Why is EBSA more common nowadays?

[HotLikePapaJohns]

Why is EBSA more common nowadays?

I have read on other threads that it's always been an issue but I don't remember it as a child. Yes, there was some truancy in secondary but not in primary.

Is it that kids are more able to express their feelings? Or that school has become harder? What can be done about it?

Yes this too! I was off school LOADS through ill health as a child and the school and LA did not care - no letters home, no threats of fines, just a bit of extra help to catch up from a calm and kind teacher.

I'm not saying it was good but it was different. It was more black and white and parents felt more pressure to keep their kids in school.

In my case I "succeeded" as far as the norms of my peer group went, stayed in school, sat exams and made it to university. I was still harmed by my years at secondary, working adults get signed off work for lesser maltreatment by their colleagues than what I experienced.

It wasn't until I was older that I learned how concerned my DM was about my mental health. They'd looked at the affordability of the local private girls school and I imagine nowadays they'd have looked into the possibility online homeschool. Not attending school wasn't seen as an option though.

I think those children just fell through the cracks. I had about 60% attendance in primary back in the 80s. I read through years worth of school reports and they all said, “…if only she was in school more regularly, her maths assessment scores would be higher.” For at least 2 years.

And then in Y6, I disappeared altogether. My mum stopped taking me to school. I missed an entire year. She must have had to tell them I wasn’t coming back, but no one ever came looking for me. No one seemed to care that I was no longer registered for school. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I assume it was all paper files back then and I ended up in the back of the filing cabinet and no one came to check I was alive.

I do think that EBSA says as much about parents as it does about children. People aren’t gonna like that. But my anxiety about school and my resistance to going in wasn’t a whole lot different than my children now. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I’d drag my feet. I’d suddenly pretend to have a tummy ache. I’d cry at the school gates. The difference is my mum couldn’t cope with this. It was easier to leave me at home than to fight with me to get dressed or tell me I needed to go in with a tummy ache and see how I feel in an hour (what I do with my own dc). She found this very overwhelming.

When I stopped going to school for a year, it wasn’t because my mum was trying to drag me out of the house kicking and screaming and couldn’t get me in the car. It was because she left for work and never woke me up. I lived a 20 minute drive to school. I couldn’t get myself there. I would just wake up at 10am to an empty house (at 10) and have to look after the dog and cook myself meals and generally entertain myself until she got home at 6pm. She just kinda stopped being bothered. There were definitely some poorly regulated emotions involved, but they weren’t really mine.

Thankfully, I did get back to school in secondary and we found a school that would look the other way about the fact I’d missed an entire year. I did very well there, in part because the environment was so supportive, in part because I could walk myself there, so was no longer reliant on my mum being sufficiently self-regulated each morning to get me to school. When I could take myself, I went.

I think parents are much more responsive to their children now. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. One of mine never wants to go to school but I make him. I have no idea if this is the right thing to do or not, but I don’t think he has the capacity to decide yet. I dont want his future to be restricted due to minimal qualifications.

I think its perfectly possible to thrive, get good qualifications and socialise out of a typical school environment now. And it may be in some cases that they get there a year or two later but so what? Both of my children have been harmed by the narrative that you MUST do this or that. Why? There are a lot of different routes into work if you willing and prepared to step up. Both of mine are perfectly able and happy to work hard. They are also ND and have found school v tough. Instead of beating the drum of 'well i coped' and 'sometimes you just have to do.stuff', maybe we're now realising that you don't. Im a teacher by the way, losing more and more faith in the system every year. I do not agree that you can just expect to doss about on benefits and neither or mine will be allowed to do that, but school, especially at secondary level is increasing inaccessible or inappropriate. For those whom.it suits, great, fantastic. What we need however is a far broader range of options.

Because kids are more messed up now.
Mental health issues are practically the norm in young adults.

Adhd and autism are not mental health issues. They are neurological conditions. Kids with these conditions are not messed up, they just have different needs. If mainstream environments were universally half the size, quieter and calmer, many would cope just fine.

Aren’t we always told though that quiet and calm isn’t good for those with ADHD? That they need less rules and more fidget toys and more movement breaks and more running about to let off steam etc?

Depends on the person. It's not a one size fits all. I think a big issue with the education system as it is is that schools try to make everyone fit their one size.

I absolutely agree. But I can’t see it going down well with some parents if you split classes by “quiet/well behaved/likes sitting down in silence and working” and “loud, runs about a lot, needs fidget toys, struggles to listen”.

Indeed!

Because years ago, kids got no say in the matter. They were sent to school whether they liked it or not.

I’m not personally affected by it but I do have 2 DCs at secondary and think there is a certain grind to school life that can really weigh kids down - lessons are over loaded with content and the expectations on kids to be writing at GCSE level when they’re in year 8/9 puts so much pressure on them. They are tested, tested, tested and there is little time spent on soft skills or enjoyable activities/ tasks. And unfortunately many teachers, and I appreciate this may be just my DCs school, don’t appear to like teens all that much. There is little time or inclination to build rapport with them.

Schools have essentially become exam factories and for some children the pressure and expectations are too much. Combine that with some really poor behaviour in classrooms and I think many adults would struggle with wanting to be in that environment 5 days a week …oh yeah.. there’s also a teacher retention crisis!

It's funny because I'd be able to do far less parenting if DS would just go to school.

I could just do the school run (or he could walk, I could wave him out the door) and maybe remind him about homework now and then.

Instead of the 120 pages of emails I've had to send chasing the school and the LA, the medical appointments I've had to take him to with GP, mental health services, sleep specialists, speech and language therapy. The timetable I had to make for him and the resources I had to find so he had access to work he could do at home since he is happy to work, just can't cope with being in the school building and school only provide a couple of apps. Not to mention the meetings with various professionals.

As an excuse not to parent it's going terribly for me.