DD school phobia wants to do online school

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DD has developed huge anxiety and depression over going to school.

Has been at current school for 1 year and due to go back into 1st year of gcse studies in September. Hates the school, is scared of other students and has been self harming.

She's found an online school. Obv hugely worries she's removing self from society etc. Any experience anyone? She's seeing a clinical psychologist.....

No experience here, but just wondering about what her psychologist thinks about it. I think their input into this decission is really important.

I know children for whom online schooling is working well but they are children who have been diagnosed with autism, have been through the statutory assessment process and the LA is paying for the online school because professionals agree it is the education option that best meets their needs.

My advice would be to write to your LA requesting an EHC Needs Assessment. This will mean that various professionals will be asked to assess her and provide reports and recommendations as to how best to help her.

I would also ask the clinical psychologist for their opinion.

Your DD clearly has some serious difficulties with school and online school might give her the break and recovery time she needs but withdrawing completely from interaction with her peers might not be the most helpful thing to do. Does she have any hobbies or activities that involve social interaction with peers outside school?

She does see friends outside of school but not at clubs. I think online schooling is really bad idea for all of the socialising (& let's face it, real life interaction) she will miss out on.

Her SH and very low mood are so worrying - she's a ghost of her former self. GP won't prescribe ADs due to her age but her anxiety is severely limiting her day to day living - I will text the CP next week for some advice.

I very much doubt an EHCP would apply but you never know.

It's not ideal and in my experience assists in masking the issues which need to be dealt with. Not attending school, college, uni etc will obviously limit her options in life. However, its better than not learning at all and certainly better than becoming more unwell. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of young people take this path and then disappear from society, as they become unable to leave the house or even their room. It's upsetting to see.

If she is self-harming and frightened of other students, she may well have special educational needs, even if they are just the result of anxiety, and is therefore entitled to EHC needs assessment. You will probably be told that she isn't because school hasn't put support in place for her but that is local policy, not the law. Schools and LAs often smile sweetly while they lie and obstruct to prevent you from getting the support your child is entitled to.

If your DD ends up feeling too anxious to attend school, the LA has a responsibility to make alternative provision for her alongside carrying out the assessment. This provision is usually hospital school/medical education which is usually about helping to manage health difficulties and reintegrate the child into their own school. If that isn't possible they can help work out alternative provision.

This blog post might be helpful.

Your DD clearly feels that she has a huge problem at school and she is taking a constructive approach at the moment by seeking out an alternative way to access an education that she feels she can cope with. She now needs the school and other agencies to step in, help identify the root of the problem and find a way for her to access that education that meets all of her needs, not just this acute need to reduce her anxiety.

It's probably worth googling Aspergers and girls to see if you feel that it could fit your DD. I would never have believed my DD1 had it until CAMHS told me to look into it when she was 12. It answered a lot of questions for us.

Thank you Gold. I will look into this avenue

Ds does online schooling . He isn't autistic bit he is dyslexic and of the ones I have met there are 101 reasons school isn't doing the job it should and online schooling is proving to be the answer.

There are meet ups every now and then and there is also the HE community although we find at senior school level that is sparse to non existent but he does after school activities and has friends through those.
It doesn't mean if you do on line schooling that they will lock themselves away in their bedroom forever more. Ds is looking forward to college. He has already picked the course and a couple of suitable colleges he would like to get in to next year.

In ds's case he was miserable and falling even more behind. He is now going to be sitting 9 GCSEs and is so happy with his school.

If your DD really is in the state she is in. Maybe try it out, it can't do her much more harm than she is in already. It will give her a break knowing she doesn't have to deal with school and she can build confidence from there

As a former school refuser, I'd say that online school can be a good option if she's socialising with others at other times - clubs, evening classes, etc. You could look at joining in with home education groups who do group activities, even if you aren't home educating in the conventional sense. It isn't a good idea to withdraw from society entirely, of course, but there are ways of engaging with society which don't involve school, which is a very artificial environment and not really representative of the wider world anyway.

Her mental health is more important than her education. She can get qualifications through online school or as an independent candidate. Plenty of young people who don't attend mainstream school end up at university. It's the severe anxiety that will make this difficult, not the lack of school attendance. I wasn't allowed to consider alternatives to my school (not even moving to another school), and the anxiety was so bad that my self-harm worsened and I truanted a lot. I didn't do well. As soon as I could leave, I did, and it took most of my twenties before I could feel okay about myself as a person again. Those school years were the worst years of my life - and I've been through difficult things as an adult, too, but nothing compares to it.

School isn't for everyone and there are lots of other options out there, and different ways to get to where she needs to go. Finding the online school is a really good, pro-active step and you can have a discussion with her about doing outside activities and making plans for the future. You could make participating in some sort of social group/activity a condition of leaving school, if you're worried that she'd isolate herself otherwise. One of the worst things about school for me was the complete lack of agency I had, so although you're her parent and you need to guide her, I think it's important that she's part of the decision-making process too.

It's agony watching her go through this.
Ideally I'd like her to continue at current school where she has lots of friends but is scared of some of her peers and older students. She and I have agreed that she can do part time/go as she feels or not if she isn't up to it. Meanwhile will continue seeing the Clin Psychologist and hope in time she gains her confidence back.

Online school can work really well for some, it may give her confidence to do well somewhere she feels comfortable but I understand your concerns regarding not socialising.

Please speak to another GP re antidepressants, if your DD is sitting GCSEs she really isnt too young, some children start taking them when primary school age ( I understand those are exceptional cases). Perhaps the clinical psych could make the recommendation to your GP.

I agree re: AD's. My ds started on them end of Year 10. It certainly will be via the CP rather than the GP as she is under 16.

OP I feel for you and your daughter. I can only give you my experience of this. My daughter started to suffer with extreme anxiety at the beginning of Year 9. She was having panic attacks at school and couldn't manage to stay in a lesson. Every day on the approach to school she would vomit. The school tried to help giving her a room to escape to, going in part time, reducing her timetable - we had meetings with the school and CAMHS all in the hope that she could remain in mainstream school.
Meanwhile her physical and mental health were deteriorating. I spoke to a health professional who dealt with children like my daughter who was said to be a 'school refuser' ( hate that expression as it implies a choice - if you could have seen my daughter in the midst of a panic attack you could see it wasn't a choice not to go to school!)
The health professional said she had never seen a child return to school unless the child did so willingly and independently with no coercion. She also said that by keep pushing my daughter in was harming her mental and physical health and that she would start to develop obsessive behaviours and sometimes facial ticks.
Now I thought surely not! But when I thought and looked at my daughter, she was actually having facial ticks and she had begun to tidy her bedroom obsessively because it was one area of her life she could control.that was the turning point really. The doctor put her on anti depressants which definitely helped and we deregistered her from school at the end of Year 9
My daughter started an online school and she took her gcse's with them. We were lucky that her hobby brought her into contact with a wide age group and she also had a close group of girls her age. Animals were also her salvation and still are.
My daughter is now at University. She still has to watch her mental health and sometimes anxiety gets in the way, but she is such a strong young woman and has overcome so much and we are all so proud of her.
I wanted to let you see that there can be light at the end of the tunnel and to listen to your daughter. We pushed our daughter for a year and I wished I hadn't. Just listen to her and not necessarily every professional and go with her and your gut instinct.

Long conversation with clinical psychologist who agrees that talking therapy isn't working so we are on to expert number 2 - seeing him next week. Great part of this is he also goes into school already for others/to support so can advocate for her there too. If thats not successful then meds it will be.

Clinical psychologist thanks she has ptsd which makes sense to me. Bloody hell school is awful. Makes you wonder of they've got the whole thing wrong. Even more so that the event which has probably caused the ptsd happened at school.

So here we go again. I day back & refusing 2nd day. Tough love today. She will be going in.