My son has always struggled with anxiety, but after witnessing his younger sister get injured by their father – she died a horrific death – he has complex PTSD on top of the anxiety. Neither our legal system nor our school system recognizes his poor attendance as school refusal or as a result of his struggling with his mental health. He’s been labelled a bad kid, lazy, unmotivated, and difficult.
Our daughter always did well in school until grade 8. She was in French Immersion, loved projects, and did well in most subjects. She hardly ever missed a day of school. One year, she got an award for perfect attendance. We noticed that she excelled in certain things like projects, often going over and above what was asked. In grade 8, things changed. Workload increased, more teachers making more demands. Suddenly, she couldn’t make all the assignments perfect the way she wanted. It was harder to get her to school. Grade 9 was more challenging and, although she made it…
While it’s only the third day in the new school year, my 13-year-old daughter has only been to school for about one full day altogether, due to extreme anxiety and school refusal. This has been ongoing since the beginning of grade 7 (she’s now beginning grade 9). Although her elementary school has been wonderful in trying to accommodate her and her needs, it wasn’t enough.
We submitted our human rights complaint at the end of grade 5, after 3 months of school refusal that was met with shock from school and division admin because they didn’t understand why she didn’t want to be at school. We had over 300 pages of emails (and that doesn’t include phone calls and meetings) from issues going back to grade 1, detailing incidents and asking for planning. If they’d put in even a minimal plan for her, then we wouldn’t be here. The division even sent a social worker to our house, who spent 3 hours trying to determine…
My child always has to ask for the support. My child is not able to request the help. This is part of the problem. Staff need to know the signs and act on them.
My son started having anxiety in grade 5, and as he got older it worsened. By grade 9, I was fighting with him to go to school; in grade 10, he just stopped going. I had meetings with the school. They offered a quiet room to do work and an in-home tutor. He should be in grade 12 this year, but because they only had one way to deal with this, he is now waiting to turn 18 to be allowed to get an education. We have been to the hospital because of his suicidal thoughts, only to be given…
My daughter has panic attacks about school, especially when teachers speak in a condescending tone that is intended to imply encouragement but actually just lacks understanding of what my child is struggling with. Oftentimes, the teachers don’t have other solutions or approaches to a situation other than to say, “Well, just try your best!”, and when your child is already trying their best, this feels like failure. My child, too, can be stubborn to try different approaches; for example, she initially refused audiobooks because she had always been an avid reader until PANS caused her some kind of scrambled reading…
Our daughter loves learning and is a strong student but, over the years, her anxiety has become so linked with the over-stimulating school environment that she can’t even do schoolwork at home it is so stressful for her. In our entire region, there does not exist a program that she is eligible for, where she could attend school in a small classroom environment, with only a handful of other kids. This is how I see her being the most successful. There are also huge holes in the public health and school systems in terms of programming. Early on, she wasn’t…
Every day they have good intentions of going to school and doing well, until they go to bed and think all night about everything they have to do the next day. They are then too exhausted to get up in the morning; they basically freeze…fight or flight mode.
My daughter initially complained of headaches before school – we saw a paediatrician, had her vision and hearing checked. No one indicated anxiety was a possible cause, and it was only a random internet search that tuned me in to the topic of school refusal. That allowed me to speak more openly with our daughter regarding her feelings about school. I had to – and was thankfully able to – change my work schedule to walk my child to class right at starting bell, as the pre-school chaos was very overwhelming for her. Having to attend while so anxious and…
