Is separation anxiety a good enough reason to homeschool?

[TeamSleep]

My children are young Primary. They go to a lovely school and they are doing well generally but the drop offs in the morning are awful. There can’t stand separating from me. It’s so draining I just feel like I’m slowly breaking them and myself. I don’t feel comfortable home schooling and would much rather they go to school but equally I hate sending them into school every day when they find it so hard. I do work and I enjoy working but I don’t need to for financial reasons so that makes me feel incredibly guilty for not quitting my job and home schooling. I’m so confused. Has anyone else home schooled for this reason? Someone once said to me only home school if it’s your calling and that just keeps ringing in my head.

OK so I hear that school doesn’t suit everyone and agree but when there is very little support or alternative what choice do we have except to take them out and homeschool or to just keep going and hope they get used to it. The first we’re told not to do unless it’s our calling. The second is cruel. So either way we’re doing the wrong thing.

No. As others have said, your dd need to go to school. They need to learn with others, learn from a qualified teacher, learn that home is a safe place to return to, not somewhere they can't leave.

You're not a teacher.

I'd focus on getting them to go happily into school instead.

You need your own job and independence too.

I don't think either is wrong, it's a question of deciding what is right for your child.

Mine was unhappy for a very very long time, something we regret in many ways and it was devastating at the time.

But gradually he settled into a routine and got used to going out and mixing with people and being in an environment he didn't like. I'm glad he did that and gradually built up his confidence.

I knew HS would have suited him very well at the time but as a family we would have struggled with that routine and I think it would have exacerbated his anxiety.

Only you can decide whether your child can push through this now or if he needs to be removed from the stress completely.

So how long are they upset for at drop off? Do they settle down after a short time when you leave and generally get on ok for the rest of the day? If so I wouldn't homeschool on the basis of drop off meltdowns alone. If the school has a breakfast club they could go to so they go from there straight to school. Do they do any extracurricular activities or spend time with grandparents where you also have to drop off and leave them?

They do seem to settle after 10 or 15 minutes and then get on fine the rest of the day. I don’t think they’d like the idea of going to breakfast club as it’s more school in their eyes, but I will try to drop them off as early as I can in future so it’s maybe quieter. The eldest has done a few clubs where I leave her but she doesn’t like it and quits after a while. They don’t stay with grandparents unless we are staying too.

You could try doing home ed over the summer holidays as a trial run, then you'd at least know whether it's a realistic option.

It doesn't sound like school is the root issue though, so I'd focus on supporting the dc with their anxiety. Perhaps look into private therapy?

Could your anxiety about all of this be affecting your kids? Separation anxiety is normal. Smile, give them a cuddle, tell them they’ll be fine then leave and don’t look back.

Considering home schooling is a pretty extreme reaction to this.

They will be fine. It’s normal. Being a parent is hard sometimes, but you can’t prevent their suffering all of the time and nor should you. It’s a parents job to prepare their kids for the world and that involves learning that separation and doing things they don’t want to are normal parts of life.

And we wonder why we have anxious teenagers and depressed adults, because society deems it important to teach kids that they should accept being unhappy, to accept that it's normal to ignore their own feelings and needs. Best learn it at 4 years old otherwise they won't be prepared for a life of misery. We really are brainwashed folks.

If you can, listen to them, allow them to find what they enjoy and they'll have the confidence to pursue that while their cohort leave school with no idea who they are, what makes them happy or what they might want to do with their lives (don't think it's just me!)

So let's all ask our 4 yo infant what makes them happy and do that?

Then when their peers leave school with an education these kids will be able to find a job based on not much education but lots of happiness and confidence? Come on, this is t the real world!

Actually this is why we have so many kids with problems, because instead of giving them strong foundations within some firm boundaries there are parents telling them they can follow their feelings and do anything they like.

I have an anxious 8 year old child who has separation anxiety. At school she accesses support for her mental health with groups, a worry card she can hold up if needed and she gets 1-1 time and other stuff in place. Each classroom also has a 'regulation station' with sensory toys and a place to chill out if needed.

I did exactly that when my son was at school and his needs weren't being met. I took him out in year 4 and home educated him, rather than let him suffer and let his mental health deteriorate under the stress the school would no doubt have put him under for the SATs.

He's going to college in September to do engineering, and looking at doing an apprenticeship after that.

You seem to think that people who take their kids out of school just sit at home doing nothing, and not giving their kids boundaries etc. Certainly not the experience of most families I know who home educate (most of whom have taken their kids out of school due to lack of support)

My DD was the same in reception & YR1, I seriously considered taking her out. Crying & upset from Sunday night then hanging onto me in the mornings (better when I collected her). All she could tell
me is that she wanted to be with me & it was too hard. I think she was struggling with the dynamic of friends groups.

I thought long & hard about it but always in the back of my mind, my thoughts were the same as the majority have said here (worried it would compound it, make her not want to leave me/the house, make her confidence worse ete) so I ploughed through.

I got books for me to read on helping her, I got her age appropriate books, we got worry dolls, we talked about her worries (but not for too
ling) I gave her lots of reassurance & praised her bravery.

I can’t tell you how glad I am that I stuck with it. Imo, they need to learn with & from their peers, this is where she’s got her confidence from, her ability to resolve conflict, seeing how other kids cope, having time away from me & our house. She loves school now & will be going into Y3 in September.

I agree with this.

If I let my DD choose how to do life, I’d be in a right mess & so would she.

I think there are situations where it works well, especially short term. However, these are usually where there is a clear reason and that is being worked through - for example, adopted children being homeschooled for a period because a school cannot meet their needs and they are unable to manage a full school day at that point (though often this isn’t choice as such and parents might be wanting the child in school when possible) or some neurodiverse children who need time and space to move on from a negative school experience before tackling a new one, or in the case of a huge life event like a parental death where that’s worked through first.

However, I think the key is working out what is causing the anxiety first and tackling that in whatever way it needs. My ds struggled a lot with separation anxiety, mainly because as a baby he was very ill and consequently his early years were mainly spent with me and ever changing doctors. His opinion of new people was they could stick a needle in him at any moment. He was settling, then covid hit and it got hard again. He still doesn’t like school hugely and sometimes says he misses me or has friend issues but it’s at a much more normal level now. I talked him through why he felt the way he did and tried to remind him I was just down the road at home. Maybe look into therapeutic techniques that help? Some children find wearing mum’s perfume helps as they have that sensory reassurance. Others like a little comfort item that acts like a reminder they’re going home.

I think the big question here is what is making them anxious? It’s less usual to be a long term big issue for neurotypical children with no trauma and no attachment issues and no bullying . Have they experienced something that makes them worry? Are they just struggling to comprehend where you are and when you’ll come back? Is someone at school unpleasant to them? Are they struggling to make friends and fit in? I’d keep going with it. How do they do going round to a friends or family members house? Could they do that more often to help them understand how to manage time away from mum?

Id also look at how you feel about it, whether you feel anxious as this will rub off too. Really feel for you though, OP, what a tricky situation.

It’s not about teaching them to accept unhappiness, it’s about giving them tools to develop resilience and a positive mindset - which is very beneficial to mental health. In treating Depression and Anxiety, people are not taught to cut out normal life, but encouraged to find ways to manage their feelings so they can achieve it.

As soon as you mention home schooling you get the anti school brigade telling you what an awful environment school is, and generalising from ‘separation anxiety’ to ‘anxiety’ caused by uncaring teachers etc etc.

You say your children settle when you leave which indicates separation anxiety and doesn’t automatically mean that school is the wrong place for them.

A friend’s child experienced severe separation anxiety and she attended a specialist children’s anxiety clinic at a local university. Parents were taught that avoiding anxiety triggers is not the answer as it confirms that there is indeed something to be scared of.

With two children it sounds like there’s a possibility they are setting each other off. Can you and your partner both attend school drop off and take one child each to see if that helps?

@KilljoysMakeSomeNoise it's great your decision worked out so well for you and your child. I am under no illusion how hard homeschooling is and how hard parents work at it.

But I fundamentally disagree that if a child is experiencing separation anxiety then it's a good idea to pull them out of school and let them spend all their time at home with you. The child needs to learn that school is a safe and normal place and being away from mum is also safe and normal.

I do however believe that to persist with school in this situation requires a lot of support from the school as well to make it work.

My dad was like this, every morning at drop off she would get jittery walking up the path to school and then the tears would start. The whole of year one barr the last half term this carried on.. her reason was simply that she would miss mummy.
With the help of the class TA we. Prepared a goody bag of sorts, things like a mini highlighter, a rubber, bits of stationary. Is she went in without crying then at the end of the day she could choose something from the goody bag. I kept it stocked up but the TA kept the actual bag. Slowly we reduced to choosing a treat at the end of the week. She in year 2 now and completely fine.
With DD it didn't help that nursery was in lockdown and in reception her class isolated 3 times then went into lockdown again.
In year 1 she didn't attend any after school clubs and we made sure we were always there at pick up before the door opened. Just once someone mixed her up and said she was staying for club and I could hear her cries across the playground she was that distraught at the prospect of mummy not coming.
She's a completely different child in year 2, very confident and very popular amongst her friends compared to the timid little thing last year.

@MagpieSong

Yes! This!

I wanted my children to learn that sometimes there are situations you don't enjoy and it's ok to feel sad or fed up. But this will happen throughout your life so you just make the best of it and keep going. Because that is exactly what happens in life and you can't avoid all the things that scare you.

Every morning was a repeat of: focus on some of the good bits, take one lesson at a time, remember you have x to look forward to and I'll see you at 3. If I have a difficult work day scheduled I kind of talk myself through it in the same way.

Yes.

It's an interesting comparison, school versus work. There are some similarities.

There is also one big difference. Adults typically have much more autonomy at work than kids do at school. If they hate going to work every day, if they always get anxious Sunday night and only really relax when on holiday, they can look at what aspects of their job affect them in that way and see whether they can make changes. Ultimately, they could look at changing job or even changing career. This is exactly what I did when I became ever more stressed about my job. I thought I would like it. I was good at it. But it just didn't suit me. So I trained for a different line of work, and that transformed my life. In my new job, not only did I not fret on Sunday nights about the week ahead, but I sometimes chose to stay late at work simply because I had got stuck into a fun challenge.

Your technique of talking yourself through a difficult work day is a very useful one, and can be handy for kids who need to get through something they dislike, but which is worth it to them. If you want to learn to be a professional stunt double, you will sometimes get hurt, and you can cope with that. But what if every work day was a difficult one? What if you didn't want to work as a stunt double at all but someone was making you do it against your will? Those are times to look at other solutions.

Another comparison I think is worth making is with relationships. When a romantic relationship or a friendship is good overall, we need to stick with it through the rough patches. It can be hard work, and it won't always be fun. But when there is more pain than joy, it's time to walk away. Knowing when to leave is also an essential life skill. We can't learn that through being forced to stay.

@Saracen Fair point. And in fact, perhaps that is at the heart of some children's anxiety - the knowledge that they have no autonomy and will be forced to go to school every day for many many years. That must be terrifying.

OP you've had so many replies with lots of different viewpoints. Ultimately you know your children best and what would be right for them.
It might be an idea to write a list of all the reasons that you don't want to home educate or think that it wouldn't work for your family. Then ask those specific questions of people who have actual lived experience of home education and ask others to refrain. Just skim reading some of the replies in here shows that there are so many misconceptions about what home education is actually like, the biggest one being that your children will not learn to separate from you and/or have opportunities to socialise with other children.
Your children may eventually stop crying when you drop them off at school, they most likely will at some point but at what cost to their mental health? Forcing them to separate from you before they are ready in the hope that they will get used to it is not a great idea in my opinion.

P.s As a society we have normalised the separation of young children from their parents at increasingly younger ages to the point that when the children display a natural reaction to the forced separation, their behaviour is pathologized. We use tems like 'separation anxiety' and 'selectively mute' to describe children's very normal reaction to being forced to leave their primary carers before they are ready.

Your daughter's may just need more time before they are ready to spend long school days away from you, it doesn't mean that they will always need this amount of time with you. Independence is something that grows naturally, each on their own timeframe, from secure attachments to their primary carers. Trying to force it before they are ready may give the appearance of independence but it's not really.

Unless your able to homeschool indefinitely then your just going to have the same issues later on.
My asd daughter has tried school refusal often but i have to stay strong and work with the school because I couldn't homeschool to her academic level (she's gifted in maths and I'm certainly not 🤣)