School Refusal - help

[pixiebell79]

Posting on behalf of my husband.

My wife is a stay at home mother, I work in London with a long commute. Our son (only child) had separation issues in pre-school. He would be extremely clingy at drop off. If separation was forced (i.e he was removed from my wife) this would make it worse. Drop-offs became progressively worse until we ended up taking him out of preschool.

Later after moving to a different county we managed to put him back into a different pre-school and he did well. There was a little separation anxiety at the beginning of reception, but he settled in well and ended up loving school. He has a number of friends and really thrived last year. The school were very happy with him.

What's happening now

He’s just entered year one and it hasn’t gone well. He seemed to have some issues with not understanding the new structure of the day and being concerned teachers would tell him off.

The separation anxiety has come back with full force. He became distressed at having to leave my wife in the morning. A few times at the classroom entrance the teacher took him away which lead to crying / clinging / the next morning being more difficult.

My wife was understandably pretty traumatised having to deal with this day after day. We’ve involved the school a lot. They’ve been great and we now have a TA meeting my wife in the school reception ever day for the handoff to remove the time pressure. Unfortunately this hasn’t really improved things. Sometimes he just needs a lot of reassurance / coaxing / redirection to leave her. Sometimes it’s more like he needs to be physically removed from her.

Having to deal with this every day has gotten on top of her and she no longer feels she can do school drop off.

Discussed resolutions

I’m planning to alternate working from home and coming in to work late so I can do drop off. The one time we tried this before, it turned into two separation events (one at the front door being separated from mum, one at the school being separated from me). I’m planning to ask my wife to simply stay in bed in the mornings in the hope of negating the “at the door” separation. This can probably only work in the short - medium term because of my work commitments.

We’ve discussed the long term psychological harm this could do to our son. I don’t know the answer to how much or how little that could be. I’d like us to see a therapist at least to discuss some approaches, put in context any possible long term harm which could be done and hopefully get pointers to a resolution.

We’ve also discussed our son becoming home schooled. My concern with this is that reintroduction into school (assuming he / we ever want it to happen) could be really difficult for many reasons, including that it could just bring back the separation anxiety.

We’ve also discussed whether this may be a case of ASD, but it seems a diagnosis would take a long time and it’s hard for me to see what extra help a diagnosis could give for this situation.

What I’m looking for here

Thanks in advance kind mums netters!

• I’m wondering if you have any advise on how to deal with this?

• What’s the best route to get some intervention from a therapist / other? (We’re in the Cambridge / Bedfordshire area, don’t mind paying privately)

My eldest, now nearly 10 was your typically very clingy child. While other kids were happy to go off and play, she would struggle for a long time until she became more familiar with the situation and could feel like she was in control. So I have been there, and still in many ways continue to be there - although maybe not in the same way - am no longer peeling her off me but she still finds new situations stressful and can get stuck in her thoughts.

So some thoughts from me...

Sometimes when we, as parents get distressed and maybe even embarrassed about potential separation anxiety situations, we end up inadvertently sending signals to our children that there IS a reason for concern. So even if it feels fake, we should strive to be positive and cheery and keep the hand offs brief. Prolonging the situation just prolongs the anxiety. And a year 1 child is still very young, in many countries they would still be in nursery type setting. Children have different capabilities emotionally and socially at this age, they can't all be in the middle of the bell curve. It is okay that your son needs more time to adjust and it is okay that he cries. At least he is not bottling up emotions!

Seeing that your son did well during reception would suggest that he has concerns or worries that he is maybe not able to put into words, or his thoughts are stuck in a negative thought cycle. Has he really been able to voice his concerns and have those concerns addressed? e.g. if he is worried that teacher will be telling him off, have you asked him why would he be told off or had a chat with the teacher and him present to reassure him the teacher is not there to punish him but to guide him? I would have a chat to discuss how he can turn his worries into positive thoughts or see the situation from the other side, e.g. if teacher cannot tell children to be quiet and sit down, what would happen... etc. etc. And bring some humour into it, e.g. a classroom full of kids all doing whatever they wanted would certainly be like a zoo, full of monkeys running around.

It could also be that the clinging has turned into a habit. This is definitely something that happened to us. To break this habit, I suggest you find something he really, really desires, it might be a toy or certain character bed sheets, an activity or even a 'surprise' and then set up a sticker chart for a good drop off, e.g. for three good drop offs you will achieve X. You will need to outline what a good drop off is so that he knows what to expect. Every time he succeeds, even if it is with tears in his eyes (but not clinging) you will make a big song and dance about it, shower him with praise after school and make a ceremony out of putting the sticker on. Sure it is bribery but it may motivate him to break the habit - after all it takes about two weeks to form a new habit. And then eventually, once a new habit has been formed, you will slowly forget about stickers and prizes etc, and he will forget to ask about it too. Just make sure that he is able to achieve the goal as if you straight away demand 10 stickers, you will be setting him up for failure.

I would not be thinking about home schooling but supporting him to achieve a better emotional balance. Just because he is finding it hard, doesn't mean that he can't do it.