How to talk to your kids about school refusal

School refusal is now so serious it’s sparked an inquiry. But would you go as far as some parents driven to breaking point by their children saying “no” to going to class? TAKE OUR POLL

School refusal is on the rise. Picture: Supplied

Single mum Rebecca is at breaking point.

After Covid, getting her 14-year-old son to go back to school feels like an impossible task.

“It started with him saying he didn’t feel well, then he just flat out refused to go,” Rebecca, who we’ve kept anonymous, said.

For two years she has tried it all.

She tried the gentle approach, calmly asking why he won’t go, and offering her help.

Growing numbers of students are refusing to go to the classroom. Picture: News Corp

She’s tried yelling, and threatening to take phones and games away if he won’t go to class.

She’s even tried bribing him with a crisp $100 note if he attends just two days of school a week.

Nothing will get her son to go to school.

“It’s very frustrating, because obviously he is going through something – he doesn’t know what it is and that’s okay,” she said.

“But the school keeps saying the department is going to be on my doorstep with a fine and I’m going to get in trouble, and I know how important an education is, but I still can’t do anything.”

Rebecca has had meeting after meeting with the school, which she says just doesn’t have the resources to help.

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg offers his advice about kids refusing to go to school. Picture: Supplied

Every confrontation goes one of two ways.

Either her son just storms off and refuses to engage with her, or it becomes a screaming match.

“Sometimes he will argue back at me but there’s no real logic, there’s no reason – he just says ‘I’m not going and you can’t make me go, you can’t force me’,” she said.

“Just to end it he will tell me to f**k off and that he’ll go to dad’s for a few days.”

The threat of losing her relationship with her son makes it near impossible to be the strict enforcer.

“This is literally impacting everything in my life … and if I push too hard he will just go and stay a few nights with his father.”

Instead of going to class he will often sleep until 1pm, play video games and laze around the house.

On a good day, Rebecca can convince him to mow the lawn or do some other household chores, but most of his time is spent watching YouTube and napping.

A recent separation from her partner, a stressful job with long hours and the pressure to provide for her children on a single income is already enough to send a person to the edge.

Now Rebecca says she is constantly stressed about her son’s education, and is “at breaking point”.

It’s not just missing a few days here and there. Her son had just 20 per cent attendance at Term 1 this year and 32 per cent for Term 2.

Rebecca isn’t alone, even though she feels like it. She’s one of thousands of parents in Australia struggling with their child’s school refusal, which has been examined by a federal government inquiry.

Parents have told the inquiry they are made to feel like failures if their children won’t comply, and support is often lacking from under-resourced schools.

One parent said in an anonymous submission that they were forced to put her mortgage on hold and take six months unpaid leave to try and homeschool their child struggling with school refusal.

“I broke down at work and admitted to my manager that we were struggling, leaving

our 12-year-old at home alone every day in a traumatised state, and could no longer

continue,” the parent said.

Parents admit they feel like failures when their kids won’t comply.

Another parent told the inquiry they felt abandoned by the school, which had no real help for the family.

“I would happily put in enormous efforts if there was some sort of plan and direction, but so often I have to do my own research as nobody at the school seems to have the expertise or knowledge to advise me.”

School attendance is an ongoing problem for the NSW government who recently launched the “Every Day Matters” campaign to get more kids in the classroom.

Friday is the worst day for school attendance, with an average attendance rate of just under 83 per cent.

The overall attendance rate for other days last year was just under 86 per cent on Mondays and just under 87 per cent on the other days.

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the number of families struggling with school refusal has soared.

Dr Carr-Gregg said the first steps for parents is to know the warning signs.

“When it becomes a pattern of behaviour that disrupts their normal developmental tasks, making friends, playing sport, extra curricular activities, for me the litmus test is has it started to interfere with these – that’s when you need help,” he said.

Even though it may be frustrating, try not to yell at your child and instead do your best to engage with them emotionally.

“Acknowledge they understand their child’s concerns and I think insisting on the immediate return to school is unhelpful,” he said.

“There are often issues that underlie school refusal, we need to figure out what it is, if it’s social anxiety, bullying, sometimes there’s a genetic component because anxiety is a little bit like eye colour it can run in the family.”

Instead of pressuring them to go to school, instead try and convince them to go with you to a GP and get a mental health care plan so they can be referred to a child psychologist who specialises in school refusal, Dr Carr-Gregg said.