Well I ended up having a truly awful week with my 8 year old. The whole going to the GP, meeting with the class teacher and SENCO and doing the CAMHS referral was emotionally draining, not to mention the morning refusals (which admittedly were not as bad as they have been at other times) and the addition of refusing to go to Brownies or swimming etc. Then it all went from bad to worse. The school has a online learning community and she told me on Wednesday night that someone had sent her a nasty message on it. School were notified by the programme about offensive language anyway and spent Thursday morning investigating it. To cut a long story short, H had logged on as another child and sent herself and another little girl the messages posing as another girl in her class. School were completely gobsmacked. The head, who was a bit sceptical about the CAMHS referral, was astounded. When we spoke to her on Thursday it was just a stone wall - no emotion, no remorse not even an admission of guilt! I was gutted. Her class teacher, who is absolutely lovely, spoke to her on Friday and she crumbled. He said even he was struggling to keep it together (and he's a big strapping bloke!) It seems she did it because she felt her friendship was being threatened by the little girl that she had logged in as. I am devastated - how desperate must she have been to do something like that? So I'm hoping we may have had a glimpse of why she's been refusing to go to school though the refusal has been going on since last year. Her teacher has attempted to broker a deal with her too. If she can get up and into school on time on Monday to Thursday she can help him with the Maths club on Friday mornings. She's good at Maths and he's sold it to her that he needs her to help him teach the other children. I just hope she can keep her part of the deal because otherwise I think they will both be gutted. He's won the hearts of my colleagues after I told them what he'd said to her!

Just wish I knew what I could to help her but I am so thankful the school are as supportive and as nurturing as they are.

Hope you all have a better week next week xxx

Oh dear Hillie, what a mess and just what you could have done without!
She's certainly clever though!
I hope you get to the bottom of it soon.
Good luck,
Linda

Hi Hillie, it just shows that your daughter will go to nay lengths to avoid school so it must be bad for her. Nice to hear the school are being very supportive which must help no end. I have to say for an 8 year old very very clever. Keep supporting her she needs you.

Sarah x