Is making anxious DD go into school the right thing to do?

[sol7]

DD, 13, Year 8. Has disliked school since starting secondary but seemed to settle towards the end of Year 7. However in the first term of Year 8 she started to become very anxious and tearful as well as physical symptoms such as stomach ache. She can't articulate what exactly the problem is.

I contacted the school and the pastoral team was involved minimally but weren't very helpful. She also started suffering from selective mutism (which she suffered from as a young child too but seemed to grow out of) so the SENCO became involved and put some measures in which seemed to help. I have also been paying for private counselling which has seemed to help too.

However, recently her anxiety has been building again and she has expressed several times that she doesn't want to go to school. This morning was especially bad - crying and begging not to go in. I have been making her go in, partly because I am worried that letting her stay home will create a slippery slope. She has pretty bad attendance this year anyway as she has had a lot of illness. I do worry that forcing her to go in will make her anxiety worse though 😔. She has messaged me twice already this morning begging me to pick her up. I've contacted the school to ask someone to see her but am wondering about just letting her stay home if she is still bad tomorrow.

DH and I both WOTH full time so she has so stay by herself if not in school.

Just don't know what to do for the best.

yes she needs to go to school, if you start letting her stay home, she’ll start avoiding other things and it’ll be a downward spiral.

Our experience has been the opposite. When we removed school from the equation DD was able to do more, not less. She used to be so stressed and anxious about school that she needed all of her spare time as downtime. Now we don't have school she has been on holiday twice and enjoys going out to various places we never could have considered before.

That's not to say it's right for OPDD, but the downward spiral isn't a given. All DD needed was set free.

I should add DD is autistic and I'm almost certain she has ADHD too.

My dd went through this and it was hideous

I didn't force her into school. Luckily she was at private school so I didn't have any hassle of answering to anyone about attendance. The school were also excellent with pastoral care, school psychologist, and in the end school suggested she switched year group which made things a lot better.

By her final two years she was going in every day and came out with excellent results. She's now doing law at uni.

School did tell me I should make dd go to school but I honestly couldn't, it would have broken her and me and wouldn't have solved the problem.

I don’t know why the debate always
focused on physically getting them in and not relationship building to support and identify the barriers - it’s amazing isn’t it that you still have to explain that what makes children feel safe is knowing their emotional needs can be supported by other adults away from home and that requires more than a ‘tell me if there’s a problem’ approach.

We did it all. For YEARS. Then we took DD out.

It wasn't about physically getting her there, it was about her mental well-being.

Thanks for all the replies - lots to think about and it's awful that so many young people struggle with school. I didn't send her in today. She got completely worked up again this morning. I reported her absent due to anxiety so at least the school are aware that it's bad enough to prevent her coming in.

The pastoral lead and her form tutor have both been in touch to say they will chat to her next week but we've been here before and not much happened. I do have some sympathy as DH and I are both teachers and know that funding for pastoral support is woefully lacking.

Ultimately DD says she wants to be homeschooled but I can't see how we can make that work unless things get really dire.

How is this child traumatised? OP hasn't described a traumatic experience the child should associate with school.

What does child do all day at home by herself?
If she's festering at home working up more anxiety about facing the world, that is not a good thing.

The very environment of school is traumatising fro autistic kids, that's why so many of them end up home educated.

The OPs daughter is not diagnosed but the situation she describes including the selective mutism and not being able to explain is very relatable for those of us with autistic children whom have been traumatised by the environment of mainstream schools.

It doesn't matter what she is doing at home all day if she is unwell. Forcing children into an unsuitable environment breaks them. I let my DS go on too long being worried about this and he broke, he spent 6 months unable to leave his room and he was suicidal. He wasn't diagnosed the time but is now. This was the final year of primary school.

Hid didn't attend any high school and didn't engage in any work for a long time, all of year 7 and most of 8 because he was so traumatised.

He was able to heal at home and eventually engaged & got better and has returned to mainstream 6th form with support from an EHCP and is on course to get top grades at A level. If I'd left him in school he would have died and that is not exaggerating.

OP have you applied for an EHCNA? that might speed up assessments. If ultimately your child can't cope then it might be that an EOTAS arrangement might suit your daughter, it's what I had to fight for for my son in the end.

@lljkk Examples of how school can be so distressing for some pupils with autism or other issues that over time being forced into the situation is traumatising:

• the crowds of people in the corridors, feeling hemmed in
• the lights and noise, busy classroom walls
• the chopping and changing classrooms
• the unexpected teacher or room changes
• the behaviour of other pupils
• other pupils saying stuff and laughing at you because you don't 'get' the joke etc

These things don't bother most kids, or they can learn to live with it. For ND kids it can become impossible.

It's good thing not to project one's own experience onto what OP is experiencing. Her child does not have the diagnosis others want to project onto her.

OP hasn't given details other than anxiety, can't articulate what problem is, & long-ago history of selective mutism.

OP I feel for you, you must be so worried. I hope you can find some peace for your DD.

I read so many of these threads on MN about children (particularly teens) being too anxious to go to school and what is never talked about is that the problem is school itself. Caveat: I realise that all of this is way worse for ND children.

The current education system is total lunacy for today’s children. State schools were invented in the Victorian era. Despite it not being that long ago (hence I see school as a social experiment!), it was also designed for a totally different world. Today’s kids are living in a digital world so far removed from how the world used to be. Yet in education not much has actually changed! We are still effectively forcing children to dress up like mini adults everyday and sit at a desk and be ‘taught’ (aka force fed) information, much of which is meaningless in a world where you can literally google anything you need to know by fishing in your pocket. We have commodified learning and packaged it up in exams and removed any joy or freedom from our children.

Combine this lunacy with the extreme pressure that schools put kids under to ‘prove’ their learning via assessment after assessment, the changes to how we live from the pandemic, social media pressures, lack of nature… I could go on.

Something needs to give for our young people. I say this as a teacher turned homeschooler.

The description of how an ASD child would see school would certainly fit my DD2 who is awaiting assessment. DD1 internalises everything more. She could well be finding the environment challenging but isn't able to articulate it to me. It is quite a challenging environment - very strict, lots of petty rules about uniform etc. On the other hand, behaviour isn't too bad and I don't think she'd like to be in an environment with badly behaved students. Sadly there no longer seems to be any happy medium in schools. DH is a secondary school teacher. We contemplated moving her to his school but the behaviour is really that good.

Something seems worse in Year 8 than year 7. There has been a resurgence in the selective mutism this year whereas she spoke (albeit minimally). There doesn't seem to have been any particular event that triggered it but it was around the time the bad anxiety started. I am honestly at a loss.

It's a discussion. Nobody is 'projecting' - you need to stop trying to shut down discussions. If you don't like the way it's being discussed you don't have to join in, but you don't get to control what people say.

@sol7 have a read of this https://search3.openobjects.com/mediamanager/manchester/fsd/files/anxietybaseddschoolavoidanceemanchesterschoolssguidancedocumenttsept20211_2.pdf

we have an economic system that requires most kids to be in school or care similar hours to their parents regardless of the efficiency of those hours. homeschooling is a key answer for many families but without adequate economic or subject support it’s a tough break for most people at secondary age.

Thank you.

Not being able to go to school increases anxiety and panic levels, it is not a choice, they aren't being lazy or irresponsible, they don't want to mess up their education, most of these students have previous good/ excellent attendance, are conscientious and in high sets.
it is so damaging for people who have no experience of this to advise resort to force, using force does not work, if it worked they're wouldn't be thousands of parents on the website Not Fine At School wishing to God they'd never gone down that route and now at absolute breaking point. The stress of it all often takes its toll mentally and physically on the parents and rest of family as well.

You need to get to the bottom of why. Making children go to school without knowing why they are struggling so much will only do more harm than good.

Assessments (SLT / OT / CAHMS / Ed psych / ASD) - pay privately if you can. Get to the root cause even if she can't tell you - she probably doesn't know. If she has significant social communication issues, sensory processing disorder, ASD, mental health issues etc - pushing into school could lead to burn out and her never returning to education again.

If there's no SEN and just being bloody minded sensing a weakness in you to get to bunk off school - that's when you force her in.

Yep agreed, it’s called late-stage Capitalism. And an economic system where in many cases both parents have to go out to work.

My youngest was homeschooled. I took him out for very similar reasons to your DD. He was in Year 9 pre sats. I worked full time so my (retired) father worked with him at home and took him out and about to various places of interest. Remember an education doesn't have to be the National curriculum but an appropriate education. I can go into this further but for speed let me say it was a huge success. His anxiety had also caused huge stress to all of us every day. The problems getting him in each morning and the moods in the evening all stopped. When he turned 16 he went to college (his own choice) to do five GCSEs and he did them in a year. He is now a very successful young man.

and two parents working model is currently being extended down to encourage under 5s into more and more childcare and is failing a significant minority of kids.

When you have a school system where 1/3 of all children have additional needs, surely the core school model is itself failing? @picturethispatsy

hard for @sol7 though - little room to manoeuvre when you’re tied into this model.

Well said highlandspooce selective mutism needs to be assessed properly. It can be a sign of asd. I hope you can get your dd properly assessed op.

My DD has an ASD diagnosis and would chose to stay at home almost day, because it is easier. We would definitely see the slippery slope effect, but you know your child best.

But I do see part of my job as preparing my DC to take part in society. And that means doing things that sometimes aren’t easy. There are plenty of days I would chose not to go to work, but I get up and do it anyway - and the feeling passes and I have a good day, or I go for a run after work, or I spend time with a good book or with friends.

Having said that I haven’t often seen the level of distress you describe, though occasionally DD presents this way.

We paid for private counselling for DD15 as CAMHS was taking to long. At £60 an hour a week was expensive but was worth it.

My niece experiences SM and it has varied vastly year on year for no obvious reason. She has other traits of ASD.

I think key to this is your DD knowing that she can leave if she needs to, knowing there is a 'safe space' in school, knowing that teachers won't ask her questions in front of the class etc. Having some adjustments in place might help her feel more confident to go. Puberty and hormones could be impacting more this year?