I Never Want to Go Back to School Again
Almost 60,000 children in Ireland won't accept turned up for schoolhouse today. Mayhap they're sick or unavoidably absent but many of them, despite the best efforts of their parents, will have refused to go – for whatever reason.
"We have seen an increment in the number of cases of school refusal in recent years," says Maria Tobin, national managing director of Tusla Educational Welfare Services. "This is a very individualised issue for children and young people and there is no standard solution."
Currently, in that location are more than than 920,000 students attending primary and secondary schools in the Republic and every day more than six per cent of them miss school, according to Tusla. The agency is concerned near the level of school absence and will be launching an awareness entrada, Every School Day Counts, to run during November, highlighting the importance of children attending school every day.
"Parents often feel powerless," says Rita O'Reilly, manager of Parentline, which receives a significant number of calls about school refusal. "If a teenager says they don't desire to become to school – what do you lot do?"
Earlier this twelvemonth, Parentline introduced a specific category of "school refusal" when logging topics of calls to its helpline, afterwards volunteers talked about it coming up more frequently. More than 100 calls on the effect take been noted in contempo months and the parents' support system is now running an evening seminar on the problem, in Wynn's Hotel, Dublin on Tuesday, October eighth at 8pm.
The term "school refusal" may conjure upwardly the image of a brat who refuses point blank to become to school. However, information technology'south not ordinarily a case of misbehaving, says O'Reilly, pointing out that most children desire to do the same as their peers.
"There is something that is making them miserable – maybe an undiagnosed condition, bullying or they just really dislike the place." It'due south a matter of trying to get to the root of their unhappiness so talk over what can be done to convalesce information technology.
She knows parents can feel they take somehow failed, she adds, after all "your job is to put food on the tabular array and send them to school", but it'south not their fault.
School refusal is "quite an individual issue" and requires an individualised response, says John Sharry, adjunct professor at UCD School of Psychology, founder of the Parents Plus charity and columnist with The Irish Times. The three components in sorting the trouble are the child, the parents and the school.
"It's a collaboration – they oft blame each other and and so it doesn't piece of work out then well," he says. Information technology's very important to get the child on board "to make up one's mind they desire to overcome their fears and get back to school".
Sharry will be a keynote speaker at the Parentline evening, forth with Pairic Clerkin of the Irish gaelic Primary Principals' Network.
In Sharry's experience there are 2 primary types of school refusal. "One is a rebellion against authority and questioning the value of schoolhouse and rules. The other, probably more common sort, is anxiety, coming from a variety of sources" – such as item classes, friendships, interruption times or travelling on the school double-decker.
The more than anxious children experience, the more they panic and want to avert going. Avoidance makes them feel better, so they'll want to avoid it once more and then they go into a habit that is hard to overcome, he says.
Anxiety tin cause tum pains or headaches, so information technology may take a few days of missed schoolhouse earlier a parent begins to suspect at that place is something else at play.
Times of transition tend to present challenges for children, so school refusal can be a particular issue among those starting school, once again at the other end of primary school then in the get-go couple of years of secondary school.
Sarah's story
"Second year is probably the worst for bug," according to Sharry. And that was certainly the experience of Anne, a Co Kildare mother, with her daughter Sarah (names have been changed).
"From 2d year on it really striking home," she says. One day it would exist a bad headache, another a breadbasket upset, "this and that, and not wanting to go to school. So we realised there must exist more going on."
The outset thought was that Sarah was being bullied. "But she was adamant there was nothing like that; there was no problem with school." Anne and her hubby tried to deal with information technology themselves start and so they sought help.
"In that location is no doubt all you want to do is go far amend," says Anne. Just they knew this wasn't something they could but "fix" for Sarah.
"You lot take to try and give them the tools, or get them to talk to somebody who will requite them the tools."
They beginning spoke to the school and liaised with the guidance counsellor from then on. "Nosotros tin simply sing the praises of the schoolhouse, they were very, very accommodating in everything."
Ane of the health professionals said, "she has to get to schoolhouse, yous take to bring her and if she won't exit of the car, yous'll have to elevate her out of the machine and bring her in".
Anne was sitting at that place thinking how, with Sarah being the same size equally her, was she going to be able to do that, fifty-fifty if she was prepared to try. She and her husband preferred to work out their own arroyo.
"Often nosotros would arrive at the school gates and she would say, 'I can't go in' and exist in floods of tears." On those occasions she would wait across the road for a while, or see if Sarah wanted to have a java first before going in a fleck late.
Anne acknowledges that both she and her husband were lucky they had some flexibility in their work, which enabled them to do that. Or, if the schoolhouse rang and said Sarah was in a bad style and needed to become home, her husband could usually collect her.
Sarah was referred to the Child and Boyish Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and, afterwards a couple of months, was told she wasn't bad enough for their services. "She felt she had been dropped and it was quite traumatic," says Anne.
Her daughter hated missing school, "non simply because she had to grab up afterward only she wanted to be in in that location, she wanted to do well, but she just wasn't physically able to get through the gates some days".
For her parents, it was a abiding battle of "what is the right thing to do, how far can we push button her?" Anne's hubby would sometimes try to be the "bad cop" to her "adept cop", to come across if that worked.
"Sarah understood that sometimes we had to push her," says Anne. "Information technology wasn't great when it was happening merely afterwards, she'd be sad that she was such trouble." Only they would assure her that all they wanted was her to go in and do her best.
Over time, Sarah's attendance improved and, for exams, the school ever organised a split up room for her and a small-scale number of other pupils. After sitting the Junior Certificate, during which she missed one examination because she was just too broken-hearted, Sarah enjoyed Transition Year, with its relative freedom and different activities.
During fifth and sixth twelvemonth, she supported a number of peers who were experiencing similar bug of feet and depression that she was learning to cope with.
At present in her beginning year at university, having got her offset pick, Sarah "even so has her anxieties but she is more able to deal with them and she is a much more mature person", adds Anne. "She is an intelligent immature woman but sometimes she doesn't have faith in herself."
Small changes
Parents, understandably, tend to go very worried and panicky about a child refusing to go to school, says Sharry, "but a lot of force per unit area sometimes makes it worse and you go these big stand offs: children having meltdowns at the school gate, existence dragged in."
It is very stressful if everybody is trying to get out of the house on time in the morning and a kid is refusing to go and making people late, he acknowledges. Responses need to be creative and one parent may need to take fourth dimension off work to alleviate the pressure level on everybody.
With younger children it is usually easier to sort out. For instance, one girl he worked with didn't similar the chaos in the yard at the beginning of the mean solar day, so information technology was agreed she could go far a bit late, become into the principal'due south role for a short chat and so be brought down to her class.
"That little modify made all the difference," he says. Travelling to school with a friend might also aid.
For a child fearful of speaking out in form, teachers tin agree non to telephone call on them to contribute for the fourth dimension existence. While an anxious kid tin exist given a pre-arranged signal to leave a form if it is getting also much, without drawing attending to themselves.
"They might never have to do that only, knowing they tin can, can make an enormous difference."
In most cases of anxiety, he adds, it is getting over that "hump" of walking in and condign involved in the school day. "Often it's the anticipation that is the problem."
Tickets to Parentline'due south seminar on school refusal on seminar October eighth price €20 and are available at parentline.ie . Parentline contact details: 1890 927 277, info@parentline.ie
School absences past numbers
- sixty,000 students miss schoolhouse each mean solar day
- 5.six per cent absentee rate in primary schools
- seven.nine per cent not-omnipresence in mail-master schools
- 20 days or more missed in a twelvemonth past a child must exist reported by the schoolhouse to the statutory Educational Welfare Services of Tusla
- 65,800 primary school students miss more than 20 days
- 51,700 post-primary students miss more than than 20 days
Source: Tusla and school attendance information from primary and post-principal schools 2016/17
Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/if-a-teenager-says-they-don-t-want-to-go-to-school-what-do-you-do-1.4029757
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