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?

I Was a school refuser from the age of 10, I was severely bullied and had attempted suicide by then. I didn’t properly realise there was a name for it until I started teaching.

I am sorry. That was tough. School was better than being with my parents. They were very strict and not understanding in any way.

My school left it to the truancy officers and if you showed up at least once a fortnight you were fine plus not every parent gave their work number to the school they would see the child out the door in the morning and assumed they went to school and your forgetting its only been a recent thing where attendance has "mattered" i was born in the 70s in my area no-one cared as long as the police didn't show up and shame the family

My best friend was a school refuser in the late 90s/early 00s

My parents both left school at 14 with no qualifications that would've been in the sixties and seventies, it wasn't called school refusal then because if you didn't want to go you didn't, especially from working class backgrounds where wages were needed.

In the 90s in my school you didn’t even need to go through a hedge, you could just walk out the doors and leave. Nothing was locked, there were no gates and anyone could just walk in or out. Same with primary school.

“they simply didn't exist a decade or 15 years ago. Kids just went to school.”

Yes we did. I was at school more than 20 years ago and was a school refuser. I was under the mental health teams. Stupidly my mum thought I should just learn to get over it and tried to force me and I had what I now know was an autistic meltdown of epic proportions.

I was taken to hospital and forcibly admitted for 2 months. I was so traumatised and terrified and never wanted to go back there I spent the next decade forcing myself to to be “normal” until I head a breakdown when I was at university and nearly committed suicide.

Now at 38 I know I am autistic and like this couldn’t cope with the school environment as well as the non stop bullying for being different.

Im also no contact with my mother as her attitude hasn’t improved any. No surprises there.

Welfare manager here. Teachers teach and support education. We are the backbone trying to support each and every pupil.

When I was in Jr. High (Canada) those who skipped class at my school could skip 3rd period as attendance wasn't taken for that block (no idea why).

God yeah!

My ND couldn’t cope with whiteboards. And densely written power point slides with too much on them, when they were never designed for that. And ‘exciting’ displays.

She wanted plain white walls and a blackboard. Whiteboards gave her immobilising migraines.

In fact she chose her degree because the university used blackboards and not whiteboards.

Thing is, @Missj25if you’d ever worked in a school you’d have encountered two things which might help you empathise with those who are cynical.

One is the DAILY refrain of ‘I don’t know what to do’ from parents. Not parents who have tried everything, but parents who have tried NOTHING and bleat this before trying. Examples: child has been caught distributing indecent images at school. Parent: what do I do? Me: do you use parental controls? Parent: I don’t know how to… child has been seen punching another child. Parent: I don’t know how to stop him, he does what he wants. Me: have you got consequences at home for this kind of thing? Parent: I have no time, I have a baby… Me: have you tried removing phone as a punishment? parent: oh that seems harsh!

Two is how amazing teenagers are at lying and pretending. ‘I feel sick’. ‘Okay, let’s sit you near me and keep an eye, poor thing.’ ‘I NEED TO GO TO MEDICAL BAY’. ‘Okay, well, you aren’t getting worse so give it a minute… everyone else, let’s now get ready for break. Sick child, I’ll take you to medical bay now.’ ‘Oh I feel fine now it’s break time.’ It’s Oscar-worthy. Children will swear blind they weren’t in the same county at the time of the fight, and when you show them CCTV of them punching a Y7, shrug and say ‘oh yeah.’ The idea that at least some aren’t milking it and faking distress seems more distant if that’s your daily life.

20+ years ago my sibling was terrified of secondary school after a negative event in school one day. Barely ever managed to go in because anxiety was so difficult and had an impact until at least mid 20's with the anxiety.

I guess was probably perceived as truancy or being difficult though vs what would now be recognised as EBSA.

My son school refuses at 7, has done since nursery as a toddler actually

I'm 43, my sister who is 39 was EXACTLY like my son about school.
.both have/had anxieties around food, around behaviour expectations, around difficulties with executive function. The difference is I know this about my son because I work in healthcare and know the reasons developmentally for his issues. My parents meanwhile would have described my sister as a stubborn wee b**ch.

I remember her refusing to go after a dinner lady force-fed her, this would have been 33 years ago, and despite my dad being a formidable man who would hit first ask later she fought and fought to stay home and eventually they'd no options. They couldn't physically get her to stay in the car in a way she could be transported and in the end she stayed home. There were meetings with school etc which was a big deal back then.

My son is almost as tall as me and I've had to carry him through doorways, lift him into the car etc to get him to school. The only reason his school refusal hasn't led to actually missing school is because his school are amazing. They do anything they can to help us get him in and are non judgemental with it AND most importantly they support him to not be afraid or anxious at school itself so he can function and enjoy school once there and reduce the amount of refusals.

On days he refuses though it's genuinely awful. He's a lovely, kind and thoughtful boy who becomes a scared, screaming, lashing out feral beastie. He's overwhelmed, he melts down. I don't know how else to describe it.

Sorry haven’t read the whole thread, but maybe it’s because we’ve got more access to news & the prevalence of social media? One of my friends about 20 years ago was a school refused, stopped going in the middle of middle school I think, so year 5/6. From what I could gather, school/LA didn’t really care, never knocked on her mums door etc but of course I wasn’t privy to everything. I’m not sure she even enrolled in high school or a specialist unit.

My kids aren’t in school yet but if they have a good time at school then there but for the grace of god I’ll go, it must be incredibly difficult for parents & families on the whole.

For those who are saying they would force their child into school, is this by a ‘you will do as I say’ method or a ‘how can I help make this better for you?’ method?

I was physically forced into school. I remember it vividly. I was a straight A, perfectly behaved (terrified and bullied) student.

My teeth are now rotten due to the frequency of vomiting with fear, staff would call for help when I became ill (hyperventilation, fainting) in their lessons, I shook daily and have mental health issues.

Schools are not great for lots of children and lots of teachers. I truly hope my children know I will always support them, and not be forceful regardless of their wellbeing.

It’s always been a thing - we just used to call it bunking off. Now we realise that some children can’t attend school because it has a detrimental impact on their wellbeing. Most of them want to. Covid didn’t help.

I was a pretty conscientious at school, and did not do anywhere near so much homework, testing or work at anywhere near the level my kids are working at now. We start arbitrarily testing children the moment they enter the education system. They aren’t allowed to be ill, they are barely allowed to go to the toilet during the day. Schools are woefully underfunded and teachers are expected to do less with more, within ever-increasingly constrictive curriculums, and with the threat of ofsted hanging over them. If there are more school refusers (which is an assertion that we do not know is a fact) is it honestly a surprise?

I'm all for it! Taking time off to play? My god, what horrors will be next??

I can assure you that at 15, my father would have manhandled me into school if he'd had to. He could have done it too. He was very strong.

I absolutely hated school (late 70s to early 90s) because I:

-Developed a stammer aged 13-16, so reading aloud in class was an absolute nightmare, and the teacher would scream at me for "being lazy, not paying attention" when in fact I simply couldn't get the words to leave my mouth. I was an excellent, A-grade student, and very well-behaved. I just literally had a stammer, which I lost soon after school and when I had started at university.

-Couldn't swim, yet was always pushed into the deep end by our swimming teacher when we were taken to baths every week. I found this terrifying. Every week, for years.

-Back then they would mix years, so I was in the 3rd year of primary school (in old money - I think that's year 5 now?) and we shared with the 4th year (year 6). The teacher was immensely aggressive and just never believed I was 3rd year, and for some strange reason kept insisting I was in the 4th year too. So, he would regularly make me come up to the front, rip up my work right in my face/the whole class, screaming "DO BETTER!" Thinking about him now, it was very traumatic. He was like this with everyone.

And yet I STILL went to school. A day off was absolutely unheard of. The only days I can remember having off was when I had chicken pox aged 8.

The way we were treated - and this wasn't especially unusual for the decade we were in - is the sort of thing which you would now see reported in the news. It would NEVER be allowed today. And yet, we went in, day after day.

My sibling was born in 1977. In high school, we had a roll taken every single class period, for every single class. Any unexplained absence would have been followed up.

My younger sister is 42, she was horrendous, she lashed out, scream cried, missed a lot of school and eventually left at 14. The other children in the family went with no problems.

She returned to education in her 20’s, she is an accountant, she’s been with the company 20 years, things change.

DH youngest sister was the same. Going to school causes some children a lot of distress.

I’m not NT, either.

I'm 57 and barely went to school. There wasn't a name for it then, except truancy. My parents didn't know though. Hilariously my head of year came to the house during the day to speak to my parents and they had gone on holiday and left us on our own, and I happened to answer the door.

Had my parents not both worked, not buggered off on holiday without us, I suspect I'd have been refusing to go.

Anyway, I don't think it's a new thing.

My youngest son’s school has been amazing, I’m not criticising them at all, but for many children just being in school is too much.

I have always engaged with school, but some are more receptive to EBSA than others, and some are downright obstructive and rude - it’s no wonder so many parent/school relationships break down, but because school are the authority it’s usually wrongly assumed that they are blameless. Show me an SN parent and you’ll see someone who has likely had a very hard time with schools and/or teachers.

Edited to add: Too many are happy to judge a situation based on their own preconceived beliefs, even when they’re plain wrong.