School refuser - advice (any experienced parents or psychology professionals)

[Alifemoreordinary123]

My DD is a school refuser - I suspect she is ND and is struggling increasingly with how to fit in with confident and extrovert girls. She’s never loved school - finds it loud and overwhelming, the work hard etc (though she’s bright and capable). Before Christmas, she’d started to say she wasn’t going, talked babyish all the way there, created a fuss when it was time to go in etc. We’ve spoken to the school who are supportive and going to observe and assess her, we also have a psychologist in place (there are other issues). However, nothing will have changed for tomorrow morning. I know she’s trying to communicate with me when she refuses to go in, ignores everyone on the way etc, but frankly I have nothing I can do other than soothing and supportive words which are not working. We both work, I have a tough job and we live on the edge as it is. I can’t just keep her home (even though I think that would probably not be a bad thing).

How do I handle the mornings so that she feels understood and I don’t feel utterly drained? Is it possible and does anyone have any tips?

How old is she? When you say a school refuser, do you mean she has been off school or just that she has been asking to stay off?

I think school need to actually do something to help her now. So letting her start a little earlier than the other children, when it is quieter. Or letting her have a time out card or similar if it's getting too much. My child's school offered him a TA to meet him in the morning and he has a fun quiet activity to start with, rather than straight into work. Has any of this been suggested?

Does she go in better with her dad? If she's really distressed then there may be a TA who can help her into school tomorrow. I wouldn't recommend forcing her though and, in the past, I have just had to take a day off work when my child's been too worked up to go in.

How old is your DD?
My son has ASD and struggled throughout school and this built and built until early in year 10 when he started to refuse, this developed fairly quickly into mental health difficulties and ultimately a breakdown. We are 2 years on now and he is still under camhs, medicated and much much better but we still have significant MH issues daily. I fear this will be the future for a very long time for him.
I wish I had listened more to him, and I wish I had removed him from school and just kept him at home. We both work so this would have been difficult to manage, but not as difficult as dealing with his mH struggles. Hindsight had made me realise that his mental health is the most important thing. He was nearly sectioned and this is one of my biggest fears, losing him this way.
He is now in a specialist college but I wish I knew what was coming and had just removed him from school. It has not been worth the battle for us. I hope others can give you a more positive story

She’s 8 (year 3). She goes but is awkward about it, won’t go into the classroom, cries etc. it’s awful as there are other children, with more significant issues arguably, doing the same. I find it really upsetting and hard to handle - she’s increasingly challenging about the whole concept of school. School hasn’t suggested she goes in earlier but will be assessing and spending time with her this month 1:1 so nothing off the table.

My DD who is autistic had difficulty attending in year 7. She needed a lot more support and it took a lot of working with the school to get things in place. It was a really hard year but now 3 years on she has nearly 100% attendance and is really enjoying school.

Do you have any thoughts about the kind of support your DD might need in school? Or whether she might need a different setting altogether?

Depends on the age of the child. We limped through primary with going in early to sit and read quietly in the classroom as the other children came in around her. Leaving early to avoid the gate crush, missing assemblies and Options to work outside the classroom and have movement/ sensory breaks, then came a ASD diagnosis aged10, Fell apart at secondary school despite lots of adjustments & getting a EHCP. Now home educating a teenager who is much happier but it’s still hard going. I always recommend reading up on Dr Naomi Fisher and ‘Missing the mark’ they collaborate on books, talks and graphics which are spot on describing all you go through. Talk to the school, advocate for your child hard, it’s not easy but they have to know you have their back. All the school are interested in is their attendance statistics and ofsted.

@dietstartstmoz i fear this is where we will head. I don’t believe the school environment is right for her (it’s probably only right for 50/60% of children to be fair). I would consider home schooling / tutors though it would be incredibly challenging. My DH is against it (though I think would follow my lead). I know that 90% of the burden of planning that would fall to me though and the thought is exhausting.

Just saw you said age 8, yep that was when it all went slowly downhill for us too. It’s very common age for girls as hormones start to ramp up too. I hope you can find a balance for her.

@JanuaryOSunshine thank you and sorry your DD had a difficult journey. Aware of Naomi Fisher and very interested in her views and experiences.

My Ds was in the same position a year ago. He had a breakdown and i had to remove him from school. I think you should keep her home from school. If her mental health disintregrates, it's very hard to put it back together. We still struggle hour by hour through the day even after a year out of school. It never would have been like that if I'd taken him out a year earlier.

Is home schooling / a different, more nurturing ( private) school an option. I've been through the same with my dd. Got worse and worse until year 10 when we finally removed her and found a private school with a different ethos. If you can't do this, is home schooling an option? I also wish I'd listened to her sooner. Your child is probably ND and state schools are useless for any SEN. There are schools available for high functioning ND pupils - or "sensitive" kids but they are few and far between and always private. What area of the UK are you?

With hindsight we should have moved out son to a £30k a year school and just bitten the bullet. He's not fit to go to any school now and it's a damned shame.

The council did an EHCP for us and gave us an EOTAS plan (education other than at school) with a lot of money to cover it, but would be so much better if my DS's poor head was still working. We left it too late.

School is really hard for ASD kids, and secondary is astronomically worse then primary.

My 10 year old son has a dual diagnosis of ADHD and ASD.

Every morning is a struggle, he does not like school at all, I have fought tooth and nail for him, there have been times I have had to advocate daily.

However, he HAS to go, I am a single parent with a job I had to do a masters for and a mortgage to pay, so I think the fact that in my head there isn't another way actually helps. I just swallow what he says, agree that yes it does sound rubbish, but let's do 'x,y,z' after school and remind him he has football and if he wants to go he can't be off school.

But I am also not totally rigid, my job is very flexible and i WFH mostly, so I do allow a days off school at times, but I'll say "oh yes I heard you coughing" if I recongise he needs a day at home instead of looking as though i have caved.

I have basically built my life to accommodate him!

We’re in Yorkshire. I have no idea what home schooling would look like - my husband works fulll time, I work 30 hours across 5 days (school hours) and hybrid.

I must admit in my house it was tough love. Dd is autistic, diagnosed at 2, but i didn't let her miss out on education (plus i had to go to work). Thankfully she wasn't big gf or age so we would simply put her into the car, the senco would meet her in the school car park. By secondary it was more challenging as she was getting bigger but we would get her to school even if I was picking her up by 11am. Eventually we got a better arrangement where she didn't attend lessons and worked independently at school and she was bribed by biscuits in the staff room!

There are many options now to support home education online and in communities as 1000s of parents are forced into the same place. Watch your kids deteriorate mentally and physically or remove them from mainstream school. However you do need an adult to support them even at teenage level. I’ve had to drop hours at work and work from home, DH works a day at home to be her facilitator, plus we use tutors now as gcse years. Others use grandparents to be facilitators or lose their jobs as there’s very little to no support.

It’s worth taking to the primary school to see if they would support a reduced timetable or a day a week off site at a forest school if your DD would like that. Often just reducing the demands can enable enough energy to cope with the other school days.

A reduced timetable is an option, as is private school (not ideal but possible). Thank you - interesting to see that there are no magic bullets that I’m missing. I’m sorry that so many of you have struggled too.

Is the psychologist based in school like the Ed psych or someone external?
If you haven't already connected with the sencdo please do so asap.
Your local authority's early help will have ends support and guidance available

Absolutely this:

I wish I had listened more to him, and I wish I had removed him from school and just kept him at home. We both work so this would have been difficult to manage, but not as difficult as dealing with his mH struggles.

ds2 started refusing school in year 4. We persevered keeping him in school, ARP and special school as well as mainstream, until the start of year 8. It wasn't until we stopped fighting to keep him in school that his mental health improved. He did exams with the help of home tutors and is now in his second year at university albeit two years later than the norm. School is just one route to adult life and some kids just need to take the scenic route.

I was a school refuser and my parents forced me. I still have not got over the trauma of being undiagnosed autistic and forced to fit in. I don't believe support could have made it a positive experience because school just was too much. I do have a degree and can do all the adult things others can I just choose my workplace not to include all the sensory triggers school forced on me.

I have two autistic school refusers. My boy was basically kicked out of school because his needs are to significant for mainstream but he doesn't have severe and multiple learning disabilities so cannot access specialist school. This effectively fucked my career I now cannot work. So when my well behaved but masking anxious dd said she wanted home education too I agreed, I perhaps couldn't have done if I wasn't already home for ds but dd is thriving. She was utterly failed at school, too stressed to actually learn. She was a moody stripy cow and I was starting to become frustrated with her bad attitude- now she's off school that's all changed and she's a joy again.

We have to pay out bills etc. If you can't manage financially then you will have to keep pushing school to support. But if you can then I'd say home education may be a good idea. To get specialist school you really do need significant and high needs and a huge fight with the LA. ND girls who do not have behavioural outbursts are utterly failed by our system and while you shouldn't have to do it what may be best for your child is you educate her yourself

Hi OP.

Firstly I send you my warmest sympathies. I had a school refuser in year 4. He is now diagnosed ASD and is 14 but we had no idea he was ND at the time.

Our approach worked for us but we made it up as we went along. Also important to note is that DS was usually fine once he got going.

DS would be sick every morning. He'd run away or hide in the house. I would end up tackling him in a rugby grip and putting him in the back seat and locking the doors before he could run away again.

He was at private prep and they had amazing pastoral support. The deputy head helped me pull him out of the car in the morning and would take him to class. Or I would take him to the school nurse and she would decide if his sickness was real or anxiety. We always agreed with him that if he still felt sick during the day we would collect him and sometimes we needed to. He was able to go to the pastoral room and relax during the day and chat with someone and he was often given a hug if needed.

We developed a strong trust. If we said we would get him, we always did. He started to feel more secure and by yr6 he was going in normally.

I still collect him sometimes at 14 if he feels anxious and dizzy, but the times are fewer and farther between.

The bottom line is that we told him school is non negotiable and then found ways to manage it.

There’s an EBSA thread in the SEN section you might find helpful.

im in a similar situation and its so hard to know whether its right to push on and it’s something that will pass, or to take heed and take them out of school/change school.

mine is year 5 and we have good days and bad days. Have always managed to get her in so far but it’s been very touch and go some days, with shouting/screaming/running off,

she does have an ASD diagnosis but that doesn’t seem to count for much. She is academically fairly able, only a little behind. I wouldn’t want her in any of the state special schools in this county, they all seem to be for moderate LD. but the local state secondary is huge. So I’m not sure what to do for the best either but currently just seeing it as my job to get her to school and their job to support her, and they are doing a great job. She generally settles well once she’s in and going in early to a quiet empty classroom has helped.

And as a single parent who needs to (and wants to!) work, home Ed is not an option.
So I am just going to keep pushing for school to support her.

have been considering private, but I don’t want her to be seen as ‘a problem’ and feel like so far certainly in primary the support her been better at state then she would have had in the local privates round here.

Secondary though / I’m not sure.
There is a small local private secondary, not massively well resourced for SEN, but the small and nurturing environment might mean that’s all she needs. But so hard to commit to the cost without trying the state secondary first.

I think that before you start looking at reduced timetables etc etc it is really important to explore the idea that your DD might be neurodivergent. ND children struggle far more in school than NT children but having adequate support makes a huge difference.

If you have the money to potentially consider private school, then you'll be best off paying for private diagnosis and support wherever possible to reduce waiting times. All the things below can be done at the same time apart from some therapies can't run at the same time as others - but a lot have waiting lists even privately so its worth getting the ball rolling on everything at once.

1/ Look at private diagnosis criteria for autism and ADHD, decide which is the most likely (many children have both) and go for an assessment.

2/ Find an educational psychologist to come into school and assess your daughter. They will be able to give a list of recommended support to put into place within school. Push and push and push some more with school to get all of the support on the list into place.

3/ Find a play therapist who has experience of working with children with neurodiversity - ideally someone already working within school - and book a couple of terms worth of support. Be really really honest with them about the school refusal and any challenges at home.

4/ Find an occupational therapist who can work with you to look at areas such as diet/lifestyle/vitamin deficiency/retained primative reflexes etc. You may be rolling your eyes at this one (I know I was when I started this journey!) but, for example, 80% of kids with ADHD are magnesium deficient creating a vicious circle around sleep: the ADHD causes the deficiency, the deficiency exasperates the sleep problems, the sleep problems exasperate the ADHD which in turn worsens the deficiency etc. We've seen really good results from occupational therapy.

5/ Get a really really good hearing test from someone who can test hearing at different ranges, pitches etc. Lots of ND children have hypersensitive hearing which can exasperate problems in school because it leaves the classroom feeling like its too overwhelming. Hypersensitive hearing can be treated (with listening programs etc) and supported (things like noise cancelling headphones).