Advice please!

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Hello there,

My 7 year old son has just recently been diagnosed with AS after years of me feeling I was a paranoid mother because no-one else thought there was anything wrong with Joe. (Now people keep saying all the things they remember him doing that were 'odd'. That's no help now!! !! !) Anyway, he is doing really well at school academically and he has several kids in his class that are his friends and he sees some outside school times too. He loves his teacher and there is no bullying going on or anything. BUT, he is refusing to go to school. Every day he cries and screams and totally melts down because he wants to stay home with me. His special needs teacher says I have to make him go. That he has to see me as the authority figure and he must learn not to fight me about it. Is she right? I am a 'soft touch' and I admit that. It goes against the grain for me to take a kicking, screaming, crying child to school when he usually the most placid, gently soul you could meet. On most things I can persuade him to do things my way without bribes or threats eg chores (I thought that was a struggle when we started but it was NOTHING to compared to this!! !) but we are both cried out over this.

Basically, do I make him go or do I compromise?

Joe's Mum

It really depends on the situation and whether or not I care about it.

Hi Jason,

I'm new to all this and I want to do the right thing by him.
When you were younger and you were made to do things that made you feel anxious and lose control did it hurt you long term or did you get over it and get stronger from it?
That's what I need to know.

Thanks.

My apologies!

I should have deleted my post!

BTDT in a big way. If he's kicking, crying, and screaming over school then he probably has a very good reason.

First, it's really important that you do what you can to find out why your son is resisting going to school. Sometimes there is a lot more going on than just wanting to stay with mom. Is the setting overwhelming and sending him into sensory overload? Is he bored with the academics? Listen carefully to what he tells you because often there's a reason or reasons lurking in there. Spend some time at school observing including the opening of the school day--you may find things like line up time in the gym is overwhelming as is unpacking the backpack with 27 different things in it.

Wrong classroom placement can account for a lot of unhappy kids at school.

Have there been any changes going on at school? Many students are involved in testing and teachers play it up big in the weeks leading up to it. One of my NT kids was losing sleep over it in 3rd grade.

The other very real possibility is anxiety--school anxiety, seperation anxiety, or both. Does he have a history of anxiety? There are some ways to help with that including coping strategies and medication.

The teacher's point about showing him who is the boss is not appropriate in this situation when there can be very real reasons for a child's school refusal. There is a danger though that giving in to school refusal even for a short while can very quickly lead to the student not wanting to go back ever and it sounds like your son was getting a lot of positive benefits. The flip side of the coin is that forcing him or bribing him to go (which is what I did combined with part time homeschooling until we were over the hurdle) can actually increase the anxiety.

Calling an IEP meeting and alerting your pediatrician and any other specialist involved in the diagnostic process would be a good idea because this can downward spiral in a hurry and become very debilitating. Some school staff members can be helpful if they've been through this with families before.

There are no hard and fast rules on how to handle this and in the end each parent needs to make the decision that's right for their child. If I had to do it over again I would have listened to my kid who said he could only handle half a day and homeschooled the other half until he was ready. I'm glad in his case we weathered the very tough storm though and stuck with school because he's a far happier kid-- he's formed very solid friendships and has developed coping skills to handle anxiety which apply to many areas outside of school. That's not the right answer for every child though.

I second Pippen's advice that you need to find out why he is making such a fuss about going to school. It sounds complicated if he is doing well and has friends. It could be that you're not getting the whole picture about bullying and/or doing well. It may be as easy as needing sensory breaks. Is the school big? crowded? Are there a lot of unexpected noises or interuptions?

Thank you so, so much for replying.

The school refusal first started in November last year and seemed to come from nowhere- he said that he didn't want to go to school one day and I thought maybe he was tired or coming down with something (because he'd never said that before) so I let him stay home with me. From then on he didn't want to go back but I made him go. It then continued until the end of the year with the school principal getting involved and eventually the advice that he should see a doctor and get referred for counselling. The GP was the first to suggest it was more likely AS than emotional and we have seen a paediatrician last month who also feels it's AS. Things improved at the beginning of the school year despite having a new teacher and a new class (they mixed up the classes this year so although he stayed with his main friends most of the other kids were new to him) and I was hopeful that we had got through the problem but it suddenly started again and has got worse and worse and the only advice I have been given is to make him go which just feels wrong. However if he never goes he'll never want to go so I just don't know what to do.

Joe and I talk a LOT. Sometimes we find it hard to hear each other because we see things so differently but mostly we find a way to make ourselves understood. With school which is obviously a big topic for us all he can tell me is that he's bored and that makes him scared, that the work is getting harder and that makes him scared and that he wants to stay at home where he can bark like a dog and be alone and not feel different. This is all new to me. Joe hasn't changed but I need to in order to help him find some peace.

Anyway, thank you so much for your advice. I will certainly try to get to the bottom of 'why' (we try to every day!!) and it's good to know I'm not alone.

Hi Kim,

I really have been trying to find out 'why' but I guess I need to try harder.

It is a big school - just under 1000 pupils P-7 although there are only 21 children in his class. It doesn't feel that big because it is on large grounds and well divided into different year groups.

He already has input from the special education unit who stepped in straight away when the problem with school started. He goes to the unit for parade (when the lower school get together) because it's too noisy and he's allowed to go there whenever he feels he wants to (with permission from them). In fact he and his teacher have a deal that all he has to do is touch her arm and she knows that means he needs to go and he doesn't have to explain why (too hard for him). Sadly it's the head of the SEU that has said I have to make him come to school, she even said she would pick him up from home and take him because she doesn't mind taking him in screaming (but I wouldn't let her do that). But the point is that he has sensory breaks when he needs them, he can go there at break times too but choses not to most of the time because he wants to join in with his friends which I think is great!!

We'll get there! I hope!

Thanks again for replying.

Joe's mum

This is why they invented SHOW and TELL.

your kid needs to be interested in 'showing off' - > he needs to find his niche, something all the kids want to know him for... eg. a certain type of toy, or certain type of hobby.

--When he gets good responces for SHOW and TELL - he will be the one to want to go to school.

It's heartbreaking to hear your kid say he just wants to be alone because he feels different.

It sounds like he's mainstreamed with typical kids and that his friends are typical. Maybe he's starting to feel them changing and pulling away and fears being left behind. This was the age when my kid started talking about being different.

M has always been in sp ed classes and his friends are from those classes also. I think without that bond with others like him, he would have been lost. He really looks to them for help and feels good to be able to help them in return. It's been great for his development.

I'm a huge believer of appropriate school placement. I've focused more on the social/emotional piece and less on the academic because in the end, that's more important to his happiness. Self-esteem is critical to success.

Finding just the right program is the challenge. Hope you find a good solution.

I think you need to walk/talk through the entire school day and see what you can pull out of that. Small things can make huge differences--starting the day in noise, being overwhelmed from the commotion the class makes when getting started in the morning, irritating noises, offensive odors, being resistant to assignments because they are hard or hard to do for some reason due to ability (ie increasing amounts of paperwork or handwriting tasks).

Sometimes it's large things--being surrounded by classmates that are different, need for a smaller class or different placement, difficulty in understanding verbal instruction from the teachers, waiting too long to request classroom breaks, etc.

Have speech and language processing evaluations been done? How about occupational therapy, including for sensory issues? Is he anxious about leaving you or leaving home in other situations?

It's not uncommon here to hear of occasional teachers or administrators that will drag kids in kicking and screaming. For a kid who just is refusing to go to school because they don't want to be there it can be effective and usually only takes once. For a student such as yours who has underlying issues that are probably contributing to his difficulty in being at school it's not usually effective and often is harmful.

Thank you to everyone for your support and suggestions.

I didn't take Joe to school yesterday as he couldn't even bring himself to get dressed so after I took my other son to school we went for a long walk on the beach. We had fun and had a great chat but all he could say about school is that he would rather be with me so I made him do chores and homework for the rest of the day with me and arranged with his teacher that I could stay at school with him today which I did. Needless to say, today he went to school like a dream!! !! I actually only spent a short amount of time with him, about 30 minutes, before he was happy for me to go again. So I'll just have to see if that will resolve things for him. It seems too easy somehow!

Incidentally he has to do a book show and tell tomorrow and he's really looking forward to it as he is showing his favourite anatomy book!

He only had the initial diagnosis last month and we go back in May with the 'results' of his GAD test. We'll find out then which areas we need extra input in and what is available to us. We're in Australia so I think things work pretty differently here.

My son (5 in Apr) recently decided from one day to the next that he didn´t want to go to kindergarten. I couldn´t hand him over to his teachers cause he was really depressed, crying & clingy and well I knew there was something wrong as he generally loves his kindergarten and his teachers and this wasn´t a typical tantrum

I decided since I had only an afternoon class to keep him home for the morning. On the way home I tried to go over what happened that morning to see if there was something that caused this. Then I remembered we had met his old teacher on the way to kindergarten, I'd said hi but Robert just looked away. This was the main teacher that was involved with him before she changed jobs 4 months ago & he really liked her.

My son is a late talker and has a hard time expressing his thoughts and feelings so when I asked him if he was sad that Åsa left he didn´t say anything but it looked like he was about to cry. Dajhana another of his teachers (& likes) is on sick leave for 6 weeks so there´s one main teacher left (that has a hard time with him) and two new ones. I sat down with him and explained that Åsa didn´t leave cause she didn´t like him but she has to work somewhere else and Dajhana was sick and would be back soon but that he has Sofia (who loves him to bits) and other teachers to take care of him till then. When it looked like he understood I spent the rest of the morning just doing stuff with him that he likes, there was no problem leaving him at the kindergarten in the afternoon.

He still kept his anti-kindergarten mood up for about 10 days, though once he got there it took only 5-10 min till he was ok --now he´s fine and back to normal. What I learnt through this was I can´t just assume he´s ok with it something just because he doesn't seem to have an opinion or show feelings about it. He didn´t seem to care too much when his teacher Åsa left, but since then he´s had it bottled up all along and it only came out when he met her again. Sometimes I need to ask him a lot of questions and probe to get him to tell what he thinks or feels about something as he´s not apt to volunteer that information himself (or simply can´t cause of his communication hinders). He can get upset and throw a tantrum just cause he doesn´t get his way but other times there is something more serious and underlying that together he & I have to get to the bottom of. Sometimes it can be the smallest little thing that is bothering him and isn´t hard to change or take care of, but finding out what it is can be a challenge.