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 once heard an interesting phrase:

"You should treat your children the way you hope they'd treat you if you become incapacitated in your old age".

We don't force incapacitated, cared-for adults outside in their pants or pin them down in the backs of cars. The few sickos that do get arrested (hopefully). So why is it ok to do this with kids? School is not a life-or-death situation warranting use of force.

My eldest began showing signs of school avoidance in year 4 by delaying leaving the house and developing OCD.

I carried on sending them in to school, albeit late every day. It was so bad that I had to have someone else take my younger child to school. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, my eldest would perform OCD rituals at the time we were about to leave for school. If I pushed them, they would be in severe distress. However, they still went to school every day.

By the October of year 7, my eldest had a breakdown. They were rocking back and forth in the class in front of all of the other kids and really didn't care that they were being stared at as they produced vocal sounds of distress at the same time. They stopped eating too.

It was at this point I decided to stop forcing my child into school. Someone that would be termed a 'school refuser'.

In my position, would you have carried on sending your child to school? Especially given the distress and no learning going on, being stared at and talked about by their peers?

When my younger child began showing signs of school avoidance in year 6, I didn't force them in to school. I'd encourage but if they really didn't think they could manage, I didn't drag them kicking and screaming in to school.

Which child do you think still has serious mental health issues now, four years later?

Which child has come out the other side relatively unscathed?

The cause of this avoidance was their mainstream primary refusing to accept and support their (NHS diagnosed) additional needs.

Funnily enough, now that they're in a special school, they've had 98% attendance consistently and my eldest has walked away with 8 GCSEs, grades 7-8. Get the environment right for the child and they don't 'refuse school', they flourish!

True, but better than the threats and use of actual violence which meant most children in the 1970/80s would never dare refuse school. Thankfully that kind of abuse has ended and is widely frowned upon. Anyone raising a child 1970/80s style today would quite rightly be under Social Services eye. Nearly all my friends were hit by their parents when I was growing up and nearly all minimise this abuse to claim it didn’t do them any harm while missing the obvious damage that they are now adults who think it’s okay to coerce children through fear and threats of violence.

It’s complicated, very complicated.

In our case, the environment wasn’t suitable but there was no suitable environment available.

Unfortunately, many view it as they can’t be arsed, the parents don’t give a shit etc etc

In SOME cases that’s true, in MOST cases it’s not.

Reading your post here now , I’m getting the feeling ( from your user name alone ) coupled with your “ I simply don’t get where these school refusers have come from “ .🙄.
Well there’s lots of reasons , not that I’ve any notion high up or low down of explaining to you , because I’ve a feeling you’re judgmental & there’s no changing that mindset of yours, which I’d safely say is , “ Children should all be in school , I’ve never heard such nonsense, it’s all the parents Fault “ .
Would I be right in my assumption ? cause I’ve a feeling I’ve hit it on the button .
By the way , I had a “ school refuser “ 🙄 as you like to label children who find being in school challenging, but as I said above , no notion of explaining to you …

I was a school refuser when I was in my early teens. I had to see the truant officer, who along with school staff treated me like I was a lazy, wayward, rebellious child.

It’s obvious to me with hindsight that I’d had a nervous breakdown when I was 12. My mum was an alcoholic with psychosis who would attempt suicide on a weekly basis. I raised my siblings from when I was 7 years old, and was constantly hyper vigilant to try and keep my mum safe. I just couldn’t cope anymore. We were taken into care shortly afterwards.

I was never offered any mental health support, even after I attempted suicide.

Edited to add, this was 35 years ago.

Yep, this.

I was a "school refuser" in sixth form i.e. had reached the point of autistic burnout and was too anxious and exhausted to contemplate going to school.

I should have bloody refused to go in a whole lot earlier than that because school was catastrophic for my mental health.

Ridiculously smug post, you’ve never seen it therefore it didn’t happen.
It existed plenty ‘in your day’ you just didn’t know about it. Just like it exists now. We just have the internet now.

I was a sw 15yr ago and worked with school refusers, it was most definitely a thing. Other pps have likely said it all but it was about bullying, poverty, poor attainment and probably neurodivergence before we understood it as well. Usually it was tied in with neglect. What I at the time found hard to understand was about how the parents would get a break if they got the kids into school. But they would often have quite chaotic lives and vulnerability themselves, and organising themselves in the morning to get the kids out of the door was too much. That met with resistant kids = school refusal.

I am not practicing now but I imagine the phenomenon has changed a bit and what has risen is school refusal in families whose circumstances are otherwise decent. Anxiety and other MH problems in children have risen in the last 10-15 years.

There was a girl in my class who was a school refuser in early 90s. I know there were lots of interventions and she had therapy to try to help. Ultimately I think she was home schooled after about a year of this.

While that might work in some situations it’s cruel in other situations. You have to listen and see what’s actually going on.

This ain’t true, my brother was one. He was sent to a PRU centre because of it. Undiagnosed ADHD had a lot to do with it and he suffered either way depression for many many years.

he’s a very happy man now with a beautiful family thankfully.

So did you ever get any kind of educational qualifications at all? Were you not scared at the time that this might limit your future choices enormously?

I vividly remember a girl in my tutor group at secondary school (early 90s) who often didn’t attend for half a term at a time and if she did make an appearance, it would be for the odd day here and there.

Just because you and others are ignorant of what was going on around you, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Andrei Chikatilo was married for 30 years whilst also raping, murdering and eating as many as 100 victims. Assuming his wife genuinely didn’t know, does that mean he’s innocent since she wasn’t aware of what was going on around her?

I was a school refuser in the 80’s (I’m 52). The final straw was when I was going to jump out of the car on the way to school. I would have done it. I had to see a GP and a psychologist. I was diagnosed with ’School Phobia’ and ended up with a home tutor for 2 hours a day. I chose to learn to type and do shorthand. I later became a parent of a school refuser. There was no way I could force my 6ft son to go to school! But he, like me, COULDN’T attend.

😂😂😂😂
This is hilarious. You clearly have no idea.

If a child at school was so traumatised by going home that they refused, screamed, self harmed, puked, ran away, serious questions would be asked and swift intervention put into place.

When it happens the other way round predictably it’s just weak parents not telling their child to go to school. It’s parents treating their child too nicely - they need to toughen up and make their home life miserable too.

This has been going on for decades, but never has attendance been so focused on, and rather than address the issues that now have thousands of children too traumatised to go to school and fast rising numbers of special needs the easy answer is to blame parents. Honestly it’s shit, and so shortsighted and lazy.

As PP said, school refusers weren't invented years ago, they were called other things. I was a school refuser in the 70s but it was called 'she won't go in'. My school didn't seem particularly bothered at the time, I think I was one of a significant minority. Now, I see that I wasn't coping because of my autism, but years ago, only non verbal kids who flapped their hands had autism.

It’s easy to think you’d never allow your DC to become a school refuser. But sometimes you have to put mental health over school. Fortunately I haven’t had to face it, but was worried could end up down that path with youngest. Thankfully, she changed in year 9 and went the other way and became a high achiever; but for many year she absolutely hated school and struggled with many aspects of it. Yes I value education, and I want all my DC to have good jobs etc, but more than anything I want them to be around. And sometimes school refusal can become something very serious with mental health issues.

If you haven’t walked that path, reserve any judgement would be my opinion.

They definitely did exist ,10 and even more years ago! There were 2 children in my son's class who refused to go to school and he is 37 now, and even when I was at school there were plenty of children who just didn't go to school. Sometimes the truant officer would cost the parents but mainly they were just left. It's not a new problem. It's just talked about more now

I think the push for mainstream at all costs also plays a part. DD1 has had pretty much 100% school attendance every year until now (year 5). Except year 2, when she was sat next to a child whose needs were not met by mainstream, and took her anger and frustration and challenges with emotional regulation out on my daughter by hitting her several times a day, every day. I asked her teacher to move her several times, she refused. My daughter was not sleeping or eating, she lived in fear every day. And one day I could not get her through that school gate. So I told the head she would not return until the other child was moved away from my daughter. After a couple days she returned, sitting next to her friend. It took months for her to feel fully settled again, and a lot of work to get her back into school again every day as she feared being put back next to that child. She could have very easily become a school refuser if I hadn't become that 'stroppy middle class mum' and put my foot down.

Sometimes the parents are doing their very best. And schools are also trying. But the crisis in SEN is causing trauma to both those with SEN and those without.

I find it hard to believe that many teens- anywhere near the number that now count as persistently absent- would choose to lie in their pyjamas shivering with no internet and no duvet for very many days. Especially if parents facilitating their social life and hobbies was dependent on them going to school.

However, that's my opinion and other people are free to do as they wish, but it wouldn't have flown and won't in future with either of mine.

I've seen too many children who have started off by missing school, then got worse and worse until they can't do anything. Especially once their friendship group moved on without them.

When I was a child my next door neighbour had anxiety. Sometimes he was so anxious he would be sick on the way to school and his Mum would take him home, get him a clean uniform and bring him back again. The school knew that some days it might take until 10 or 11am to get him in but he was always there. His friends were always there to help him get through the day. Eventually he got through it and now he's very successful, married, two lovely kids. By coincidence, he's in the same workplace as me. So that's how it was dealt with then. I can't speak for every family but that approach- that he was always going to school one way or another- worked for him.

@PistachioTiramisu
There's a 'school refuser' (unsupported/misdiagnosed etc) child in my GC school. The child has been dragged/half carried in and forced through the door by the parent/teacher/classroom assistant. She doesn't calm down. She's had a seizure through being so distressed. But also, the school hasn't got the facilities to allow a overwrought child to be left in their care, safeguarding clicked in. Also, if they vomit, they can't go back gor 48 hours. So what would you do? There isn't a service available btw.

When I was at school the teachers had freedom to go with the flow, adapt what they taught to their class and what was going on around them. We did so much creative stuff!
A pupil left his lunch box in the classroom over half term and his crusts went mouldy. We discovered them after half term and then that led to us doing a whole project about mould, drawing and painting the colours and patterns of mould, making booklets about mould etc etc
Teachers don’t have that freedom any more. Schools are very rigid, children are assessed and assessed over and over again, they have to learn complex grammatical structures in primary school. There is very little creativity or fun!

I didn’t understand how parents allowed their children to stop attending school, until one of mine did. It was never an option, school was always presented as compulsory, but she got to the point where she couldn’t make herself go and I couldn’t physically force a 13 year old who was kicking me and attacking me.

She did end up in psychiatric hospital and was later diagnosed with autism (she’d previously had two assessments but not quite hit the scores for a diagnosis).

What we have now is a terrible “perfect storm” of schools becoming rigid, boring, assessment factories with very little fun and creativity. While SEN funding and support is in crisis, with many children waiting three years or more for diagnoses, while getting seen by CAMHS can take five years in many areas. Plus two parents having to work in most families puts pressure on everyone’s mental health. So much has gone wrong with so many sectors

Oh well if your 16 year old says it then it must be true. Jesus Christ.

They did exist in the 90s. One girl in my year just couldn’t cope and began refusing to attend. She was ultimately withdrawn. I remember other children with patchy attendance who very much struggled too.