School refusal for 6yo

[Mamma142526]

What do you do when your little primary school child refuses to go in? Mine is too big to carry in. Also has SEN so I can't force it, I back off and wait until he's ready because otherwise a meltdown is the worst start to the day and doesn't save any time. There's nothing else underlying, he enjoys school, just not the transition to school.

I was curious about how others manage it. I saw a parent carry their child in a couple times, berating him the whole way that the child was making them late for work, which was really sad to see.

Mine doesn’t have Sen but yes sometimes the teachers / receptionist have carried her in

I personally would just carry my child in 🤷

I would have listened to my kid and organized home schooling or something. As it was I made her attend and she still as a teen has anxiety issues. She wasn’t old enough to explain how awful her classroom was and I was dumb enough to trust the school

Unhelpful comment. Don't you think a parent with a SEN kid hasn't already considered home schooling?

Mine is too big - I can barely carry him for 5 mins when he's relaxed, and he'd be kicking/hitting/biting all the way in. As I said, I want to avoid a meltdown.

What's the school run like? Around here you get a thick stream of people and I Can see how it might be overwhelming for a child with SEN.

I'm pretty sure there are people with SEN children who always go in slightly late as a way of avoiding this, so the streets are just about empty. Would that help?

I've previously carried/nudged along a 6yo to school - non-SEN. I don't know that it's that sad. You give them the impression they can decide not to go because they don't fancy it and it's the start of all kinds of problems.

What really helped with mine was using Breakfast Club. There's only about 15 children going in so not a huge group like usual school drop off time and it's made mornings so calm and happy when I used to absolutely dread them because of kicking, screaming and bolting off.

Starting class a bit earlier (with the senco’s consent) made the biggest difference. It’s not rushed, nobody else around and the classroom
is calm. As children arrive it gradually gets busier but the child is already there to gradually get used to it.

I switched to home schooling after months of school refusal as trying to get to school each morning was too upsetting for both of us.

So once he's out the door he's fine. We go to a tiny village school so the school run is quiet anyway, I leave 20 mins for a 5 min walk to give him time to dawdle, and we are also at school 15 mins before school starts. We enter by a different entrance away from the cars. So he gets a quiet start to himself. If we're on time, the route is virtually empty, no cars or kids at all. If I can't get him out on time there's a handful more kids, but it's still very peaceful. He's kind of in his own world in the school run anyway.

It's just the getting out of bed and getting out the door that are the hard bits, the transitions. Up to now he's just gone with the routine. But lately he's become more resistant and defiant. We have a timer to countdown the minutes and he just turns it off or resets it. I've started trying to make sure he gets a bit of screen time in the morning, because even if he is pottering around without, he'll suddenly remember at the last minute that he didn't have any and kick off. But if he does have screen time, he can find it very hard to transition off.

Nothing much has changed at school. They are very child-led, and if he doesn't want to do something they won't make him. They are a bit firmer on transitioning from one task to another, like when it's lunchtime. They've reported that he's getting more difficult and aggressive at school. He's been in this adjustment period for 5 months now.

I think it's partly him maturing and being more assertive about what he wants. But what he wants is to stay in bed all day with screens. He prefers that to school, and therefore he kicks off about school. He prefers it to almost anything else he likes, like a day out to visit trains or the playground or splashing in puddles, so it's very hard to get him outdoors and I'm trying to take his lead. But I'm very firm about going to school, which is why there is so much resistance.

His level of anxiety generally is high I think - he flips into dysregulation very quickly - he may have woken up in his own time, played with toys of his choice or watched screens, and if something goes a little wrong and I can't fix it immediately he quickly spirals into dysregulation.

The simplest answer seems to be to have no screen time in the morning.
Screen time has to be a treat after school.
I know he’ll kick off at first but he will become used to it.

Otherwise I foresee an adult man in bed on screens all day.

Agree that the screens in a morning need to go. I understand that some children with SEN use them to regulate but surely this isn't helping.

So it's not so easy to just remove screens. I'm trying to keep him regulated in the morning so he has the best possible start to the day. A bad start means he might be dysregulated and anxious and aggressive at school. I could remove screens and see how it goes for a few weeks but it might set him back at school that whole time. He is very delayed both academically and socially. As I said, we're 6 months in and still in a transition period.

Being a lot further on in this shitty journey I would take the hit on removing the screens now. Yes it will be hard in the mornings but it only gets harder.
Talk to school about what you’re doing so they can help with the regulation there.
I completely understand about the leaving the house being the hard bit. Can you help him dress-warm clothes on radiator, favourite breakfast as soon as he wakes, visuals, clear instructions etc
Take then view that late is better than never.

Also agree with no screens before school. My son has ASD and is in reception. I am very firm with this and he knows not to expect it. He doesn't even ask any more. It definitely caused more hassle for us. He's very driven by breakfast and would happily spend all morning at the table. I now give him a slice of toast on the walk to school which definitely helps motivate him.

Another no screens mum here. Screens are the reward for going to school.

Is there something he likes he can do on the way to school? DS drags his feet less when it's a day he can scoot in and lots of his classmates do too. Or binoculars to birdwatch on the walk anything really that makes the journey to school something he is excited for.
DS whines occasionally but generally likes school so I've no direct experience, one of his friends really struggles and has SEN. We now meet them on the walk in on set days and friend's mum has said this is really helpful because her son is excited to see DS and seems to forget they're going to school

Of course he prefers screens to school ! But how are you going to cope when he is 16 or 26 ?

So, start your day an hour earlier if you have trouble getting him out the door.

No screens until after school.