3 Reassurances (for a Parent of a School-Refusing Child)
June 9, 2019
Parenting can be a lonely and stressful job, especially when there is a problem with school. Family and friends may not know what to advise, and even teachers can be at a loss for how best to help your child. We can start to doubt our own parenting ability – which is why I offer you these three reassurances:
Reassurance #1: You’re not a bad parent.
Reassurance #2: You’re not alone.
Reassurance #3: There are solutions!
Reassurance #1: You’re not a bad parent.
Just because your child does not enjoy going to school, that does not mean you are doing anything wrong. The simple fact that you are reading this gives me all the information I need to be able to say, with complete conviction, “You are a good parent”. You care, you are concerned for your child’s wellbeing, you have noticed that there is a problem, and you are willing to take action to turn that problem around. You are willing to do what it takes to help your child enjoy school again – or, if it is the best thing for your child, to find an alternative to school. You may not be feeling confident right now, but I hope that will begin to change very quickly as, with our help, you discover the information and develop the skills you need to tackle the problem effectively.
Reassurance #2: You are not alone.
I had no idea how common this problem was until I started researching it. You may have assumed, like I did, that most of the kids you were at school with and most of the adults you know had a relatively OK time at school – with a few ups and downs of course. But from my research I estimate that full-blown school refusal affects around 5% of children at some point in their schooling, and that another 5-10% of children really struggle with school, even if they don’t actually refuse to go in. That’s about 4 or 5 kids struggling in a typical class of thirty – a lot of kids affected, and a lot of parents lying awake in bed at night worrying about the same things you are worried about. You can find some of those parents in online forums, and you will meet some of them through engaging with EnjoySchoolAgain. I hope that knowing the fact that you are not alone, and reading about the experiences and solutions of other parents, will give you comfort and strength for the journey ahead.
Reassurance #3: There are solutions!
School refusal, and more general unhappiness in school, can often seem like a problem without a solution – but there are solutions that have been proven to work well. It takes time to find them if you have to do all the research yourself. As parents, we can feel stuck “between a rock and a hard place” not knowing where to turn for advice. It is genuinely a complicated problem, so the solutions are not obvious. Often we have to try a few things out and see what works for our child. In creating EnjoySchoolAgain’s resources and courses – I’ve done the research so you don’t have to spend months and years researching like I did. When you look at all the possible different aspects of the problem, you can find which ones are affecting your child right now, and think about the many different possible solutions. Enjoy School Again gives you clear, quick methods you can start trying out right now. It might seem confusing at first that there are so many methods that might work for your child, but really, they come down to a few basic ideas:
– Improving our understanding and communication with our child, so that they feel heard, respected and supported.
– Improving our understanding of the problem, from our child’s point of view.
– Finding what will likely be “a good fit” between our child and their school, or other education options.
– Making a workable plan for the transition “from here to there”, and learning how to sustain positive changes as you go. When you start doing the exercises we propose, you will quickly work out which methods and solutions are right for your family.
I hope these 3 Reassurances have helped allay some of your fears and helped you feel less daunted.
Do you have any questions or suggestions at this stage? Would you like more advice and support to help you move forward? Perhaps you would simply like to share your own experiences and the resources you have found helpful along the way, to help other families in the same situation? Send us a message via our Contact page and we will email you right back.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Best wishes, Pascale