AIBU to let my Year 10 child miss school sometimes?

[Sunriseseaview]

DC has never liked school but has pushed through. They are in year 10 and have a mild learning disability. Lately the pressure of GCSEs has become harder and it is impacting their mental health. They are missing school more often; still going but not every day. They are seeing a therapist.

I don’t want to force them; I encourage them but feel the drive should come from within and I hope they will find their path; but I do question myself and wondering if I am doing the right thing. They don’t want to do A levels, just go to college for something more practical.

They are a good teen, kind, respectful, generally listen to advice.

How do I approach this? Am I doing the right thing by letting miss school sometimes? I feel like they need time to recharge as the stress of learning and receiving too much information is draining for them.

I also feel the UK system where they push everyone through the same system and it is so exams and results focus doesn’t suit them.

Having a child who pretty much burned out, I’d take a fairly pragmatic view. If she’s really struggling on a particular day I’d keep her home. I’d track to see if it’s the same day or a particular subject she’s struggling with and try to negotiate some accommodations with the school maybe dropping a subject or agreeing a part time time table.

I’d also be talking to her about what she’s struggling with, it maybe the pace of learning is too fast for her - could she take her exams over a longer period to give her space to consolidate her learning?

My DD also has learning difficulties and would never refuse to go to school, but was leaving home in tears and barely functioning at home. Having a complete break helped her reset and she’s slowly going back. School will always tell you to get them in, that avoiding school makes it worse but the reality is there’s a limit to how far anyone can cope and if you think building in a release valve by keeping her home will help in the longer term, that’s what I’d be doing.

She has her whole life to study and pass exams, yes it’s easier in many ways if they can do it at school but it’s not the end of the world if they take a longer route while maintaining their mental health.

And if applicable take TikTok/youtube/telegraph/ social media off them

“I encourage them but feel the drive should come from within”

OP, your DC is in year 10 and has learning difficulties. How is that supposed to give them the “drive from within” to want to go to school and do their homework? I’m sorry, but you really are setting up your DC to fail. School should be as non-negotiable as cleaning your teeth - it’s what you do. Tell me the teen that wouldn’t want a few days off if they thought they could get away with it? You’re not giving your DC a chance - when they have a job, if they’re not that keen on it, will you be telling them just to take days off if they feel like it? Man is an animal of habit, and you need to establish good habits while your DC is still at school. You’re really not doing the right thing letting them miss school, and from the POV of your DC’s teachers, it’s infuriating, because DC is never likely to be able to keep up if they keep missing chunks of the syllabus, which is probably contributing to what you describe as the “stress of learning”. I would have thought it was all the more important for them to attend school if they have mild learning difficulties, as they’ll be less able to work on their own to catch up. Sorry, OP, but you’re really not doing your DC any favours.

That is what we are doing if you read my post

I also don’t know many year 10s with “drive from within”- I think it’s down to the parents to model the importance of education at that age. The kids don’t have fully developed brains, and for most the idea of actions = consequences (I.e if I don’t go to school I won’t pass any exams) is way off- kids of that age will in most cases follow short term feelings/ desires.

Missing school will feed the anxiety cycle and make the exam stress worse. You are increasing the amount of missed work that they have to catch up and this will get scarier and scarier for them as the amount
of time left until GCSEs shrinks and shrinks. Please seek professional help and advice because this is likely to get a whole lot worse if you carry on as you are. I’ve seen some truly frightening mental health crises in teens that started like this.

I would try and come up with a plan with school.
My daughter is a similar type of teen (anxious, ASD, other mild disabilities, well behaved). We have an agreed plan and wellbeing Support.
Her attendance has improved a lot with it.

There was a major study recently of the low resilience and poor mental health that has resulted from parents over supervising and indulging their children and fixing anything that they can’t cope with.
It’s only possible because of the massive safety net that benefits gives in the UK. No pressure. If your metal health can’t manage working for the man then opt out. Maybe they’re right. Life is horribly stressful for young people and a life of minimum effort on benefits with a few low pressure jobs sometimes may be all that some can manage.
I’d be worried though. What do you let DC do with their days at home? Self study and reading or just scrolling their phone in bed?

If they're self harming then they need to be supported by the school. Are there particular lessons they hate (PE?) and can sit them out? CAMHS will not help if a child is possibly autistic, been there and done that.

You basically need to find a way for your child to pass their gcse maths and english and a few others.

Yr10.

Absolutely not.

Speak to school and find an alternative solution so they aren't missing lessons - this might include dropping a GCSE.

I understand why you’re doing it but to answer your thread title: yes, you are being unreasonable. It’s a short term fix which could have negative long term consequences.

What might be preferable would be talking to school to reduce the work load, thus reducing the stress and building breaks into some days.

eg Drop History/Geography which have a lot of content. Be allowed to sit in the library / inclusion room / where ever during those lessons doing homework.

(This is what we started for my similar DD, but then Covid hit and it all went to pot anyway.)

Decide with your son, and hopefully the school, which exams he needs. English abd Maths definitely... then what he needs for his next step. 5 Grade 4s for example. Then even if needs a day off... keep hp with these.

Otherwise, hes just going to ve stucj dking Maths and English again before doing what he wants.

Don't let him be pushed to breaking point.
Building resilience is great, but if the load is too much they can crack completely.

It feels like you’re being kind but you will do him a bigger favour by reminding him that school’s not optional at this stage and we all need to do things we don’t want to do.

I spent two years of secondary school not wanting to be there. I was from a small primary school and secondary school felt huge and scary. I was shy and afraid of getting detention, doing the wrong thing etc. Most mornings I’d tell my mum I had a stomach ache (not lying, I was nervous which gave me one!) and after checking it wasn’t something awful, she’d remind me that school is important, and off you go basically. I’m unbelievably glad now that she did. I got good qualifications and was the first person in my family to go to uni (nearly 40 years ago). More than that though, I learned that pushing on through mild anxiety builds resilience and that I’m capable of far more than I had thought. I really believe that learning how to build resilience in younger years makes for happier adulthoods.

You didn't mention anything about self harm in your post. Your "seeing a therapist" was following skipping school information.

It could be an educational psychologist you are seeing as MN commonly use therapist to cover everything from life coach to psychiatrist. If your child is self harming, it is a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist you need.

I absolutely think you are taking the right approach, said as the aunt of my dear dear niece who took her own life at 15 last year because the pressure of school was simply too much to cope with anymore. Not everyone is academic and school is not the only path for children today.
My own eldest is autistic. Sometimes he goes to school. Sometimes he doesn’t but he’s working very hard for his gcses. He is learning his own needs and we are helping him do that. I have no doubt he will go out into the world, a kind, hardworking human, and this is the path he needs to get him there.
I too struggled with school back when I was there and my psychologist mother allowed me days off and helped me through. I am now a lawyer and cope perfectly fine with life, I think because I was shown respect and compassion and taught to understand my own needs as well as respect what needs to be done and what’s optional.

To add, when my son chooses not to go to school, I don’t put pressure on him to go but we have very clear boundaries re what he can do. Sleeping, reading, bake, walk, play the piano, school work. There are no phones or gaming, he doesn’t even ask for them he just recuperates, usually now chooses to catch up on school work, and then he’s recovered enough to go back the following day.

Bloody hell, I have a colleague like this and it has a massive impact on the the rest of us...she only turns up when it suits her or she's had a calm weekend (or whatever). The rest of us have to pickup the workload and/or drop everything to run a meeting for 80 people we haven't prepared for!

Like everyone else has said, school is not optional, as many things in life aren't. Work with the school to get a plan to ensure your child is at school every day, especially as GCSEs are imminent.

OP sympathy: I have friends who are going through this. I think you may have had more empathy if you had framed your initial post differently.

What you seem to be describing is EBSA based on mental health issues which is a very different ballgame to just “lacking motivation”.

The responses you have had so far seem to assume lax parenting as opposed to dealing with an underlying emotional problem. “Resilience” is a very overused word at the moment and while I do think its important to push through sometimes many children are at the moment really struggling at school and its not always that simple.

In your situation you possibly do need to accept that your child cannot always face school. But the therapy will be your guiding light here.

Good luck. In both the cases I know the children did eventually get past it.

Sorry OP but this is unreasonable. You have two options, push to get DC the support they need at school so they can attend and do their GCSEs, or home school them. They will be missing so much GCSE preperation which is setting them up to fail and likely have to do retakes, which will be even more stress. Not every kid works to the same timeline, I did my A levels later than my peers and went to uni later, but if this is what you are thinking for DC you need an actual plan. Apprenticeships need English and Maths GCSE, so they won't even be able to take ab alternative plan to academics if you go down this route.

To add, is it the school environment itself, and might they find the more relaxed environment of college better?

Have you had a meeting with the school SENDCo and/or the Head of Year about this? Ideally bringing your child along and asking them to articulate exactly what they are finding so difficult.

The school should work with you to find solutions and lighten the load, but they can't do that if they don't know what the problem is and parents aren't communicating with them.

I do think that giving your child the message that it's ok to opt out when things are difficult is wrong.

Thank you. This made me feel a bit better as I feeling like a terrible mother

If they are missing school in an important exam year, they may not get into college to do the course they want. My DD was ok with school but still wanted to go to college rather than A levels and uni, she wanted to be a hairdresser so did college and apprenticeship route. To get into any course she still needed to pass a certain number of exams. I think this is still the same now as her step son has just started college and had to get a certain grade to get in.