What do you actually do all day?

[AtYourCervix]

DD is 13 and appears to have given up school. - see my anguished threads in SN. She has aspergers.

Anyway, she is now flatly refusing to go at all. I forsee a long and boring battle with school and the LEA about what to do with her.

In the meantime she really can't just lie in bed with the dog watching TV, much as she'd like to.

So what do I do with her? She has no hobies or interests.

not even 10am and we have leady had a massive row. She is refusing to leave the house so can't take her out anywhere. I'm not having her just watching mindless rubbish on TV all day.

please tell me it gets easier?

How long has she been refusing to go to school? Are you actually intending to home ed in the long term or are you hoping she will return to school after a few weeks or so? ((hugs))

i absolutely do not want to home ed her. neither of us are suited. but i also do not want her to be sitting in front of the TV all day. I hope she'll get bored and go back to school but suspect that is never going to happen.

It sounds like a frustrating time for both of you. What has the school's response been to her refusing to attend? Has the school been supportive in helping your daughter with her SN?

You say you don't want to home educate her, but have you considered other ways in which the school could help such as allowing a period of flexi-schooling wherein your daughter attends school for a few days each week instead of full time? This may reduce some of the pressure on your daugther until she feels able to attend full time again. You have the right to ask for this although it is the head teacher who has to give permission.

I can understand some of your frustration, but what does your daughter say about her reasons for not wanting to attend school? Perhaps she feels labelled, is she stressed with school? You mention she has no hobbies or interests. Perhaps she needs more time to explore what her interests are, and perhaps she is just not receiving this at the moment.

You ask what do we do at home. Today we have done drawing practice, Spanish, and maths so far, (this is my tea break) we use internet learning sites like bbc bitesize, play board games, watch documentaries and go out to museums etc., but this is after years of home education and my children now have a lot of time to persue their interests. I will tell you truthfully that after I withdrew my children from school, they had had all their love of learning knocked out of them and had no real interests. By the time school finished for the day they were both tired and bored and wanted to do nothing but watch T.V. all day. Pretty much like your daughter. One of my sons was labelled as under achieving - nobody spotted his hearing or speech difficulties - and would literally scream and cry in the morning and I would drag him to school

It has taken a lot of time to get where we are now.

Sorry got to go hopefully someone who knows more about SN issues will be along soon.

I might be tempted to say - ok - you don't want to go to school at the moment - but that doesn't mean you can sit around and do nothing. TV is banned until say 6pm every day. PC can be used for finding stuff out - but not just for surfing social media, and watching rubbish on you-tube. Alternative is to say TV is only for watching taped documentaries (loads on BBC4 - most of which are digestible to some extent by a 13 year old).

Bottom line is she either gets bored rigid or will start to find things to occupy and interest her. Then hopefully she will at least be learning something along the way.

Read about deschooling: start here

I would give her a fortnight where she actually does lie around the house all day watching TV. Equivalent of a holiday. And then at the end of that, have a week where she also lies around the house all day, but you note down in a diary the things you observed her learning/watching/thinking about that were in some sense educational. Don't hassle her, just observe.

And then help her find some activities that are non-educational looking. She won't be in the right head space for this on any level yet, but it might be something like work experience at a vet's surgery, or one of those "keeper for a day" things at a local zoo, or setting up a local dogwalking service (all of these ideas are based on her currently lying around with the dog...)

Also, buy her a copy of the teenage liberation handbook for both of you to read.

That'll keep you both busy till the end of Feb.

Give up on trying to "teach" her anything. Just be her friend and her mother - she'll start learning again herself once she begins to find her feet out of an institutional situation that was traumatising her (it's a bit extreme, but it might be helpful to imagine a POW being released at the end of a conflict and being expected to jump straight back into a full time civilian job - it would be a disaster)

so basically wait for her to get bored and start looking for stuff to do? i can do that. i may force guide her to pick up a book occasionally in the mean time.

It sounds as though you have two goals which may be incompatible.

You are hoping that your dd won't enjoy being at home, will be bored and will want to go back to school because it is less unpleasant than home. If she really hates school, you'd have to make her home life very bad indeed in order to motivate her to want to go back to school instead.

But at the same time, you don't want her in front of the TV all day and I guess you are hoping she will make some productive use of her time, make the best of the situation for the time being, and learn something. That isn't going to happen if she is miserable.

I know this is a dilemma faced by parents of school refusing children: do you make her happy and meet her needs at home, or do you carry on trying to get her back to school? I'm not sure you can have it both ways.

As you've come to the HE board, I suppose you probably won't be surprised to find everyone pushing you to embrace home education by encouraging your daughter to relax and enjoy her time at home and discover/rediscover her real interests. This deschooling period is often considered an essential first step towards successful and lower-stress home education.

In my experience a lot of Aspergers is about fear and about desperately and obsessively trying to prevent or avoid occasions where we anticipate that we'll be overwhelmed by anxiety. For some children "being bored" is apparently a problem and therefore a motivation but for others, being bored won't stop them moving from where they are (frozen) to where others would like them to be. It doesn't sound much of a life watching TV all day but on some level it is meeting her need for security. I guess the question is what else would meet that need.

Oh and another element of Aspergers - at least for me - is paralysing indecision. You have to weigh up all the elements of every choice and it's exceedingly tiring going through all the what if but then what if stuff. Staying in and doing the same thing over and over removes this pressure. Being asked what we'd "like" to do is horrible!

I'm a lurker here

DS 13 has also had a dx of Aspergers and has a statement in school. He also hates school, but goes without any trouble. (At the moment! Don't think he's thought about refusing to go yet....)

He hasn't been back to school since the holidays ended, cos we was admitted to hospital, and this week he's at home recovering. He's better now and can even sit for short periods (not lying down as he has been due to a swelling)

I tried to get him to look at his school bag today, he was very reluctant. So, to ease his move back to school, hopefully this Friday, I'm going to ask them for a task to do for tomorrow night.

atyour my post is not helping, but I wanted you to know that I feel your pain, and have asked advice on HE myself, tons of times.

Get rid of the TV (temporarily)