvious that she wasn't unwell I think being supportive of her feelings is fine. Allowing her to go out to play when she has essentially lied to get the school to call you is another.

I would also be very wary about labelling this anxiety as some posters have suggested. Sensitive child dislikes school does not mean she has a medical condition.