Hi everyone,

I am curious to know if I am alone or not on this one but sometimes with the School Refusal taking over life - I can't see what might actually be normal for kids - especially boys perhaps.
My son is now mostly going to school (3-4 days a week). But it seems that he is not doing the work in class. As a result - it comes home as homework and then we end up having an awful battle over it! At home he seems totally unable to focus, concentrate, remember etc. He sidetracks, sits and does nothing, says he has no idea of the answer or what to do (even when it is something really straight forward or he even just has to stick a piece of paper into a book). Getting him to actually complete work is a nightmare. I think I might have mentioned this in some earlier posts - as to whether I am dealing with perfectionism here and that he'd rather not do anything than make a mistake. Does anyone else come across this with SR or is this a normal thing with kids aged 12 or do any of you have any idea what might be going on here?

I should be feeling so relieved these days - but instead I feel my nerve ends are still frazzled!
Linda

Hi Linda,
I didn't see your post first when I replied to my email I see you have other problem now - homework. Even my son didn't do much work at home come to think of it now but he did had good results in some subjects (maths, science, IT)
He is now varied that he will miss to much and I have to keep telling him that I will help him that he need to get better him self and he is clever enough to catch up. He talk about his future and would like to be computer scientist of software developer. This is the only time his eyes light up when he talk about thinks he would like to achieve and I am so happy it remind me of his happier times. Does your son talk what he would like to do when he gets older?? It my lift his spirits. Maybe you mentioned that earlier I didn't had a chance to read all the posts. Please, just be patient for him and slowly he will come around. He achieved to go back to school!!!

You know, my son told me something yesterday when we talked. He is looking forward to receive some treatment but he said: Mum, I am scared that I will change my way of thinking or I will change all-together. I just told him that I believe in him and I now that deep down the good will prevail in him no matter what.

We are tested here on patience, all of us, and when I am reading yours success it makes me happy - there is light maybe just flickering but it is there.

Hi Linda

With my SR 12yr old son, I have always had a problem with homework. If I managed to get him to sit in front of the homework, trying to get him to put the pen on the paper and write something was a huge struggle - it always felt like there was some kind of phobia and I could spend hours sitting there with him and get nowhere. If he went to bed without doing it, then he'd want to do it the next morning before school! At the beginning of the year I had a few days where he wouldn't go to school because he hadn't done the homework, so I managed to get the school to agree to him not doing homework at the moment and concentrate on going to school. That worked for a little while but he is not going to school at all now - and I can't get him to do any work at home either (tried some maths the other day and lasted about 1 minute!)

My other son is 14 - at 12yrs old he was a typical boy who put off doing his homework until the last minute and he'd do the bare minimum that he could get away with etc. but it was a very different experience from that with my SR son. I suppose with my SR son homework has always felt like a massive chore for me and something that has taken hours of my time whereas with my other son homework has been his responsibility and I just leave him to it.

Sharon