Any other time parents of school refusers? Or ex ones to give me hope

[HalleLouja]

DD is in year 6 and seems happy when at school but getting her there is an absolute nightmare.

The school haven’t been great but the secondary seem a lot more switched on.

It started with bullying which got nipped in the bud but is still going on.

Hello, my son is like this, he is autistic. School anxiety can often be a sign of autism, it's often not picked up in girls, so may be worth thinking about whether your daughter shows any other signs of possibly being autistic. It's so frustrating when they appear fine at school, I have struggled to get school to take it seriously.

I had thought that maybe she might be on the spectrum but will see what happens in the new school. She has never school refused before and this seems to have coincided with puberty.

Yes I had a school refuser but he was younger (year 3) and the school worked really well with me to get him back. I also know a couple of people who have/had similar aged school refusers to yours. One got over it with support of school, the other is still ongoing. I really think the support of the school is key in identifying and trying to resolve the underlying issues. Hopefully the new school will be better for your DC.

I feel for you though, I found it quite isolating and was unable to hold a job down over that period. Also made me quite anxious that the problem would reoccur. It didn't fully reoccur but the whole of juniors was a bit rocky. Strangely my DC thrived at secondary though

My ds struggled. He's autistic and was bullied. School wasn't meeting his needs.

You need familiarise yourself with policies and also the law.

Only fight that fight.

"You have to do x - what are you doing to meet this and when will you do this by/ you have to do this within 5 days"

In all honesty at this point if she struggling I'd let her finish now. Give her time away from school and focus on the future and what will happen in secondary as you'll not change a crap school in a week.

My daughter was like this when she was 10/11 (final year of primary) we just couldn't get her in to school, she became phobic about eating, and she was miserable. I suspected she had ASD and as it turns out that was right. She's much better now and only occasionally can't face school - usually if her period is very heavy that day.

We spent a ton of money on CBT based support which was useless for her. She's an expert at masking and just told the psychologist what what they wanted to hear then refused to do any of it at home. We swapped to someone who did eye movement desensitisation and reprogramming. That helped with the food issues almost immediately as they had a specific fear of vomiting.

School helped by being relaxed about how long she stayed there each day. And a teacher met us in the car park so DD felt obliged to get out the car. Sounds harsh but she was begging us to get her back to school but wouldn't get out the car any other way.

She managed to get to the point of going most days. Covid was a hard time as she didn't engage with online.

Now we are at the point where she will eat anything, won't eat with anyone outside the family present (will eat when out with her friends), attends school 99% of the time, has trouble with sleep but we are working on that.

I'd recommend a book called Helping your child with fears and worries - lots of great ideas there.

Helping Your Child with Fears and Worries 2nd Edition: A self-help guide for parents amzn.eu/d/0VniJ6Q

Best wishes

Try the Not Fine In School Facebook group. Lots of practical and legal support there.

Agree with pp that the Not Fine in School website and Helping your Child with Fears and Worries book are both excellent resources.

DS (who has some SEN that primary weren't supporting well at all) school refused for much of Year 5 and 6 (pre pandemic). It would take up to an hour and a half to get him in some days.

Things that helped in the short term included CBT and exposure training through CAMHS. Distraction was a big help day to day with getting him actually over the threshold. The usual advice is not to validate the anxiety and to make sure you keep them going in, even if it's a shorter day.

As pp said it is stressful and emotionally very hard as a parent and you need to look after your own mental health, so don't be afraid to ask for help.

In our case the move to secondary school has been a game changer and DS is much happier and much better supported (in terms of SEN and anxiety) and goes in fine most days. Make sure the secondary are on board and aware and have a plan in place for those early weeks. And if you haven't already, do follow up on potential assessments for SEN as anxiety often goes hand in hand with other diagnoses.

Good luck and hang in there it does improve!

Thanks for all your advice so far. I am hoping that secondary school helps. They have already shown a lot more willing and care than that primary school of hers.

Today is transition day and we have everything ready in advance. For some reason she didn’t want my husband to get her PE shirt from school, so we had to go to the shops and find a plain red one, which is much harder than you would imagine. 😂

The weird bit is when she actually does go to school she is happy. She managed a whole week of Sats and the week trip, through choice but now seems to have given up. Apparently she wants to try and do the last few days next week.

DD2 has had issues all throughout her school life. ASD diagnosed in year 7. The waiting lists are about 2 years, so it's worth referring as soon as you suspect, by the way!

She's finally collapsed in year 10 and hasn't been at school since Easter. She's just started visiting an alternative provision that provides small group tutoring. You can't refer to it, only to the larger PRU. They then decide whether the PRU is suitable or if the small group tutoring is better.