School refusal: how children staying home is hurting families

Tiana Andrews was dragged screaming from her home by her school principal at the tender age of six. Now, she says the government needs to step in to help kids refusing school.

Tiana Andrews was dragged screaming from her home by her school principal when she was just six years old.

Her autism meant the staring eyes of other children, the tough love of teachers and the general sensory overload of the school grounds sent Tiana into complete shutdown.

After more terrifying incidents, such as being physically dragged from her mother’s car and teachers who couldn’t understand why she hated school so much, she started injuring herself in a desperate attempt to stay home.

Tiana was one of thousands of children experiencing school refusal or “school can’t”, which is being examined in a senate inquiry report due out next week.

“It was like an overall shutdown, it’s a nervous system response where you can’t do anything, it feels like you’re in paralysis,” Ms Andrews said.

“I was just in a state of zombification where I felt nothing was going to be safe.”

For autistic kids such as Tiana, who is now 25, school refusal is not uncommon but gaps in data collection mean it’s impossible to know how many children are experiencing the phenomenon, the senate inquiry was told.

Tiana Andrews was terrified to go to school some days. Picture: David Swift

Current data shows an increase in school absence but does not reflect the reasons why children are staying home, or reflect shorter or half days.

The Saturday Telegraph this month revealed tens of thousands of kids are absent on Fridays, with just 83 per cent of students attending school on Fridays last year.

Thousands of children like Tiana experience ‘school can’t’.

Dubbo grandmother and carer Pauline Walkom thought her grandson had received the opportunity of a lifetime when he was given a scholarship to a Sydney boarding school. But when the pandemic dashed any hopes of making friends at his new school, her grandson refused to go back.

“When he was home for the pandemic we were unable to get any help in Dubbo,” Ms Walkom said.

“His siblings witnessed that, so they started not wanting to go back to school and their anxiety went through the roof. I want to break the cycle of kids dropping out of school.”

Ms Walkom, who has custody of her grandchildren, said she hoped the senate inquiry’s final report would recognise the need for greater mental health support for children.

“The world changed before their eyes overnight and it had a huge impact on the kids,” she said.

Another of her grandchildren became so anxious about going to school she would put holes in the walls of their home and also refuse to leave the car.

Ms Walkom was forced to cut her hours at work and experienced constant stress about making her shifts in time.

Many of the 170 submissions to the senate inquiry focused on both the greater need for early mental health support and for more support for families.

Yellow Ladybugs was one of the many organisations to make submissions, and spokeswoman Meg Berryman said she hoped the report would highlight the need to be less judgmental of struggling families.

“So many folks in our community of parents have experienced that judgment. I’ve myself experienced that judgment in early childhood settings and school settings, it’s put on the parent that you aren’t working hard enough,” she said.

“Then the financial implications of needing to call in sick for work when they just can’t get their children to school. Some days they may be happy to go and some days they wake up in terror and that uncertainty has a massive toll on the mental health of families.”

Council of Catholic School Parents NSW/ACT executive director Cath Garrett-Jones said she hoped the inquiry report would reflect the complex nature of school refusal.

“I’m hoping there is a much greater awareness of the issues facing parents, I hope the government has a deeper understanding of what’s required of parents and carers — it’s not just a school issue, it’s a community issue.”

In its submission, Black Dog Institute recommended an improvement to data collection on school absences, plus investing in early intervention mental health support for young children.

The Institute also recommended more mental health training for schools, teachers and parents.

The School Refusal Clinic in Victoria made similar recommendations, and urged the inquiry to consider recommending funding for families to access private psychology services.

School Can’t Australia, which represents families across the country, recommended establishing a definition of “school can’t” as a “stress behaviour” rather than “bad behaviour”.