14 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER REFUSES TO GO TO SCHOOL

[fionaand]

Hello. I have a 14 year old daughter and we have always been very close. In May I found out that she had been making herself sick to get out of going to school, and had also become very withdrawn. I was concerned so took her to the doctors who thought she was depressed and so put her on anti-depressants. I wasn't at all happy with this and told the doctor so she never took these tablets. After a few weeks we carefully put her back together again and built up her confidence in coping with school. She was just about managing until 2 weeks when she had a bust up with one of her best friends. This has set her right back I can't get her to go to school at all, it just ends up in a panic attack. She has admitted that on the days I do try to get her to go school she harms herself to find a way out of going to school.
She's hardly eating or sleeping. I went back to the doctors who have now referred her to counselling. The school have been brilliant.. At home she is still quiet and withdrawn but I try to get her out when I'm not working and we do have some laughs. I feel so helpless because as a Mum you feel you should be able to make everything better for your children but I just can't.

Have you spoken to gp or anyone else (camhs) about gettiNg a mh referral. If your daughter does have depression or mh issues, i would have thought medical help (as well as counselling) would be good.

And massive sympathy as must be horrible to watch your poor dd go through this.

Sorry I read she she is getting counselling- will this continue in school hols (was assuming in post was school based hence suggestion for other help).

Have you got anyone who you can talk to in rl as must be stressful?

it's SO bloody stressful isn't it? That feeling of helplessness is awful.

Mine just had a phase of this following a prolonged period of recurrent migraines, loads of time off school & totally lost her nerve.

We had a VERY gradual returned phase-in to school & she dropped 2 subjects to take the pressure off her & give her one or two free periods a week to catch up.

What helped more than anything was seeing the school counsellor who wasn't Mum or a teacher but knew the way school worked & was there to support her & giveher a safe space to retreat to when/if it all got too much.

Not saying this will work for your DD but it does help for them to offload to an impartial adult. She has the holidays now too hopefully that'll help?

Thanks for your messages. The doctor has referred her to CAMHS, I phoned them today to see if they got her referral but they said it has been refused. So I explained to them how bad she was suffering and their going to review it tomorrow. (fingers crossed).
The school did suggest phased return this week, but so far we have only managed one lesson on Monday afternoon.

The reason I didn't like the treatment is because reading all the information you get about anti-depressants they seemed to be more for over 18's and also with a lot of potential side effects.

Where did you research anti d? Unless you have specialist mh medical knowledge, i would be wary about what is generally available (as with all things medical).

You could chat to your dr about it as if uour dd is correct, they can be extremely effective used correctly . and it maybe that dd needs medical as well as talking therapy.

Hope camhs referral comes thru.

I wouldn't worry about getting her back to school now, try to get her seen over the holidays & take it from there.

I can understand your reluctance to start AD's but they do help. Would you consider a natural one in the form of St Johns Wort?

Maryz makes a good point (so sorry about your ds)- you would probably not be wary of turning down drugs for a more physical ailment so I would try to view anti d in same way.

Thanks for all you help. I think I'll get her back to the Doctors and have another chat with him about the tablet or St Johns Wort

it's a bummer, isn't it?

15yo dd has been like this- school refusing and depressed- for over a year now, but tbh her attendance was never brilliant (health issues)

she has been having CAHMS counselling for about 18 months, and at the beginning of the year, the CAHMS doctor reluctantly agreed to try her out on fluoxetine

reluctantly, because she was still only 15 and they do prefer not giving it to under 18's

but she was basically spending her life hiding under the duvet, she was not socialising, losing touch with her friends, not attending school, unable to work at home, the panic attacks got so bad that we had to call out the paramedics when we couldn't get her breathing under control

she had a bit of a tough time for the first month or so of the medication, fluctuating between hyper moods and lows, and also had some problems with her appetite, but after that has been calmer and more with it than we have seen her for a long time

she is on a paced programme to gradually get back into school and do at least some GCSEs (this was a girl who was predicted all As a year ago)- and it does look as if it is working

and she has started socialising again- is keeping in touch with her friends via facebook and organising to see them

admittedly, she did make a suicide attempt the other week, but neither the doctor nor we believe the medication caused that; it was more that when she started getting back into the real world, she felt the pressure build up again and momentarily lost her nerve (it was very much an impulse thing and I don't think she will repeat it)

OP even if CAMHs refuse to see her or see her soon - could you refer her for some private paediatric counselling? We did this with dd as soon we realised she wasn't eating and had self harmed and it it did the trick because we managed to nip it in the bud.

Have you thought about coming over to the home ed board? Even if this is a definite no way, there are so many people on there who have been through what you are going through.

fionaand

All the information is for over 18s because it is not ethical to test the drugs on children. That does not mean they do not work on children, just that Drs are more cautious about prescribing them, and they will tend to prescribe something that is alder and more used.

My mother didn't want me on them when I was a child, I dodn't know this at the time.

I finally had them prescribed at age 30+, they have changed my life. DOn't get me wrong I do have down days but no where near as bad as I used to be. They got rid of the feeling of total hopelessness.

Someone once said to me that angry unhappy boys 'act out' - and get themselves involved with the criminal justice system, while angry unhappy girls 'act in' - and self-harm or develop depression. It's a bit of a generalisation, but I do think there's a lot of truth in that.

Anti-depressants are really helpful for some people, and sometimes a literal life-saver. For me tho, they stopped me from taking action to change something I really needed to change - a bad relationship that was making me very unhappy and angry. I already felt powerless, and the anti-ds added to that feeling.

I'd advise anyone considering anti-depressants to ask themselves whether there's something important making them angry or very unhappy - something they'd like to change but feel they can't - because ime this is quite possibly the key to their depression.

For me, the issue with giving young people anti-ds is that they often already feel - and are - very disempowered, not just because of the situations they're in, but also because of their age. Parents and others often take decisions for them. So if a YP sees taking anti-ds as a positive choice - something they are doing to help themselves - then that's good. But if a YP is pressured into taking them, then imo this is likely to add to their feeling of powerlessness.

OP, you know your daughter (and none of us do!) so you'll have a better sense of what she needs. But the difficult thing for us parents to get our heads round is that when our kids are little, we (usually) know what our kids need better than them, so we get used to making all the decisions for them. As they get older, they know - or need to know - themselves better, and they need to make their own decisions. That's such a difficult balance to get right, especially when they're ill or distressed or in a mess, and we want to take control and 'make it better' for them :(

I'm glad you've got good support. Good luck with it.

That's such a good post, flow4; both about the gender division with acting out and acting in, and about them knowing themselves better than we know them, gradually. I think it can be very hard to differentiate between them saying something off the cuff that they don't actually mean, or only mean on the surface, at that moment, and something that really is a true reflection of what they actually think about something deep down. My DD used to talk about suicide sometimes, and I never took it seriously because my gut feeling was that it was melodrama; and since she never did more than talk about it and no longer does so, that must have been the right call in that case; but what if I'd been wrong? It's so, so hard to get it right.

OP, I wonder what your daughter's own view about antidepressants would be? Maybe she has a strong feeling one way or the other herself?

thanks for all your adivce. It is proving very hard to get through to CAMHS for help. I have spoken to a home tutor and she seems to think that if your child is aggressive at school they seem to get more help quicker.
I think I may try the private way that marriedinwhite suggested, as daughter seems to be feeling better now, but that is just because its the beginning of the school holidays and I need to build her up for next year

at age 14 i am very shocked your doc even suggested medication, it is usually very difficult for under 18s (some cases 21) to gain medication for depression (side effects can be worse than the depression depending on severity) try the counseling method first (if you can get her into a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) even better that helped me completely around that age (13 i started therapy) for teens (as everyone knows hormones are everywhere chemical imbalance is insane ect) trying to balance out natural hormones (which ADs can do) may do more harm in the long run, if you can't get a cognitive therapist you can do some therapies at home (writing a mood diary) this is purely for your DD to write anything she's feeling, what happened, doing artwork, poetry anything this was the main thing that helped me, it depends on your DD though, but do look down the psychiatry root first, if that doesn't work a treatment of medication and therapy usually will work. i do hate to say it, but adolescent help is few and far between i really hope you and your DD can get through this its a hard slog that does get better. the more insight your DD can get into how she's feeling and why she's feeling that way the better. maybe your DD going to the docs on her own though, talking through the doctor her options, she will decide for herself what she feels is better for her, she knows her own mind, she's at an age where she may not wish to discuss her problems when her mums around. i know this post is a little all over the place, its just i now study this stuff on a daily basis, have been there myself and is still in the mental health system unfortunately, and i may be a little biased with pills because of learning about everything about them (and seeing my mum deteriorate while put on the wrong medication and no-one then listened or saw warning signs) i hope you can make sense of this and you find your answers

thanks jshibbyr. I totally agree with you. I have had very little help from NHS about counselling and am so concerned about September coming round again, i've contacted a private counsellor that works in CBT that can see us next week when we come back from holiday. I too think its about getting her to understand her problems and find a solution to them, as this is a life skill that she can then take with her through future years.

youngminds.org were very helpful when dd aged 8 was a school refuser