Hi I agree with you totally, I am so drained from many many years of emotional blackmail, bad moods and blame, from my son that I feel I am now a different person. I do not have the confidence to do things I used to, especially go out to work.
I found your site while looking for some on-line support for school refusal. I have a fifteen year old boy who will now not go to school at all. He has been difficult to get to school over the last few years, with severe tamtrums about it. Now he is refusing all together. He is an extremely bright and eloquent boy, well above average intelligence and could be getting A star grades. He is good at maths and sciences and it etc so has a bright future. He has never been that good at mixing with his peers and now will not leave his room, although he has a nice group of friends he will not see them, but is not beng bullied at school. He says it is too boring for him and he is being held back. Trouble is we live in Gibraltar and there is only one secondary school. All he wants to do all day now is lie in bed, watch tv, play on an online game or read books. Life at home goes through cycles depending on his moods, I am treading on eggshells all of the time, if we dare to ask him to do anything or 'pull himself together' he flies into rages and bangs doors. If we pretend nothing is unusual, he will join in with family life at least, but nothing moves foreward. Trouble is it is so hard to go on week after week pretending that I am not affected by his giving up on himself. As he is so clever he is very good at manipulating a situation and if challenged will blame everything on me and my attitude, he often says I try to make it all about me. He has a 9 year old sister who is not like him at all, she is very grounded and has a happy go lucky attitude to life, which makes it harder to accept that we can be mis-treating him, he seems to have a constant chip on his shoulder that nothing is ever good enough for him, whatever we do is wrong.
I have taken him to see his education director, psychologists and psychiatrists, who are very impressed with his maturity and intelect, he says he wants to go to school but he doesn't want to go. Luckily parents are not prosecuted here in Gibraltar and the education authority are very accomodating, he just cannot get himself out of his rut and neither can I get him out of it. He has to want to change. Unfortunately I have no family who I could send him to for a change of scenery (he would not go anyway) he will not do coursework at home or agree to go to a college.
I am just so stressed with being on this never-ending treadmill, I want to get off!

hi Karen,

I just noticed your post - we are on holidays still so I hadn't been checking in. I am sorry you are feeling so worn out - and I certainly know how that feels.
It seems to be a common thread that our kids are bright. They also cannot help how they feel so I guess 'pulling themselves together' sounds like moving a brick wall to them. At 15 you have the typical teenage attitude to deal with as well as the anxiety associated with refusal - so I can see how frustrating that must be. I hope that the stories that others have on here regarding their teenage children can help you know you are not alone. My son has started to not want to catch up with friends and that is such a hard one as you can't force and you can't come up with an alternative (well I can't seem to find my way around that one). Part of his reluctance is the worry that his friends will ask why he misses school and he also told me that meeting with his friends during holidays reminds him too much of school. So your son might feel that way too. Doing what he is doing sounds like he is trying to keep the anxiety and reminder of the anxiety at bay (but I am no psychologist). As everyone one here knows, I am very keen on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Have you read up about this at all? Might be worth seeing if there is someone nearby who works with this and works specifically with children or teenagers. Good luck - and as someone on here suggested - therapy/counselling for yourself/ourselves is also something we really must do as well - we need to stay strong. Good luck and keep in touch with us.
Linda

Thankyou Linda for your caring reply. I wrote the message after a particularly bad day with my son, out of sheer exhaustion and frustration.
It turned out that the argument this time must have got something through to him, as he said the next day, totally un-prompted that he wanted to return to school (after nearly a year)and do his GCSE exams this year by cramming up on the subjects. I was elated (but not outwardly so making a big fuss about it) but wary too and arranged a meeting with the deputy head at the school. My son was positive in the meeting, the first time in a long time,and agreed to return to school on the Monday to see the teachers to discuss what he needed to catch up on. But when I took him to the stationers on the way home,it began to dawn on him what he was committing himself to, and he seemed to go back into a trance in the shop. That evening he sank back into his usual lethargy and spent the whole weekend in bed not talking to anyone. I could tell that he did not want to go through with it. He would not wake up to go on the Monday and promised to go on Tues but when I tried to wake him up we ended up arguing as usual, as I was, I'm afraid, so frustrated with him changing his mind and essentially giving up. In this argument he finally admitted that he was too lazy to do the work that was needed to go to school every day and get qualifications. He just wanted to lie in bed every day for the rest of his life. Trouble is when I pointed out that I cannot have him in bed for the rest of his life he blamed me for always trying to make it about me! But he must have felt guilty (or possibly realised how unrealistic his reasoning sounded)as he did get up and ready and go after all, after I had backed off and left him in bed. When he returned after a short strategy meeting with the deputy head, he said he was angry that I had been pushing him too much to go back to school, but I could tell he had had a positive meeting again and is going back Tomorrow and talking calmly about what he needs to do.

It is natural for people to get scared of big challenges in life, but teenagers are too young to realise this and they want to run away. They do not want to listen to us trying to explain these things, with the benefit of hind-sight, as they think we are lecturing them and telling them off. I feel I have to push him to meet this challenge as he will not push himself and that he will thank me in the long-run, is that so bad? I feel that the longer he avoids the problem the greater it would get, after all he is only 15 and has to have a life in this world, outside of the four walls of his room.

I'm sorry for the delay in my reply, I was waiting to see how the situation turned out. I know this is a long and frustrating process,and I should not get so frustrated with him as it needs to come from him, but I feel that I have let it go on long enough and he has not felt any better about himself after all of these months, as it was avoiding the problem that was making him ill.

Hi Linda

My son is 9 and for the last two weeks has been refusing to go to school. I feel so guilty dragging him there when he is so upset, and can only hope that I am doing the right thing by continuing to take him and handing him over to his form tutor.

I know he desperately needs my support and he will get it but I am finding that my patience is really getting strained at the moment.

Did you continue to take your child to school ?

Suzy Sykes

Hi Suzy

I know what you are going through, and it is a very tough situation.

Do you keep sending him in the hope that he will come to terms with what troubles him and find a way of getting through, even though he is getting more and more upset. My son found that by not staying at school he regretted getting behind in his work - which made him panic and get upset, it also meant that he faced being put back a year, out of his original circle of friends. If your son carries on going try to get him to sit down and talk about why he is upset and what is causing it and how things can be improved.Meet the teachers and headmaster.Check for bullying or if he is being held back in his lessons so feels frustrated, or is out of his depth and needs some extra coaching, has he had a run-in with a particular teacher, does he feel unfairly treated or criticised?.All of these can make him want to avoid school, as teenagers are so sensitive. There must be a trigger.

or

Do you let him stay at home which will allow him to calm down and eventually come to terms with the reasons behind his dislike for school. This may take a long time but you would hope that he will begin to think about how to change things for the sake of his long-term future (possibly with counselling)or eventually become bored and want to return .

I had no choice in the matter, my son is nearly six foot and refused point blank to go to school.So I had to let him stay here and had to try to help him deal with his issues,with psychiatrists etc. But I found that he was using his time at home to avoid tackling the issue at all and he just stayed in his room avoiding everyone, watching tv etc. drifting along. Eventually it came out that his main issue was coming to terms with the extra work needed for GCSE 's. He did not want to do it, even though he is very intelligent.(In the end I really think it was his hormones and change from boy to man which had made him panic at the new responsibility.)

He has just agreed (after a year) to give it another go at school after several long arguments with me as I eventually had had enough, especially when he said himself he was being lazy.In the end I felt that it is doing him more harm than good to act as if there was no problem going on so as not to upset him, I felt that I was indulging him in his weakness and it was my duty to push him to go back.(He says I am pushing him too much, but he was the one upset all the time because he worried about not going and getting behind and not coping)

I hope this is of some help, I know that each child is different, but these issues came up for me.

Kind regards
Karen

Hi Suzy,

I don't think dragging our kids to school is the answer - it only makes them and us feel worse - wouldn't you agree? I tried that initially but the last two years have stopped. What tends to happen is we work towards a day he can go back - sometimes he misses that one but aims for another and makes it. As a result he missed 60 days of school last year but was not depressed as he had been in previous years when I tried to drag him there with all the tears and stress.
I do not believe there has to be a).
Anxiety is one of those complex things that children and adults just can't quite put their finger on. My son is a 'what if' type kid - but that means that school in itself is a continuous anxiety as each day is full of uncertainties. It is important at this young age to get our kids there as much as we can. I would recommend finding a really good cognitive behaviour therapist who can work with your son and yourself even - to try and turn around those negative thought patterns that become the norm. My son now realises he is not going crazy - and knows that if he listens to his CB therapist - then there are ways forward. Your son might be a bit young - as probably mine is at 11 - but even his teachers said he had a change of attitude towards class/school after starting the CB therapy. So it is well worth trying.
It is a hard road - as you know from reading the posts on here- but do keep in touch with us as we have all been through and are still going through this.
Our wellbeing as the parent is really vital too - and someone on here suggested CB therapy for ourselves as we do need to have some kind of counselling to help with our stress levels.
Good luck - but see how you go with working with your son to get there as much as he can. My son misses various amounts of days each school year - and when he was 9 he missed about 40. He finds after illness - after holidays and Mondays the hardest. Going to school on the first day with a friend helps each year but he does not want to continue that at other times as he does not want his mates to know - another problem that becomes harder as they grow older.
I guess just see if taking the pressure off you both re forcing to go helps how you both feel and can communicate in any way - seek therapy and go from there.
All the best -
Linda