13 yrs. Grade 8

When my son was in kindergarten, he would cry all the way to school, saying he didn’t want to go. He would say that I was the worst mom ever and that I was mean for making him go. I could handle this, even though it was heartbreaking, as most days, he would get to school, wash his face (we kept a facecloth in the backseat so he could wipe off the tear stains), and would go in. One day, after several months of this, we had a rough day getting out the door. He wanted to stay home, told me he had a stomachache – and I knew he didn’t – so I picked him up and locked him in the backseat and drove him to school. That day he told me “I want myself to die”….I knew this was more than just not wanting to go to school. We visited our first psychologist a few weeks later. Some weeks and months were better; some years were better, when he had a teacher that understood him and worked hard to make him feel included. Other years were hard. This year was grade 7…. it was not easy…. so many different teachers, no important and meaningful connections. He went from a school where he made some of the teams he tried out for, but at the new school didn’t make one team, didn’t have great relationships with his teachers, and struggled a lot. Missed on average one day a week, sometimes more.