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 imagine a generation ago parents faced with school refusing offspring would have tended to respond with an absolute bollocking if not actual physical force. Techniques which are now considered beyond the pale by many.

About 20 years ago that was me I hardly went to school for 2 years i had 19% attendance over the 2 years. Social services where involved but pretty useless. Nothing worked i was beaten, bribed, ,ignored, guilt tripped, had all my stuff taken away, had my stuff smashed up. It didn't matter i still didn't go and at that time neurodiversity/ mental illness was never looked into you was seen as naughty and difficult. I often think if I was born 20 years later how different things would have been.

Absolutely. My friend is a therapist who specialises in anxiety and his client based has completely changed post COVID. Now young men are his biggest client base.

My DS was a school refuser after Covid. He was a good student beforehand hardly missing a day and in the top couple of sets for most subjects. Then lockdown happened and i saw him change before my eyes.

He went back with a lot of support and managed to get 2 A levels but the damage had been severe.

Would it have been an option for your DC if they were self harming and had a suicide attempt? It wasn’t an option for me at first either but that’s where I ended up.

They’ve always been there.

I would have thought that once, but you really have no idea. That certainly wouldn't have stopped my DD's school refusal (and I did stop the wifi).

@Idontunderstandmodernlife what is it about modern life you don’t understand?

Anyway I hope you never experience school refusal or EBSA because the two years DS did it was the hardest two years of my life supporting him through anxiety burnout and suicidal thoughts and OCD. we were lucky it was the last two years of primary and the move to high school helped immensely as did therapy and working out strategies in order to cope with it all - and he has come out the other end.

I had force him in - impossible he is in Yesr 8 6ft and 200lbs now so impossible to move in year 5 - there was also the very real fear of self harm (he did a couple of times) and what that could lead to

I didn’t want to destroy my son I wanted him back and all of the forcing and taking away the things that made him feel safe would have made things worse. What I wanted was to help him get better and for a period of time that meant not being at school.

There is a difference between can’t and won’t and it applies here

35/6 yrs ago i refused to go to school.

It was for about 9months, when i was physically made to leave the house i used to ride the bus all day long, which looking back was dangerous as i spent hours in an east london bus station.

It happened, it was just hidden by schools. In the end i was hand delivered to my covent school and a nun would escort to me class all day 😳

Good point.

How do you know she didn't have ME? That sounds a bit judgy.

I think there is more school refusal these days, and it probably is related to MH but not in the way the op is meaning.

I think we now understand that saying "just get on with it, it will toughen you up and do you good" is not, perhaps, the brilliant approach other generations thought it was. Just like corporal punishment has gone ... times move on.

I do agree there is a risk that others "catch on", but I don't think that is a sufficient reason to shove children in school when it simply isn't working. These days things like online schooling are very feasible. If it saves a child the agony of bullying, or an education that doesn't cater to their needs, why not explore it?

Yep. Very easy for the judgemental crew who haven’t walked a mile in our shoes to pretend it’s easy but it’s a living nightmare
My DS jumped out of the car at the lights to avoid school, he was dragged in by staff literally sobbing like a baby and still 3 years after he left he struggles with anxiety.

And then?

How is your relationship with your children?

I have parents you can't really share negative feelings or difficulties with and I'm not close to them as an adult,.

Fortunately for them I liked school and had no trouble going.

"Unwell" covers mental as well as physical health.

If you were having such a difficult time at work that you were traumatised by the idea of going in, literally couldn't bring yourself to do it, would the answer be for your partner to "just make you"?
Maybe take away the things you use to regulate and comfort yourself so you can mentally return to a place where you can start going to work again?

I coped with school by self harming. I went, got good results so I appeared fine.

No one in real life actually knows that.

Did his mum not work?

My mum was a single parent. It was easier for me to be a school refuser because she had to be out of the house for work before I left for school and I just didn't leave for school.

If she had stayed until she could drop me off at 10-11am or whenever she managed to drag me in, she would've lost her job I imagine.

They also existed in the late 70s/early 80s. My sister was one. I well remember the shouting and rows and threats and incentives my parents issued to try to get her to go. But she just wouldn’t. It damaged her relationship with our parents for the rest of their lives.

Though actually, as soon as she was 16 she left with no qualifications whatsoever, got a place on the Youth Training Scheme (£27.50 a week!) and developed herself a very nice career in the local council offices.

You don't think we went through that stage when children used to get severely beaten in front of their class or the whole school? Or were forced to perform humiliating punishments? or were segregated by their gender? When DBS checks didn't exist and when random people could wander in and out of playgrounds at will?

You genuinely believe now is then going horribly wrong stage?

I think 16 is a good leaving age, maybe 14/15 if the YP is transferring to some kind of apprenticeship model of training/employment. But I do think schools completely need overhauling in order to meet the needs of the pupils who find them unbearable. 1972 was a different time anyway, I have an uncle who legally left school at 15 I think and has never had any qualifications but you could get work then, you can't now, everything needs GCSEs and nobody will employ a 15 year old for much more than a paper round. He ended up doing his own thing anyway.

I don't think it was fair to just let them fail into nothingness 30+ years ago, I don't think the current approach to try to force them in anyway is working either. Look at why they aren't going in. There seems to be a general assumption that it's normal and OK that school is at best tedious and at worst totally unbearable and this is just fine because that's "real life" and children need to get used to it, but what if it wasn't? What would it even look like if schools did work for more children? That's what I'd like to know.

We did too
And all it did was make DDs only safe space feel unsafe, and that she couldn't trust us to help her.

I’m 36 I regularly missed school due to bullying and because they just didn’t know what to do with a ND child even when I changed primary schools I still refused to go or if I did go in I would ask if I could go and get a drink of water and just go to the receptionist and get them to phone my mum to pick me up because I was “sick”. I still remember when the headteacher of my second primary school came to our house to see why I wouldn’t go in and took me to school herself that didn’t work either I still found ways not to go to school or to just leave when I did manage to get there.

I completely agree with this.

The fact many teachers are miserable/stressed/on 'support' plans/wanting to leave (partly because of some of the things you've mentioned) means that schools are often not happy places for anyone. The teachers that used to have the time and space to get to know their students and provide more of a lifeline when they ares struggling, are also struggling so can't help Asa y may have done in the past,

My first gf was a school refuser as soon as she got to high school. Looking back she definitely was neurodiverse in some way , and she didn’t get any qualifications. She ended up as a young carer too.

It’s such an array of things.

Children should not be “shoved into school”, but parents need to be supported to get their children into school, with specialist care. Kudos to the poster who was able to physically pick up her daughter and get her into a car to be driven to school, but what if a parent can’t do that? What happens when the daughter is a 5’10 son who weighs more than you? Parents need more support. The question is, are the resources available?

A few people I know have had school refusers and they have gone on to well. Maybe they were just lucky, but I am pleased that my two did go along each day even if neither of them liked it that much ! It must be so hard trying to get them there if they just walk out again. Not sure what you can do really and we all know any school support is on a cliff edge in most schools.

Exactly what time period are you talking about OP? Because initially it was 10-15 years ago, ie 2011 to 2016, and then you've jumped to corporal punishment on stages. The attitudes to attendance in the eras you're jumping between were quite different.