At what point do you give up and home school?

[OrangeSamphire]

My 9 year old is on her third primary school. I simply cannot get her there. She is academically so so bright and has friends but for some reason can not cope with school. She has severe school related anxiety.

It's taking more than I can give to get here there every day and school seems to be one long managed panic attack for her. She masks amazingly well because she doesn't like to be disruptive.

But when she gets home... eruption. Bedtimes and mornings are absolutely exhausting and harrowing.

Home schooling would mean giving up my career. It’s a big decision. Would I be making her life worse by isolating her? We live rurally.

I would be more interested in understanding the underlying issue rather than homeschooling. Has she been assessed for autism? Hopefully, if you can get to the bottom of the issues, and get good quality support, she can stay in school and you can maintain your career. Good luck, it sounds really tough.

Thank you. She's at the beginning of the assessment process through CAMHS.

She experienced quite a bit of trauma as a toddler/young child due to her younger brother's disabilities and serious health issues. So this may be involved too.

That sounds like a really distressing situation for you and your daughter.
I too would want to know what the issues are she can't cope with at school. Does she have a sensitive temperament and is overwhelmed? It is sensory overload at school? What support have the schools offered? Knowing what the problems are might help with the solution, whether support in school, or homeschooling.

Maybe, depending on what the issues are, an alternative school might suit if that is cheaper than giving up your job, and if one is available. Steiner. I can be a bit hmmm about steiner but I have a friend whose niece was not coping with secondary school but thrived when moved to Steiner, so courses for horses and all that.

About 5 years ago!! I had terrible school anxiety and I think it's affected me to this day. You don't have to give up your career to home school. There's no reason she can't go to a childminder, or you could hire a nanny. If money is tight and you have a spare room you could look into an au pair, which might work out well if your daughter is interested in other cultures, and learning a new language.

What support are school offering whilst she undergoes assessment?

Very often children (particularly those with autism) don't really know what it is that they can't cope with. They just know they can't cope. In my experience children will actually give reasons not to go (issues with another child or a teacher, stomach ache, headache, sickness and so on) that on further investigation turn out not to be true. It's as if they feel they need a reason as 'I just can't go' isn't good enough. The fact your DD is masking her feelings at school at erupting in the evening is very common of children with HFA.

If you think you can manage with home ed, and you don't have to do it all yourself, then take her out and let her recover from the stress for a while. It doesn't have to be forever.

I do speak form personal experience, and I am a teacher, if that makes any difference!

Could you hire a private tutor for some of it, if you decide to home school? Does anyone else do that, or have any idea how much it costs?

I'm in a similar boat and really don't want to give up my career

I couldn’t leave this and run. I’m afraid I don’t have any answers but I was in exactly the same position this time last year. My 9 year old son was diagnosed with hfa - but as with all these things, having a label didn’t help! We moved schools to give him one last chance and by some miraculous reason it’s worked. Mainly because the school is small and there are are number of other asd children that go and the staff know how to handle it. If that hadn’t worked I would have to have given up my career as going to a childminder would have been exactly the same issues as going to school.

I have one more year of primary and then secondary where I’m sure I will have to make a decision one way or another to Home school. He is already having meltdowns about secondary.

It’s really tough and other parents just do not understand so lots of hugs to you x

I would say take her out. Let her recover a bit. Get her diagnosis. If you're concerned about the social side get in touch with local Home ed groups via fb find out what your local scene is like. It varies from county to county. Some people use tutors and it works brilliantly some let their children do research based work and lead the way. There are loads of different ways to approach it. The Home Educators UK group is a good place to ask questions to see how people juggle both work and HE. It doesn't have to be permanent. But it may be the respite she needs and give you time to get to the bottom of the anxiety.

We home educate both our DC. DS came out of school earlier this year, after repeated bouts of extreme school related anxiety. And DD came out of Secondary a few weeks ago. She has HFA but had more or less been ok with primary until yr6. She was willing to give secondary a go but found it just too hard to cope with.

She's getting on much better in a relaxed environment at home. I didn't have a career I needed to consider giving up, as I was a SAHM, so the decision didn't really cause us too many worries.

I’d get her checked for high functioning ASD tbh. My son is the same and has dcd, sensory issues and suspected ASD. I think it’s unlikely he will be in mainstream fully in year seven (he’s currently in yr1). He’s also academically ahead so bored.

My son is autistic and we’re moving him after the summer from a class of 30 to one of 14.

I’d try and find her a smaller school or ask her what would make school easier.

I don’t think home educated is going to help develop social skills if she’s struggling on that front

Thanks so much for all the replies. Will read and reply as soon as I can x

Misty you've basically described exactly what my daughter is experiencing. She cannot identify her anxiety but it overwhelms her so she completely shuts down.

The school are being brilliant. SENCO is in contact with CAMHS, she has an emotional wellbeing practitioner meet her at the door at 9am for a half hour session before she goes into class, a plan has been agreed so that she can get sensory breaks from the classroom as and when she needs it.

It's the third school we've tried for her and the first time we've felt the school has the experience and resources to help. Her previous school was a small private school with tiny classes (which was brilliant but had no experience with anxiety) and the one before that was our village school - cosy and crap in a nutshell!

It's early days so I'm not ready to give up on it yet but it feels desperate every day trying to get her in there.

It's half the battle won if you have a supportive school. We didn't for primary. DS also has dyslexia and probably dyscalculia which they declined to help him with and were, actually, piling further work onto him which he couldn't get to grips with. The Senco was extremely unhelpful and could offer no assistance to DS.

DD has sensory processing disorder in addition to HFA which made the restrictive secondary school uniform uncomfortable and she hated it. They weren't really able to offer much of a solution to that. It was pretty much a misery for her on a daily basis.

It makes me so cross that's there's no proper, consistent provision for children with HFA. Some schools (very few and far between) seem to do everything just right but most don't. So many schools blame the parents, administer fines for non attendance, report to SS, I've heard it all.

I would really recommend a FB page called 'support service for school refusal' very supportive but goodness what an eye opener. The way some HFA children are treated at school is shocking, particularly before diagnosis.

I think there is some awareness building of school anxiety but it's a slow process. I also think the school system in general needs to look at why so many children are suffering anxiety.

Which is why lots of HFA kids end up homeschooled.

Another great FB page is "Not Fine in School :Family Support for School Refusal www.facebook.com/groups/NFISFamilySupport/

They also have a petition going to train staff in schools on school refusal. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/222843

Thank you for the FB group links. I have joined and found some great resources already. Feeling less alone and much more informed, thank you.