AIBU to not understand how "school refusers" are a thing?

[Idontunderstandmodernlife]

There seems to be a lot of parents that have children that they simply can't get to go to school no matter what they do - these children are often called "school refusers". Parents say they have done absolutely everything to get their child into school but nothing works.

I hate to be that "in my day" person but I simply don't get where these "school refusers" have come from because they simply didn't exist a decade or 15 years ago. Kids just went to school. I never knew of a child that simply didn't turn up most of the time when I was in school? now there seems to be one in every class

What has changed that parents are now finding it impossible to get their child to school? Have schools got that much worse? are parents more lenient? are children more forceful? has children's mental health declined? what is it?

🙄

So, you were just hoping for a bit of fun today?

You can’t physically manhandle a child to school so how do you do it?

With a primary school aged child - of course you can!

You carry them in if need be. The key is to embed early on that there is absolutely no other option than to go. If a child learns that they will be allowed to not go by making a fuss, saying they are scared, saying they are worried etc, this will give them the determination to persevere in that behaviour because its working.

Yes, I certainly gave my children more understanding. I'd have been a school refuser if I could have got away with it. I tried telling my mother that if she really loved us she'd home school us, but that didn't get very far.

It's all about our culture isn't it about the parent having authority over with a child and the child feeling comfortable in that authority?

Beating a child into submission is luckily off the cards these days.

Borstal was mentioned a lot in primary school. My parents often spoke about the boys who ended up in correction centres and so on. It was always the boys, but I knew girls who would play truant as well.

As it should be.

I’m forty odd and I regularly refused to go to school in both primary and secondary school.
In primary I would fake illness, become so upset I had to be sent home and occasionally I would just run. I literally ran for it several times in the first few years and went home. My attendance was ridiculous. I read my old report cards once as an adult and even I was shocked- I was out more than I was in.
In secondary school I would also mainly fake physical illness or point blank refuse to go. My mother was at the end of her rope. Sometimes I’d go to school but not to class. I’d hide in the toilets reading a book.
I ended up leaving school for good when I was fifteen and was admitted to a psych ward for depression.
I got my equivalent exams in a special school as a young adult.
It was never a consideration that I might actually have adhd at the time. I suspect I probably do.

for some children this will cause significant trauma.

it could also be harmful physically as well as mentally.

what about a 15 year old? How does that work?

I think the whole culture around children's behaviour, how schooling/learning is structured nationally and in society, the language and knowledge around child development, mental and emotional health etc has changed a lot in the last three or so decades.

I can't really say which parts have made things better or worse.

Also COVID made people realise they could find staying indoors to be a lot less threatening than venturing into the wide world.

But I think school avoidance would be simply framed as truancy back in the day. Disobedience, and more readily lead to exclusion. They would be less likely to seek out the individual reasons why it was occurring.

When I lost my dad suddenly in the first term of year 8, not one teacher ever even asked me how I felt, if I was ok. Nada. Complete wall of silence.

Obviously the kids didn't know what to say and who can blame them. But no adult in my life asked me anything at all about my feelings or emotions. I think now they would have better safeguarding if a child suffered trauma. I hope.

You clearly have never tried to physically manhandle a primary school age child who is desperately resisting.
Even if you do manage to drag them in, school staff won't physically hold them or drag them anywhere.

I really don't think that's what the OP was doing. She asked questions, didn't actually accuse anyone of anything or say what they should or shouldn't be doing, and in less than two hours the thread has over 200 replies, a lot of which seem quite angry at her and are, in my opinion, projecting a lot of their own guilt and frustration on to her.

But I have given my answer and I have no wish to participate in such a heated, fast paced thread I can barely keep up with. Certainly doesn't sound much fun to me so I'm off. I won't be surprised if the OP is too.

If you are terrified of spiders would you advocate being thrown into a big pit of spiders and expect to develop the determination to overcome that behaviour? Thought not.

The responses from people who clearly don’t understand are so patronising. You seem to assume that we are just saying “oh dear, you don’t want to go in today? Ok darling I’ll make you hot chocolate and get you all cosy” The reality is extreme and very distressing for all involved. This country seems to have a big problem with people deciding they know what’s what based on their opinions, with very little lived experience.

This is such rubbish.

My dd was ALWAYS sent to school. Then she went into undiagnosed ND burnout and couldn’t t go, she desperately wanted to buy couldnt.

Eventually she self harmed, so that was the end of school.

She’s now at university having almost recovered from 5 years burnout caused by the demands of school.

Nope you couldn’t not at all as I said DS is (fine now int he main) 6ft and 200lbs in year 8

when he started he would have been 5ft 1 and 130lbs in year 5 to maybe 5ft5 and 150lbs in year 6 (he is broad and built like a rugby player)

you cannot easily carry that as a dead weight. Plus I wanted him healthy and thriving not self harming or dead

A 15 year old will take matters into their own hands. I told my mother my intention to leave school at 14, and would have too. Could in those days. It was the first time she ever listened to me and didn't dismiss my struggles with school. She knew I meant it and changed me to a different school where I at least managed to stick it out until 16. At that point I decided to turn my 'giftedness' in my favour and applied to enter university early. I was done with school. I succeeded and manged to exit school in a way that was not only acceptable to my parents, but made them proud. It was really just an out.

I’m not a teacher any more.

but many teenagers are physically bigger than both their parents and often teens are significantly more scared of school than their parents.

they can and will physically attack their parents. Child on parent violence is up a massive, massive amount. Children and teens these days are much less likely to be passive - if a parent hits them or tries to carry them they will use significant force back and it’s often the parent who winds up injured.

in the 80s and 90s the school refuser who had parents who would do that would leave the house as normal for school. Then they’d either go to morning registration and be counted as there for the day and then leave or just not go at all. Parents would not know, not for a long time.

these days that’s not an option. Schools are mostly gated and fenced in. So if they are made to go they resort to “internal truancy” - on site but not where they should be - hiding in the loos (one reason why many secondaries lock them now) or behind the bike sheds or in the trees at the back of the field.

schools largely don’t have the resources to deal with internal truancy - once you have a teacher per class there actually aren’t that many other people on site. And if the teen in question is prepared to run away they can lead several adults on a game of hide and seek for hours.

schools don’t need that shit.

we had a lad who ran away and played hide and seek like that most days. He didn’t like school. He was mentally working at about age 5 when he was in year 7 and he didn’t enjoy lessons but he did enjoy knocking on classroom doors all through the maths block and running away from the pastoral admin staff who came to find him. Then he’d go to English and do the same.

obviously our school wasn’t the right place for him, but his parents utterly refused any idea he might have special needs and refused to co-operate with an EHCP application and insisted on him coming to school because the primary had got them fined when he missed too much.

the senior leadership managed to get him into some kind of unit after 18 months.

but the only way to stop him playing hide and seek was to literally lock him in a room with a TA (and even then he tried to escape out of the window)

I was a school refuser in 1997. Badly bullied and refused basically. I ended up in a PRU for a while as I couldn’t face normal school

I went to school 1998-2004 and I just went, whether I liked it or not. That being said, some of the amateur dramatics I gave, pretending to be ill when I fancied a day off were Oscar-worthy 😂

Excellent post, HereBeFuckery.

Genuine question, and apologies if already answered, but how did this work out? Did she just start coping and the resistance stop? I have an asd ‘school refuser’ and interested to see all angles.

You are not really making sense. The topic is school refusers. They prefer to be at home. This isn’t about pupils who would rather be at school.
No secondary school pupil is going to be screaming are they? How embarrassing infront of your peers. Within 10 minutes that would be all over Tik Tok. Even though using phones is banned.

"I know a family that took three days off a couple of weeks ago because they wanted travel and enjoy the snowy weather we had."

So? I grew up with kids that skied most days all winter. Some were on teams, some just in ski families. I'll be doing the same with mine if they are interested.

"I know parents that will keep kids off because they have a slight sniffle."

Good! It's nice to know some people learned to "stop the spread" of germs from the pandemic lockdown.

They were always there. But, like ND kids were either forced or hidden away, or shameful failures that were whispered about, or people lied about why.

Kids were also able to get away with it more quietly. One classmate I'd see maybe twice a term in HS when her DM had a day off. She'd leave the house, hide, go back when her DM went to work. Forged signatures. Schools didn't do much then except a note. Schools were too big to manage it. I often wonder where she ended up!

Although it's more prevalent, I'm glad we have more recognition of ND and ask why a student refuses. I would have been much happier. 'in my day' I was certainly more able to push through, but never thrived. Kids were sent to school regardless of bullying and other issues, with no help. I'm 50 this year and still struggle from issues I didn't get help with. I should have been moved schools but parents didn't care beyond us going.

Do you think school refusers are only teenagers 🤔
Who is screaming?