Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy school refusal

hey everyone... i really need some advice about school refusal in a 5 year old.

my DD has started routinely waking up in the night crying hysterically about school. she hates school for a variety of the usual reasons (no meaningful differentiation & social isolation) and as such, we are moving her to a new school in the fall. (ps - thanks everyone who helped me feel ok about making such a radical change!)

so here we are at 6 weeks left in the year - and we were trucking along, feeling really good about the light at the end of the tunnel, when these sleepless nights suddenly hit us and now she is point blank refusing to go back.

if anyone has any experience with this, i'd love to hear how y'all handled it. thanks!

Pm'ing you.

Can you just withdraw her from school? It's kindergarten right? Quit.

If you can't, how about letting her stay home for a while? Maybe let her stay home every other day, or this week and then every other day?

If you have her schooling worked out for next year, I would stop trying to make this year work.

I'm with the previous poster. Pull her. Do school at home for the rest of the school year.

thank you all so much! in our province, she is not required to attend until she's 6 - so not till Feb of next year.

the only thing that really gives me pause is that on top of everything else, we're dealing with her perfectionism (slightly hard = time to quit!) so i would need to balance/control that message, but... i'm also at the point where i really can't just let this get any worse.

i'm very encouraged by the idea that we could just get outta dodge. thanks again, all - it's such a relief to find people who don't dismiss what we're seeing in our kid. it's been a brutal year for that.

Do not let her think that you pulled her because it was "hard" or that she has that kind of power, though-- because that one is a deadly combo with the perfectionism you have already seen.

Is it possible for you to do private music lessons or something like swimming/other sports?

Those would be things that would push against that Goldilocks mentality (which you have SO RIGHTLY identified as perfectionism!!)-- I'd elicit a promise that once you sign up, sticking with it through ________ is a requirement, and discuss how it may feel "too hard" sometimes, but that it can also feel really, really, REALLY good to be proud of something that it has taken a lot of hard work to accomplish.

as a family, we've always had a rule that whatever session we've paid for gets finished, but the extra-curriculars haven't escalated like the school issues have. we have a great partnership with her dance and swimming instructors - they've handled these issues beautifully.

i've used a river analogy with DD quite effectively with day-to-day perfectionism. Q: let's say you have a river in your path. how would you cross it? A: i'd jump. Q: wonderful. now what if the river is too wide to jump? A: i'd swim. Q: think about swimming for a minute. A: ok. Q: is that all one step? A: no. it's lots of little strokes to get where you're going. [cue the big smile]

but the power thing - you really put your finger on it, HK. it's definitely what i'm worrying about - she could very easily interpret this as a big win for her instinct to quit and use that against us in the future.

but it's also probably not a bad message that when things are truly taking more from you than they're giving back, it's ok to walk away. maybe that's the balance i'm looking for? she's quite a rational person, so that's working for us...

Yes--identifying when a situation is "toxic" and differentiating that from merely "taxing" is a crucial lesson. You nailed it!

yay, MoN! that's exactly the process we've used with her so far - it helped us make the call about changing schools for the fall, so i think we'll try it again on this question.

and HK - toxic vs. taxing: love it. if you stick with something difficult and feel good about it at the end, it was taxing. if you stick with it and you feel awful in the end, it was toxic. and BONUS: DD loves a pithy saying - so she will be all over that one!

thanks so much!!