Kids can’t face school, parents let them stay home: What to do about school refusal

Since the COVID-19 pandemic first sent public life into lockdown three years ago, school refusal has emerged as an increasing problem among Australian students.

When Sydney schoolgirl “Samara”, whose family asked to remain anonymous, was starting her final year of primary school in 2020, she had no idea a pandemic would trigger a series of lockdowns that would disrupt her next two years of schooling – including the important transition from Year 6 to Year 7.

Getting children back to school has been tough since the pandemic began.Credit: Rodger Cummins

If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Samara would have spent 2020 and 2021 celebrating the end of one chapter of her education before establishing a new life at high school, making friends and exploring fresh academic frontiers.

Instead, like her peers across the nation, Samara endured months of remote learning during COVID-19 lockdowns, isolated from friends and unable to partake in the traditional rite of passage from primary to high school.

Samara’s mother, “Michelle”, remembers it as a difficult time. A schoolteacher, Michelle had to juggle the demands of work and her children’s remote learning. “I was working at 11 o’clock at night,” she says. “As a mum, I felt like I dropped the ball.”

Post-lockdown, the transition from remote to face-to-face learning proved difficult for Samara, who began refusing to go to school in Year 8. Part of the problem was a lack of academic engagement.

“She says school is boring, it’s not how she learns, she doesn’t feel pushed,” says Michelle.

Samara’s struggle to make secure friendships at high school was also a factor. “There were times when she was eating [lunch] in the bathroom alone,” says Michelle. “In her mind, she can’t make new friends.”

When she did join a group of friends, she encountered bullying behaviour at school that continued after hours on social media. Some mornings, Samara became so distressed at the prospect of going to school that she threatened self-harm. In all, she missed 55 days of school in 2022.

Michelle draws a direct line between the COVID-19 school closures and Samara’s refusal to go to school. “School is a routine,” she says. “Suddenly, they get two years where there’s no expectation [to go].”

What is school refusal?

School refusal is a behavioural issue where a young person refuses to go to school and stays home with a parent’s consent, however grudgingly given. The child might cry, hide or complain of feeling ill in their attempt to avoid going to school, and often it’s a recurring problem.

John Chellew, a social worker who runs the School Refusal Clinic in Melbourne, says school avoidance can stem from anxiety about leaving the home caused by a combination of factors including social, emotional, behavioural and academic problems.

Studying from home meant children missed out on many key development milestones.Credit: The Age

It’s not the case that children “won’t go to school, but believe they can’t,” he says. “[They] feel they should go, and often they want to go … but they just feel overwhelmed with the social and academic demands of school.”

Contributing to school refusal is an uptick in anxiety among young people, a trend exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “[Today] there are a lot more young people who are experiencing problems with mental health,” says Professor Jennie Hudson, Director of Research at the Black Dog Institute.

Frustratingly for experts, the prevalence of school refusal is hard to measure due to a lack of reliable data. School absences are up, “but we have no idea why that is,” says Professor Hudson.

Anecdotally, school refusal is increasing. The peer-run “School Can’t” Facebook group, for example, has grown from 900 members in June 2019 to 7700 today. The waitlist at the School Refusal Clinic has also ballooned since the return of face-to-face learning, says Chellew.

“I’ve had 30 referrals in the last two or three days … I’m being flooded with desperate parents who are pulling their hair out wondering what to do, and trying to get help.”

What should parents do?

“The first thing is to talk to your child to try to understand … the cause of the problem rather than reacting to the behaviour, which is usually a symptom,” says Chellew, who also advises monitoring kids’ sleep habits and screen time, which can impact their mental health.

Professor Hudson advises seeking help early and establishing a conversation between parents, the school and external service providers, such as a psychologist, “so that everybody’s working together to support the young person to get back to school”.

A return-to-school plan can be gradual. What doesn’t work is the threat of punishment, says Professor Hudson. “The idea that if they don’t go, they’re going to get in trouble just adds to the anxiety.”

While Samara hasn’t been officially diagnosed with anxiety, she sees a private counsellor. Support from her school has been limited, but Michelle says there is talk of Samara joining a peer mentorship program. “I’ll probably need to follow up to make sure it happens,” she says.

Names have been changed at the family’s request.

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