Madonna King: Prep students crippled with anxiety now refusing to go to school
Parents are expecting teachers and schools to solve their children’s anxiety or mental health challenges, when it is not their job, writes Madonna King.
Students in prep are now refusing to attend school; their anxiety so severe that they cannot climb out of the car at drop off.
And self-harm is an issue schools are routinely dealing with in students aged just 10 years.
That’s heartbreaking. But why is it the case?
“It’s out of control,’’ school guidance officer Alice Clarke says.
Every parent should sit down for a cup of tea with this mother, teacher and guidance officer, who works at three separate south-east Queensland primary schools.
Clarke’s son is 22; one of the first students to attend prep when it was introduced in Queensland. She remembers him having an afternoon nap.
Now, at four-and-a-half, many of our children start the school day with half-an-hour of phonics, and 20 minutes of handwriting.
The impact, according to Clarke, is devastating. Children who cannot yet tie their shoelaces so anxious they refuse to attend school. Children with limited self-regulation bursting into tears at a moment’s notice. Extreme behaviour.
Whole classes struggling to know how to take turns, share, listen to others, and just play. PLAY. Not being able to concentrate. Unable to get along with each other.
“They are not enjoying school,’’ Clarke says. “I was talking to a year three boy yesterday and he said ‘I hate school’. The teacher keeps saying you’ve got to get this done and this done and this done.
“I feel we are breaking our kids. In year five, kids are self-harming. I believe this is a direct consequence of expecting children to achieve in areas in which they are not developmentally ready. And our mental health facilities are not equipped to deal with that - because many are for children aged 12 and up.’’
At the centre of Clarke’s argument is the need for children to play, to enjoy school, to learnt be naturally curious and to want to attend each day.
She’s seen the problem brewing for years, hurried along by social media, parents who want their children to be their little friends, and a curriculum that is set, overloaded and heavy.
Clarke took some time off before returning to teaching year 6 in 2022. She was ‘horrified’ to learn they were studying the intricacies of the White Australia policy. “Now if you want to know that stuff, you can go to university,’’ she says. Year four students were analysing cereal box fonts to determine marketing cohorts.
The exasperation in Clarke’s voice points to her - and her colleagues’ - exasperation. No-one is listening - but we are all seeing the epidemic of problems early in high school.
“It is tragic,’’ she says. “I sat with a mum whose year one kid had missed 60 per cent of school this year. How does she form any social connections?’’
Run Clarke’s argument past a teacher you know. They paint the same alarming picture, which began with NAPLAN measuring children, and a curriculum that rarely leaves time for any questions!
Clarke says she remembers when young students could nominate what they wanted to learn; ‘under the sea’ was always popular.
“And it would be fun,’’ she says. They’d explore everything from animal life to tides to climate and temperature.
“Now I feel we are measuring little kids against stuff developmentally they are not ready for.’’
(And then racing to GPs and psychologists to see what is ‘wrong’).
A UNICEF report late last week found that that almost half Australian children aged five are not developmentally on track.
Clarke says schools are dealing with complex issues like intergenerational trauma, a cost of living crisis that meant many five-year-olds attended school hungry, and family violence.
She is not blaming teachers or schools or parents, but a system that has increasingly stolen the joy and commonsense out of early schooling.
Teachers are racing through a curriculum to meet benchmarks a year or more earlier than previous generations. Parents, unsure how to parent, are expecting schools to solve their children’s anxiety or mental health challenges, when it is not their job.
Clarke’s Christmas wish is that all parents, with children starting school, do a free Triple P Parenting course.
And that our youngest children be allowed to learn through play, allowing them to develop skills like taking turns, sharing, building empathy, regulating emotions and fostering resilience. And even be allowed a rest period, before phonics starts!
It’s a simple request. Our children shouldn’t need to be on Santa’s good list to be granted it.
Originally published as Madonna King: Prep students crippled with anxiety now refusing to go to school
