Hi There,
I have been reading through the posts with interest. We are in our 2nd term of school refusal from our 10yr old son. Last term with had minimal support from the 'system', the main problem being the school nurse, who was useless. No communication at all, had led us to believe that our son had been referred to cahms, and to top it, the Attendance Inspectors were only informed at the end of last term.During last term we attended family therapy, and our son was assessed by a pschyatrist. He now refuses to speak to anyone, and has frequent extreme anger outbursts due, I imagine to severe frustration, but which scare me. Any mention of school sends him into a frenzy. We have just found out that the Attendance Inspectors were only informed of his absence on the last day of term, and that the school nurse had not referred him to CAMHS. After a home visit from the Inspectors (our son hid in his bedroom) we are now supposed to be starting the slow progress (baby steps) of getting our son back to school, ie, walking down to school, and coming home again etc. He is not cooperating at all. Everyone around us is telling us to take back control, after all, he is only 10! Can anyone help with how to encourage him to take these first baby steps?

Take back control! If only it were so easy!

As you will have read from others' experiences, there are no easy answers - and, I have to tell you, we do not have any easy solutions either.

The first thing I note from your message is that you understood that steps were being taken, and they were not. If you have not already done so, start keeping a diary, or a record, of actions taken, promises made, outcomes (positive and negative), etc. This is important as you get further down the line to be able to demonstrate to others, and to yourself, that progress is being made.

After a meeting, even if the other party is taking minutes ('official' typing pools can take weeks to produce a set of minutes), write up a list of key points and actions required, and send a copy to the key participants. Make sure timescales are set and adhered to. I know this is the last thing you want to do after a frazzled meeting with a school nurse, or whoever, and it needs to be done sensitively, but it will help.

Try to maintain a dialogue with the school, with your local surgery, with the psychiatrist. And the Attendance Inspectors. You all want the same thing - to get your son back to school. He probably wants that too - to be the same as everyone else.

Please keep in touch. Please find someone to talk to. It is not as uncommon a problem as it seems at first. Parents with children not attending school just don't hang around the school gate talking about it! But we are here.

We had a mid-week crisis last week, but my daughter did go back this morning. We still have our hearts in our mouths wondering when the next backward step will be, and will we be able to cope? Because it is a strain on all the rest of the family. My heart goes out to you. But please be strong because your son needs you.

I was going to end there, but there is one more thing I want to say - please do not make barriers to getting your son back to school by, for example, telling him he cannot play with friends. ('If you can't go to school you can't go out to play') He will need friends in school to help him back in.

That seems like along list of things I am telling you to do! Sorry! It is not meant to read like that. There was so much we did not know 4 years ago - and we are still learning. It took us a long time before we were able to share ideas and worries, and it did help.

Good luck to you all,

Simon.

Hi Simon,
You advice is greatly appreciated. It's like a breath of fresh air speaking to people who are actually going through the same thing.
I had thought keeping a diary would be worthwhile.
We do allow him to play out after school with his friends, as this seems to be his catch-up time. He always comes back telling us what's going on in an excited manner, which was far different to last term.
Thanks so far, and I hope your daughter continues making good progress.
Sacha

Hi Sacha - I would thoroughly supoprt Simon's advice, particularily the point about not 'punishing' your child for his problems. It's such a difficult line to tread as a parent, but depriving an anxious/angry child of opportunities to feel happy and relaxed and 'themselves' forgetting for a moment the looming spectre of school does not help in the long term. I would hope that, as your son is only 10 there may well be a chance for him to reintegrate happily with the right help and support. I was talking to a child psychotherapist in London the other day who seems to have good experience of this process, particularily for younger children. It's so much down to finding the right person to help.

For my own part, my own 15 year old daughter has just started back at school - college in fact - after several months at home and,although we feel that the college is fully supportive, she has come home this evening after just two formal lessons and has dissappeared into her room, refusing to come down for supper and is clearly unhappy. Perhaps because the reality of a return to school is overhelming, perhaps because she really feels she can't do it. She has said she feels like she's a lost cause as far as education goes and is relying on our positivity to carry her along. Its so hard to know as parents, what is the best approach to this and at present we are playing a waiting game to see how things go. Trying to control our own anxieties as parents is difficult but crucial and I thoroughly empathise with Simon's point that it is so much an agonising, step by step process.

An addendum to my post of yesterday.....this morning my daughter has refused to go into her new college and has withdrawn into herself completely...such a contrast to the happy, bouyant, sociable person she has been over the summer...I agree with Simon, the stress on the family is enormous and my husband and I have had a serious head in hands moment this morning ending in him going off to work feeling overstressed, over anxious and overloaded and me at home with the presence of an unhappy child hiding in her room. We have no energy left for confrontation and know from past experience that this does not help the situation in the least. Impossible for parents who have not been in this predicament to comprehend, but sadly I am sure there are many others out there who are facing these difficulties at the start of the long autumn term ahead. My heart goes out to all of them!