Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DS12 won't go to school. Advice?

My DS12 has been having an increasingly difficult time with coping at school.

His school career started out really rough (anxiety) and got better shortly after being identified (grade 3). The increase in confidence really helped and he became very open to trying new things and had many friends.

Since the beginning of grade 6 it has been declining steadily. There have been few accommodations for his giftedness (a once a week pull out program) but he has been refusing my intervention on his behalf.

Last Spring it got decidedly worse. He started to be home "sick" more and more frequently. This school year, grade 7, has continued on the same and has escalated. I see that part of it is the curriculum (grade 6 dealt a lot with climate change, population overgrowth etc. - all very anxiety producing) and social issues have come up. Kids are increasingly competitive and are getting more into things that are scary to him - swearing, aggression, too much social media, teasing/bullying.

Just after Christmas I met with his teacher and the resource teacher and they are very open to changing up his curriculum to help the school motivation side of things. There has been a delay in getting things in place as the region coordinator has been away. The kid side is having more of an affect on him. Some things that happened on Wednesday really threw him and he was off yesterday and refused to go again today.

I'm really torn - I feel like there is a lot of pressure for him to go (you can't just not go and deal with things that are difficult). I don't want to enable him to run away from difficult things. Also there is a legal imperative for him to go.

On the other hand I can't drag him physically. I don't want to make him feel unsafe, un-cared for, unheard. I'm also sensitive/empathetic.

So torn!

So should I wait to see what accommodations we can come up with and how he might react to them and/or explore options like distributed learning that would allow him to work at home and avoid the social issues that diminish as kids mature?

If I do allow him to "withdraw" and learn at home via a distributed learning program. Do I push him to go next year? High school starts in grade 8 here. If he refuses am I setting him up to be a social recluse?

Taking a step back from all that - is it a big deal? Should I just facilitate his learning the way he needs to learn and trust that the social side will figure itself out?

In the past I haven't listened to my gut where school vs gut is concerned and I think it has turned out for the worse more than a few times.

Please - any advice is very welcome.

Does anyone else do Distributed Learning? How have you dealt with school avoidance?

PS Distributed Learning here allows a child to work online with support and supervision from a teacher.
PPS I work from home so this wouldn't be a hardship for me.

Hi Tilla

I am sorry for you and your DS - school refusal is tough to deal with! My DD11 (then 10) had several days last year when she was also 'sick'.

You are right- it is so hard to know what to do - should you somehow 'make' them go? But the days of physically picking them up and carrying are pretty myc over. And my powers of persuasion were really not good.

In my DD's case, the main problem was anxiety - and it was so confusing, because the advice you read tells you not to let kids 'avoid' what they are anxious about - that it will only set up a pattern of: anxiety of X = run away from X, repeat.

However, I just did not know how to make her go to school when she was anxious and refusing.

We tried counselling - went for a couple of sessions, and then DD refused to go back. She was just not able to discuss these issues in front of anyone other than me. It ended up that I (and sometimes DH) went for the counselling - basically I looked at the psychologist as a coach in terms of how to talk to DD about these issues. It was really helpful!

If your DS will agree to counseling, he may be able to learn some tools to cope with big issues (e.g. climate change), and also how to cope with/talk to the kids in his class. Because, you are right - he won't always be able to avoid big scary topics, or unpleasant people.

Even if you do decide on the distributed learning, I think I would try to start the counseling.

My take on this is junior high is the worse. My son had major anxiety problems in 6th & 7th grade that have gotten a lot better. After school would be over with the day he would really need a lot of quiet down time to cope with the stress of being around others others all day.

Honestly you can't drag him to school. And if it's making him miserable it's not helpful. I'd see if homeschooling will work for now for the rest of this year. With the idea of starting at the H.S. next year.

Good Luck.

Following. I am living this with YS DD10 this year, possibly because of poor school fit and insufficient accommodations. She has friends at school, but she says that she is bored. She has wound up in the nurse's office repeatedly with questionable illnesses and fights me every morning about why she needs to go to school. She is very angry that we make her go and is irritable when she comes home.

On the other hand, she is so strong-willed, I am not sure that I can home school her, either (the very thought frightens me).

Counseling...hmmm...only helps, I think, if said child is willing to be counseled. Also, not really sure what to make of a counselor who says..."well, she's about meeting the school right now where they are meeting her" (as the school has been very inflexible so far about meeting her needs).

This isn't easy. I am sorry you are going through this.

Is he involved in other activities outside of school? If he is, or is willing to start some that interest him, I might be tempted in your shoes to try distance learning. Honestly, I think there's something to the thought of skipping the middle school years...

Distributed learning sounds a bit like our health school. Is it an all or nithing thing? I know a kid who does half his high school subjects at the school and half by health school. It has been a battle because here health school is supposed to be short term so the kept getting weaned off or tald to try fir tge first term each year but this year they approved from the start. They can do hands on/ less anxiety provoking at school and the rest at home.

Eta. Having keyboard issues on my phone. Sorry.

First - thank you everyone for your responses. I really helps to have different perspectives and just talk it out.

I haven't figured out how to select a quote and respond so I'll just put names and comments below.

Can2k - thanks for your reply - yes, you can't just physically make them go anymore (he's bigger than I am) and yes, I agree, I don't want to get him into the habit of avoiding anything that's difficult. It's a hard balance.

We talk a lot at home about how sometimes things are difficult and we need to learn how to cope.

DS is refusing counselling even though I explain it as just help over a bump and the fact that we all need help sometime.

I did go and speak to a counselor who had some good advice. He explained that sometimes these kids need a down day to recharge. Feelings build until they are too tired to cope. I talked about it with his teacher and she agreed to allow an occasional recharging day. The counselor also suggested; more exercise, more sleep, less screen time. We've put some of that into place.

I really wish he would go. I think it would help.

bluemagic - That is exactly what DS is doing. He comes home and doesn't want to "have" to do anything else. Just dealing with the emotions is enough. Unfortunately when you withdraw from everything else social it doesn't give you any balance with the hard to deal with school issues. It is very tempting to pull him out. It is starting to feel like that is the best solution.

Loy58 - I agree that counseling will only work if they want to cooperate. I was making him go and was starting to get that kind of response. A lot more negative outbursts. I went to a talk on anxiety and teens and the presenter had a great point. He said, what do you do when you're facing a growling dog. You get really calm and back away and talk softly because they are likely not feeling safe/are feeling threatened. That is probably how she (in your case) and he in mine is/was feeling.

I'm sorry your school isn't cooperating more. Perhaps if she shows more distress or misses more school they'll be more interested in adapting the program for her. That is what caught the attention of my DS's teacher.

ConnectingDots - thank you for that. I was wondering the same. People say, what about his socialization? What if you can avoid the angry, nasty confused stage and rejoin when people are more mature? I'm not sure how well I'd do if someone dropped me back into my grade 6/7/8 years.

Puffin - In our case it's quite flexible - Distributed Learning that is. You can go full time and in high school you can do select courses via DL if you want and mix it with in school classes.

Loy58 - I meant I was making him go to school, not to counseling. Sorry if that was confusing.

Update - I met with the teacher, principal and gifted coordinator and discussed the possible accommodations for him in the classroom.

They are:
- math - allowed to work ahead - either following the curriculum or in a more big problem kind of way
- science - hands on science projects are about to start for the class which should be much more engaging for him
- social studies - also about to get more hands on - choosing an ancient civilization to focus on and writing a report
- english - writing the report for social studies - he could write an historical fiction story instead

He would also be allowed to do something fun/engaging for the first 10 minutes of class at the beginning of the day and after lunch.

He was coming down with something when I filled him in on the changes so I can't tell if he's underwhelmed or just sick. In any case he's home again for the day.

I'm not sure if I'm underwhelmed. Torn because I'm not sure what I would ask for in an ideal world and also, what are they able to actually do within the parameters of a normal class situation.

Help. Can't think clearly about this and the stress of feeling like a crappy mom who can't get her kid to school and a neglectful mom who can't fix this situation is really bringing me down.

Update - the school adaptations have started. The gifted coordinator met with my son to talk about how it might work. He seemed quite happy. It's mostly math that will change - he can work ahead at will and when done the curriculum can use that time to do other things. Then, the next morning, he didn't want to go again.

The gifted pull out class was this morning. He didn't want to go because they are working on "big questions". In the last session he seemed to enjoy it (came up with questions that really fit with his interests) but he commented on the fact that the other kids questions were pretty dark. For example - one boy wanted to know what would happen if you went into space without a spacesuit.

So his desire to not go had to do with not wanting to be around people that have those questions and also he finds research annoying. Says that you can't ever find anything. Maybe the fact that random things pop up bothers him or maybe he just needs to figure out how to research better. Can't figure out what's under that - if anything.

Also, the class was going to attend a social media talk by a local expert and he didn't want to go to that because he doesn't like social media.

Anyone else getting things like this?

I was researching how Distributed Learning worked quite seriously and have had some chats with local parents using different DL schools. Felt we were kind of going down that road. I think the idea of a big change like that is hard for him. Probably like any 12 year old. He seems to want it then when presented with the option is backing down.

He has just been accepted into an alternative program for next year. It is at a high school further away but in the same area and it combines humanities, math, science and technology into one class. The group is smallish - 36kids - and they do really interesting hands on work with lots of projects and some trips.

So big changes on the horizon no matter what. I think it would be interesting for him to try DL to experience what it would be like to learn that way. We're back in a bit of a limbo though.

Let's see how the next week rolls out with the new changes I guess.

Any ideas/advice/comments?