Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, I'm, well, I was about to say I'm super excited about, but we're covering a topic around school refusal and school persistent volunteerism. So, it's not really a particularly easy subject to have a conversation around, and yet I'm so excited by the two guests. So, this is the first time I have recorded a podcast in person with two guests at the same time, and it is on such an important topic that affects so many families, and so many families that feel that they're alone, that they feel that there is no solution whatsoever, and they feel lost. So, I'm hoping that this episode is going to give those parents hope, but also give parents who may have children who are struggling in the morning going into school, some tips and advice, because we talk practically about how we can have the distinction between a child who just simply doesn't want to go to school on that particular day, and a child who really has no capability in order to do that. So, the data in the UK, in terms of what we call persistent absenteeism, and this is a child who misses more than 10% of the school sessions. Well, for 2023 to 2024, that academic year, 20% of pupils would have been deemed persistently absent. So, this is affecting so many families. So, in part one, we've got two parts of this. In part one, I'm joined, well, in part one and part two, I'm joined by Kate Chand, and also Ruth, who's a mother and also a child who shares her journey. But between the two of them, we're able to really get both sides of the experience, the experience of the parent and the tips and strategies that they were given in order to help and support their child going in. And then when things were not working, the hope that they subsequently found. So, without further ado, here's Ruth and Kate. And Ruth, I'll ask you to tell us a little bit more about your daughter. So, I'll ask you to tell us a little bit more about your daughter. So, there's a story for you to share about your daughter specifically. But does that resonate with you when you see those statistics and it going up?
Speaker 2I think it does. I think that it resonates, I think, probably for most parents who see children going through their school years, that they'll be aware, probably of other children in the class, if it's not impacting their own children in some way, that are absent for all sorts of reasons. So, on a personal level, yes. I mean, I've seen both of my children come home and talk about classmates who haven't been in school. But I do have a story around one of my children who did spend three years out of school.
Speaker 1Okay. And we're going to come back and we're going to touch on that. And then Kate, obviously, from your perspective, just do a bit of an introduction in terms of what you do, because you see and support parents when school is not right for them.
Speaker 3Sure. So, I run a business called Enjoy Education. And, we are a private tutoring business, as well as a homeschooling business. And I think it's just important to make that distinction, because obviously, there are lots of tutoring businesses. However, we specialise as well in homeschooling. So, we do get many calls from parents describing school refusal, how that's showing up for their children, what it means, and really taking them on that journey. And I can absolutely concur and agree that those stats feel very real to me. Our phone is ringing off the hook. And I'm always delighted that families are phoning us, because it is just such a complex journey. And it feels very lonely when you're on that journey. And what we love to do is both support families and also really help to connect them with other families where suddenly you don't feel so alone.
Speaker 1Yeah, because I think that is that's one of the crucial pieces, isn't it? It's this idea, Ruth, and I don't know if you can kind of relate to that and how it felt for you, but it feels incredibly lonely. It almost feels like everyone else is managing their children are going into school. Why is it not happening with my child?
Speaker 2I think that's right. I think that the risk of isolation for parents in that situation is very real, for all sorts of reasons. The risk of isolation for the child in that experience is also a very tangible thing. As well as a parent, I also have experience now in my professional life. I'm a psychotherapist. I work with young adults who've often received a late diagnosis of autism. And it's clear that this is an experience that's gone on for a long time. It's not new. But I've also, off the back of that, over the past few years, increasingly had inquiries from parents, mums and dads, whose children are going through their diagnosis years, who are coming to all sorts of challenges around their children's experience at school, where mum and dad have needed some form of emotional support and strategising around how to manage the isolation and also all of their interactions around supporting their child. So it's a complex web.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely. And I think. And I think as a parent, when you're in it, it's a really difficult situation to navigate. And I know that we were talking off camera before we started about this, the notion that the term school refusal can be quite a loaded sort of phrase. Kate, can you kind of speak to why that often feels like such a loaded comment?
Speaker 3I think it feels, I think the word school refusal feels particularly loaded because it feels like children have some kind of agency in whether they are refusing to go to school. We were talking earlier about the kind of the fine line between when a child should be pushed into school, because actually, perhaps, you know, that is appropriate for the child and when that absolutely should not be happening. And it's genuinely beyond the realms of what that child can cope with. They are in overwhelmed, they are being severely triggered each day that is just too much for their system and for them to be able to show up. So it's not simple. It's not easy. And as parents, especially because these things happen early in the morning, you're trying to get. out the house and you might have other children. I mean, it's just a really full on situation. And, and that's why our biggest message is don't try and do it alone. You know, we all, you know, have children, suddenly, you need to become an expert on education or bringing up children and all these different hats that we all need to wear. There are experts out there. And it's about building your team to really unpack, actually, where, where is my child at in this journey? And what could be the right next steps for them?
Speaker 1Yeah. And I think that speaks to what you were saying, as well, Ruth. So just for just because I think it's a helpful bit of clarity. Is there a way that as parents and Kate, you're so right, because all of this stuff happens, we're juggling multiple things, trying to get multiple bits of book bags and stuffing things in bags and slips that we're supposed to have done and getting them to put their shoes on and getting all the extra curricular kit ready. And then we get a child that just says, I don't want to go to school today. I'm not going to school. You can't make me for whatever reason that might be. And it can be a whole host of different things. Is there a, because obviously, as human beings, we like a nice, neat crib sheet, don't we? We like things to be black and white. In this instance, you've got a child who really should be made to go into school. And in this situation, we need to be, you know, actively keeping them at home and then looking to come up with an alternative. Is there a way, and particularly Ruth, given that you, you know, you've experienced it firsthand as a parent, is there a neat way of being able to have that dichotomy?
Speaker 2It's not neat, but I think I can perhaps help here a little. And I think this, what Kate was describing about the can't of school refusal, that perhaps the word refusal is not very helpful here. So I think perhaps in a situation where you have a child, when the school bags are being packed, says, I don't want to go in today, that might be a very different sort of scenario, especially if it's the first or second or third time that the child has said that, that they're saying it on the brink of going into school rather than persistently. and it's something that is a cognition rather than something viscerally being experienced and I think my daughter here was really insightful she's now in her 20s early 20s she's at university so we've seen her through a big story but when she revisited with me those moments of what is sort of termed school refusal she turned to me she said you know it's a really bad phrase mum because it doesn't capture it and I said what would you call it she said an inability or an incapacity to be in school so in terms of a dichotomy a neat dichotomy I can give an illustration of what it would look like to be unable to go to school and that would be if I take you back to an experience that I remember taking my daughter into school it incrementally became difficult over a period of two to three months it wasn't new that school was difficult for her it wasn't new that my daughter needed scaffolding to attend school from staff and from home but something gradually began to change in ways that felt very tangibly different and that was something that mum and dad were seeing that my husband and I were seeing as we took her in so I don't want to go with starting the night before her cooperation with getting ready for school was not a problem she was very willing and happy and wanting to please those around her but eventually getting into the car became difficult eventually being on the journey to school became almost impossible and we would take a rural route to we were in the countryside we were moving from Dorset to Wiltshire and the day when it became very clear to me that we were in a very different territory with her experience was when we would drive past the Wiltshire sign on the road so we're going on the road school and she would see the Wiltshire signposts on the road and her whole body next to me would freeze and she would become really frightened and she would begin often to cry and it was clear that this was something that wasn't a cognitive set of decisions but something really tangibly different yeah and there are all sorts of even at that stage all sorts of scaffolding that we were putting in place we were driving her to school and then if she felt completely unable to get out of the car we would go and get a hot chocolate and then we would return we had a lot of help from staff trying to support her with that beginning of the day I mean there was a lot that went into trying to make school viable and accessible but it wasn't at that point yeah and so I think that is where there's there's a dichotomy I hope that helps perhaps parents listening to understand the difference between a child who's got ordinary and reasonable and valid concerns about their school experience right now because it's difficult for some reason they're having a social problem at school or they're worried about their work those are all very regular everyday experiences at school and they do need some support getting over that you know concern and you know I think that's a really they need those experiences you know that I can manage adversity and I can get through it we don't want to feed their anxiety yeah but real school refusal or perhaps what my daughter's renamed school incapacity
Speaker 1I love the incapacity thing because in lots of ways we can we can understand that if someone doesn't have a capability of doing something rather than as you say Kate this idea of you know I'm just simply digging my heels and I'm being obstinate and I'm not going to go in but actually and I think that's you illustrated it so beautifully in lots of ways because there's a difference as you say from this cognition it's a thought process that I am creating a story a narrative around my inability to cope as opposed to incapacity or I'm incapable in that way I have an incapacity because it's much more I think if I'm right Ruth you're speaking to much more of this or this is a physiological it is going on in my mind and I'm not going to go in my body rather than necessarily just I mean the two are connected but you can see a physical response I think it's exactly
Speaker 2that as a parent I realized working in mental health I could see the signs of a level of dysregulation where a solution wasn't simple it wasn't a straightforward thing to say well we'll just continue to expose you to the thing that is becoming so impossible for you it was going to be counterproductive and it was going to be counterproductive and it was going to be to keep pushing her through that and actually I think real school refusal as it were or the complete incapacity really often culminates for families in a moment where a child who may be age 12 13 14 can't get out of the car yeah and then what do you do do you physically we did have a school suggestion that we have helped physically removing our child from the car which I didn't feel comfortable with that so I don't know how different schools are managing that I don't know but I felt that in terms of welfare of the child that that's a very complicated area you know I wasn't comfortable to physically move my child out of the
Speaker 1car yeah so um what was that the turning point for you in terms of going into school and then going and having the hot chocolate and all of those things that then became a right this clearly is not working I think it was a turning
Speaker 2point in the sense that we'd run out of any options in terms of school detention because it was very clear that it was so distressing and potentially harmful for my child to put her through that experience um that it was no longer viable um so I don't think it felt like a choice at that stage and certainly I mean Kate knows my story that we were a family who are very conventional in terms of our approach to raising our children so we'd never really had homeschooling on a list of options for how we would bring up our children and indeed our other daughter has never homeschooled other than Covid when it was imposed upon her so it it wasn't part of our plan and I think at the time if you'd asked us to list a plan uh you know plan a plan b plan c for schooling I think homeschooling would have been at the end of the alphabet yeah um we had a lot of preconceptions about what homeschooling might look like my main concern with homeschooling was that my daughter would be in the village hall making play-doh which wouldn't have been appropriate for her teens that I would be in there with her making play-doh and that um I that would involve me giving up my work um that it would turn family life inside out and upside down um so it wasn't really on my radar until it had to be um so that's how we came to that okay and we're
Speaker 1going to touch on that Kate in terms of the proportion because obviously you help support families um either from a sort of tutoring but also from that sort of homeschooling perspective Ruth has spoken about it from the perspective of a sort of a teenager what are you seeing in terms of the proportion of the parents that are actively seeking support is it at primary school is it at secondary school are you seeing a an even split in terms of parents
Speaker 3who are seeking homeschooling options definitely more secondary bias however children the children who are struggling have got younger so we are actually now working with children um who are struggling at school from say the age of seven eight onwards but really struggling not just you know a few bad days but you know really significant issues there's so much to to convey to families because I think one thing that I really want to to um convey to parents is the fact that it's trying to create that space to step back and understand where your child's at which sounds easy and is so hard uh so in the moment of that morning the crazy morning that seems to be pretty much each morning for school is there a pattern is it a particular day a week and that could actually be linked to a school situation is it ad hoc is it completely random is it every day and just trying to create space in your own life to support yourself and even speak to somebody who cares as much either you know the child's other heart other parent or somebody who really cares about your family just taking that time to identify what is going on here and how can we improve the situation because it's so difficult in these mornings to make good decisions and to assess all the information and you know be the best parent as we're all trying to be so one thing that I think is so important is to pick up the phone like speak to people who can help build that network and I think that's when you can start to unpack what could be the best next stage we've heard from Ruth that I think it's very powerful when she said at that stage we didn't have a choice and I think that's what we hear all the time from families that you know ultimately they're picking up the phone to us because guess what home schooling is not plan a normally it's plan z and what we really want to actually help parents see is this plan can be really viable and one thing that I feel very strongly about is really demystifying what home schooling is we've got the good old covid home schooling which is let's all go home schooling overnight and do it yourself as non-educationalists brilliant that is everything that home schooling isn't and shouldn't be we all know that and we've got different traumas associated with that so we don't want to go there but what home school is not plan a normally it's really about making sure that we're making sure that we're making sure that we're taking the best from school taking the structure of a school day taking fantastic teaching allowing the day in the life of a home schooler and to paint the picture it isn't going to the village hall and making play though it's actually you know setting it up to work for your child and this is where the magic can really start to happen that each child can we build schools around each child we don't think of ourselves as having one school it's about thinking okay what does this child need what what is their make-up what is their learning needs make-up how do we marry all this together and how do we go on this journey together how do we partner with that child and their family to make this now a success because that's why i get so excited about home schooling and the benefits of that for the right child at the right time because i know how profoundly positive and impactful and how game-changing for the family and most importantly that student it can be
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Speaker 1I mean, we can get, I really want to get into Ruth's story and her daughter's, but why are we seeing these statistics? And of course, I'm sure there's some sort of aspect to do with COVID, but in essence, these figures were going up anyway. So this is not just a COVID issue. What is it about the current system, or is it about the current system, or is it much more to do with the makeup of our young people, that is just making school somewhere that young children don't feel safe to thrive and be curious and to grow?
Speaker 3I feel like I could write a book on this. I mean, square peg, round hole is the first thing that, you know, heredity comes to my mind. But thinking about all the different ways in which, it's not that necessarily school is failing our students. At the end of the day, there are lots of students who thrive in school, and it is a fantastic institution. There is at least five, and I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but there are lots of students who thrive in school, and it is a fantastic institution. There is at least five, and I'm not going to go more like seven to 10% of students where the school framework just doesn't work for them. Maybe they're introvert, and therefore being, you know, in a really stimulating environment all day long for five days per week is just too much. It could be literally as simple as that. And one thing that COVID did show us is potentially that there is another way that actually, you know, maybe there's a flexi homeschooling model. Lots of schools will not appreciate you saying that, because obviously, it really complicates their school life, it sets precedents, and I totally respect that. And I think that's a really good thing. At the same time, you know, what I would love for families to understand is it doesn't have to be all or nothing, it doesn't have to be homeschooling, or you're in school, there are ways forward, it could be that, you know, your actual academics take place outside the school framework, or, you know, you do your sport or your music or your art with your peers, which can be fantastic if the school can facilitate that, and some can and some sadly can't. And so it's again, asking the right questions, what is the problem? And what is going to be best for the student at that point in time, to help them make a positive step forward?
Speaker 1Yeah, so it's that understanding that for whatever the reasons might be at the moment, that this current school system, and I'm not anti school at all, but the current education system isn't right for all children. And it's that accepting that that piece. Ruth, I want to I want to really dig deep into your story. So tell us a little bit more and maybe start from, well, is there is probably quite difficult to actually find a precise beginning?
Speaker 2Well, I think that it's actually in some ways, it's quite straightforward to find a beginning. And it's very early in my daughter's life that when she was very small, I became aware really young from playgroup age that life was sometimes very challenging for her in group settings. And I was aware of what autism was in some sort of, you know, slightly, you know, peripheral way, I didn't have a really good understanding, and certainly not a contemporary understanding of neuro diversity and neuro divergence and what that looks like in families. But it was aware of family members who had grown up with all kinds of social communication difficulties. So it wasn't completely off my radar. And I knew that from when she was very, very young, that certain things were not coming easily. And so I did all of the things that parents do, I provided the scaffolding for her to develop in the best way that she could at home. And she thrived in her early years, with lots of social stories, for example, lots of giving routine preparation for the day, that sort of thing. And she was a really, really happy, happy, contented toddler. And we had a lot of scaffolding around play dates and social interaction, that sort of thing. But when she then went into school, big school settings, like four, four mentory primary school, things began to become more difficult. And she had some really horrible playground experience is, again, at that stage, I sought some professional guidance, but no kind of actual formal help. I just called people who were known to the family, my mom was a psychoanalyst, and I called people who were, you know, esteemed professionals of their generation, I said, this is my child, you know, she loves to collect things of particular colours. And she really likes organising things. And she's finding some social scenarios overwhelming. And I think maybe she's autistic. And can you give me any guidance? And the sort of guidance I was getting from that older generation was, whatever you do, don't get her diagnosed, and treat her as if she is normal, was the phrase that was used, which is, you know, nowadays quite shocking. But that's only, you know, one generation ago. So I think, you know, our understanding of neurodivergence has moved so quickly in such a short space of time. And I realised that the population of people that I'm most familiar with, who are, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, who are not in school for any length of time is this population. It's neurodivergence that is a particular area that has affected my family, and that I now work with as well. But I understand there are lots of other reasons why 170,000 children might not be in school. And it's very complex. So back to my daughter, she went through the first couple of years in a very large primary school and really struggled. And it was evident that we were going to need to move her. And to sort of then jump to the stage of the story where she was starting to be unable to attend school. It was many years later, we'd tried a number of different school settings to try and help her through her development. We had by the age of 12 understood that neurodivergence was something that it would be really helpful to have diagnosed. Potentially, we spoke to her about that she was very much a stakeholder in the decision to investigate a diagnosis. And eventually, by her early teens, she was quite embracing of her understanding of herself and really beginning to kind of feel okay with what that meant. And how difference wasn't necessarily deficit. But that it did come with certain real life struggles, particularly when trying to fit into a neurotypical environment like school. But approaching 14, when we know that the social development, particularly of autistic girls, is going to be very difficult. And I think that's something that we need to think about. And, you know, their neurotypical peers really begin to separate at that stage between sort of 13 and 17. The nonverbal communication of the peer group becomes really fast and really, really subtle. And at that stage, it becomes much more difficult generally for autistic girls in the school system. I am generalising, but it was certainly true for my daughter. There were problems like bullying, there were all sorts of other very just practical problems in school life for her. Like, the sensory experience of being at school. So a lunch hall was a really difficult time. And I hear this a lot in my client population and also the parents that I support that actually lunchtime, unstructured time, like playtime, where there aren't clear ways of navigating the space, those times of day can be really quite incapacitating for children. And that can be sufficient to tip the balance between school being okay and school being unmanageable. So one of the things that my daughter was happy for me to share with you today was the experience at that stage of her life where she wasn't eating in school. Now, she said, you might have understood that from the outside as, ah, this child's developing an eating disorder. But she said, actually, her internal experience wasn't that. Her internal experience was she was very hungry. She would fill her plate with food. She did have peers who were struggling with eating disorders, and they didn't want to put food on their plate. So it was a different experience. She would fill her plate, she was very, very hungry. But the sensory experience of being in a dining hall with the smell of the dining hall, the noise of the dining hall, and all of the other stimuli made it impossible for her to manage to eat. Her body, if you like, was in absolute overwhelm. And we also identified at that stage that her heart rate at certain times of the day, and we did this with the help of a Fitbit, which is now something I always recommend to parents, you know, the Fitbit in the school day really helpful to try and detect what's happening at different times a day. Can we pinpoint the bits of the day that are so difficult? Because that's the first opportunity for a school to intervene and put in some support. So lunchtime, her heart rate was really rocketing because that environment was too noisy, too bright. The smells were too strong. The sensory overwhelm was very real. So that was one of the things that began where we noticed the wheels were starting to come off because a child going to school and not eating all day is obviously very undesirable. And, yeah, so that's part of the story. So at that stage, she began what is called school refusal, but I think maybe a better incapacity to attend school began to show up. And we started to talk, as any parents would, to the school. My husband was just as engaged as I was in the process. I think it's really important to bring dads into this, actually. My husband is also an autistic man. So he had his own school experiences that were difficult. So he was really related to his daughter's difficulties in a very strong way.
Speaker 1We can speak to her experience in lots of ways. It'll be different because it's a whole different generation. There's a different gender, but there are certain subtleties to it that I think as a neurotypical individual, we just can't really, we can, we could try to empathise, but we don't really feel it in the same way.
Speaker 2And I think that's exactly it. He was really feeling, really identifying with his daughter's experience at that stage. And it was particularly painful for him that she was finding her school life as difficult as he might have. different reasons found some of his school experiences so she was really struggling we went into school and we had the sorts of conversations that I think a lot of parents have with schools and are probably having with schools right now it's September beginning of a school year and there will be children all over the country who are really suffering in these ways and I particularly wanted to be here today and talk to you about this so that perhaps some of those parents who might be feeling isolated in that experience might know that actually an awful lot of mums and dads will be suffering actually on behalf of their child and really watching their child suffer and perhaps be in a state of real confusion about how to approach this and trying to have productive and constructive conversations with schools and I know from my experience now professionally those conversations will be looking very different in every single school and some schools will have a really really successful set of opportunities and some schools will have a really really successful set of opportunities because I found that actually my daughter, when I look back at all of the years that she was growing up, because it's quite awkward to hear that your child's really not able to attend school or not eating at school or being bullied at school. It's quite difficult to hear those things as a parent because you do start to, well, certainly I, the first place that I went to is I failed as a mum. I've let her down. There's so much guilt, but shame, yeah, even deeper than guilt. And yeah, so that gets in the way of listening. But also I think that schools, a lot gets in the way of listening to the child you know, the preconceptions are often running interference on communication and often a child really can express what's going on for them. And if they can't do it with words, they can certainly do it by pointing at an emoji. You know, visual guides are really, really useful.
Speaker 1And getting a sense and a measure of that in the moment, rather than this being a reflective piece afterwards, because you can really get to the nuances of that feeling in that moment. Capture it in that moment rather than, well, when you were in that lesson or an hour ago or yesterday.
Speaker 2Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that, you know, one of the most effective bits of teaching that I saw was a house parent who worked with my daughter very, very well for a couple of years and really supported her through that stage of schooling, who did have the emojis on the wall of her office. And she would take my daughter in there and say, you know, where are you at right now? My daughter was very, very able. She's very. She was very articulate. She was very able to explain things. But it was so quick and in the moment for her to say, this is where I am right now.
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