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?

There was one in my class in the early 80s.

Looking back I was a school refuser; but I was too shit-scared of my Dad to stay home, so I just packed a change of clothes in my bag instead of books and had adventures, train trips, visits to the beach , days in my boyfriends flat and then I'd put my uniform back on and in the afternoon meet the train at my stop. Had a friend who was brilliant at faking parent notes ( this was late 80s) We spent a lot of time thinking of what our next medical issue would be. I probably went to about 60% of school after I was 15yo. All the teachers knew, but annoyingly for them I came first in almost every subject ( 3rd in art bummer) so they just pretended they didn't know. I'm pretty much a truant not a school refuser. There is a difference I think. I'd be in the city watching a film and school refuser is hiding under their bed.
There were issues but getting help with stuff like that was few and far between in the late 80's.
Amazingly , when I confessed all this to my parents when I was about 25 YEARS OLD my dad was fuming. Threw down his fork and stormed out of the dining room. Unbelievable. Barely spoke to me for weeks. Mum, on the other hand tried hard not to giggle. So that's why I never told my parents that I hated school. You can be very intelligent and still hate school . It can be a rough ride for anyone.

We don’t beat our children any more. People who talk about manhandling don’t understand that you just cannot physically make a child go if they don’t want to go. My DD was often very anxious about school and would do everything she could not to go. She jumped from a moving car once - slow but moving. I had already been to the GP about it, who told me to just pick her up and take her in her pyjamas. They get too big to pick up!

And try driving with a child kicking and screaming and yelling at you. So dangerous and traumatising for both of us. I was a school refuser and had a school refusing child. The system behaved as if it never happens but it does. I do value education and tried everything and she got all the way through school to uni in the end.

Schools are like prisons.

And did the school support you in learning at home, at all? Did they send materials home and try to keep you somewhat on track with your education, even if you couldn't cope with the school environment? If I were a teacher who had school refusers, I like to think I would try to offer the opportunity to keep up with some studies, even if not to the same degree as at school.

Because school, particularly secondary school, can be brutal and some kids can’t cope with it. Also you can’t tuck a teen under your arm and force them into the car.

I felt a lot of judgment when DD was going through this … I then decided her mental health was more important than exam results. She could always return to education at some point.

Shes now in her 20s and is thriving, great job.

You’re naive if you think that school refusal wasn’t a thing 10/15/20 or more years ago. It absolutely was. I don’t doubt it’s go worse now though. Look at the state of the NHS- the waiting lists for CAMHs, the waiting lists for paediatrics to assess for ND. All this will take its toll on the children on those lists and their parents.

These people deserve sympathy and understanding, not derision.

well, I think op has had it demonstrated that school refusers have always existed.

Dfe data about not going to school being associated with a drop in the warnings is probably correct.

but there’s the big issue that most kids who are school refusing are doing so due to either MH issues - ocd, anxiety, etc - or autism/adhd.

yes, people with MH issues that are severe enough to lead to school refusal probably do as a group earn less as adults.

some of these people will earn very well. Lots of autistic and/or people with anxiety in for example computer programming or other jobs where the intellectual abstraction is the point.

i live in Cambridge and honestly at times it feels like every other person is an autistic programmer who school refused at some point in secondary.

then there’s the kids who school refused due to anxiety but aren’t anxious in the workplace. There are lots of these - and there are lots of jobs that don’t involve being around large groups of people,

in the 90s lots of the school refusers I knew were working by age 14 or so - on the market or helping in their dad’s business or apprenticed (unofficially because it was before the official leave age) to a tradie.

so quite a lot of them did fine and were able to cope in the workplace. Some won’t - but that’s due to MH issues that underlay the school refusal not the school refusal itself.

Since Covid we are told that we are not allowed to send any work home.

i presume this is for a couple of reasons - one it’s massively time consuming and two teachers not doing so places additional pressure on to get students physically into school.

pre Covid it was allowed.

I was a school nurse in the early 2000’s and believe me school refusers did exist! You actually sound quite judgemental there are many reasons a child struggles to go to school, bullying, heath issues that mean prolonged absences making reintegration hard!

Borstal! Blimey, that's a blast from the past.

But how were you coming first in every subject if you were missing 40 percent of the instruction? It's all very well being intelligent, but you have to actually see the material in order to learn it, and be there to take the tests and hear what homework was being set, don't you? Are you sure you're not telling little porky pies? 🤭

@Mycroissant - your post describes how it is perfectly. Thankyou.

The reality is a million miles away from how some on here with no experience of think it is isn’t it? Ie

Child : ‘I don’t think I can face going into school today’
Parent : ‘Well you aren’t staying home. Your education and attendance is important. You are legally required to have an education’

Child ‘ <sighs reluctantly> ok ok I’ll be down in ten’

If only 😩.

I can't speak for that person but in my school days we had text books.
If you had the text book you essentially could just work your way through it independently and learn what you needed to know that way.

When you say she wants to go but can't, is it because of anxiety? If so, I wonder if you could find any YouTube videos about ways to manage anxiety and self-soothe. Sounds really tough, especially if she wants to go.

Do you think physical abuse is a good thing?

So a child who is petrified or school but needs to be made so petrified of home and parents that school is seen as safer. Great let's make no where safe let's make vulnerable children have no safe space or safe person. Kill or cure right

@PithyViewer

You’ll find that pretty much every child with EBSA wants to go to school. There is a well known book called ‘can’t not wont’ . I do appreciate that it’s hard for people to understand how this happens unless you have been in this situation.

You tube videos for anxiety , calming apps etc are the first port of call for most parents when the problems first start and I am sure @FatFilledTrottyPuss tried countless things like this as we all did a long time before spending thousands on therapy and forcing their daughter into the car.

And your parenting and attitude to schools is why so many school staff are leaving. SENDCOs are leaving in droves. Soon there won’t be many left. What’s your next option?

Then I hope you were able to seek other options for her.

Exactly! Doesn't everyone remember BOB ( back of book) where all the answers were, at least in maths. I am lucky to have a ridiculously good memory so that helped ( not working so well these days). I remember doing a commerce test and the teacher was furious as she knew I'd missed the test due to truancy so she decided to make an example of me by making me do it in the corner of the classroom whilst everyone else had their normal lesson. After 20 minutes I put my hand up and said"finished". She was enraged and marked it in front of the whole class with her best angry expression on and then told the rest of the class to do something else and slipped me my result ( I remember it was 97%) She was so angry. I just have a very good memory ,so half way through a lesson , I'd have read ahead and I'd be bored and start looking out the window. It wasn't purposefully rude. It was just so dull, someone teaching you something you already know. It's best to just not be there. Sorry not trying to sound like a wanker, it's just like someone is able to run really fast. You don't put them in with a group of regular runners. Sorry, I am probably making no sense, it's been a long difficult day. Just remember that kids wag school for a host of different reasons.

They did exist - I left school 20 years ago and two of my close friends went through a difficult period transitioning to secondary school (our secondary school was huge compared to primary). One of them barely went to school for a year in year 7. Parents aren't a soft touch or anything and they kept trying.

Both of these friends got great grades, went to good unis and have excellent jobs now. Neither of them are neurodivergent but I guess they went through a period of understandable anxiety.

School can be a problem even when trying not to be.
Large numbers of students doing random things.
Crowded corridors.
Changing rooms all the time.
Different teachers with different rules.
Accidental over pressuring re GCSEs.

Completely overwhelming for some

My DD 'coped' until she broke. 6 years on she is much improved but still healing.

I agree with you. School, and then getting a job wasn’t a choice for a child/teenager - it was what you did. 🤷‍♀️

You are coming across as completely lacking in empathy and frankly unpleasant on this thread. You claim to be doing everything you can for the next generation but seem to completing missing the point that for a school refuser, the school environment in itself is traumatic. You are just banging on about everyone rallying behind schools and giving out detentions. No wander so many are choosing to home educate. Complete lack of understanding for the needs of an individual.

Yes, I never let mine stay off (now 30-40 yrs) I think it’s because I struggled to make friends and if I was off when I went back my friends would be playing or hanging out with other people -and didn’t want that for them and you were never taught the stuff you’d missed. But schools were smaller as in a rural area