Even now I can remember the white-hot terror that would hit me every school morning at 7am, the moment I heard my 15-year-old daughter\u2019s alarm go off.<\/p>\n
Minute after minute would pass without any sound of her stirring in her bedroom. I would lie there, heart pounding, rehearsing what I would say if, once again, I walked in to find her still bundled up in her duvet, with no intention of getting out from under it.<\/p>\n
As much as I tried to start off calm and compassionate, my frustration during this time, in early 2020, about why she would not go into school meant the conversation often escalated. I would try to reason, plead and then bargain, until I eventually snapped in frustration, which always made things much, much worse. <\/p>\n
Thousands of families will be familiar with what we went through. \u201cSchool refusal\u201d is a growing problem \u2014 the latest figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show that almost 20 per cent of pupils in England were \u201cpersistently absent\u201d from school \u2014 and anxiety is often the issue. <\/p>\n
A few years earlier my older daughter had hit a similar block after starting at a large central London secondary school. Lost in a class of more than 30, overwhelmed by constant assessments, she quickly began to unravel. I moved quickly, switching her to a much smaller, more nurturing school where she thrived and never once tried to take a day off.<\/p>\n
With my younger daughter, the Covid school closures could not have come at a better time. They gave her a break from stress and gave me a chance to slow down and understand what was really going on. In her case, it was undiagnosed ADHD, which she had managed to mask until then. But the workload of ten GCSEs meant she was no longer able to cope with the overwhelm she felt. After Covid, armed with a new understanding of how her brain worked, she returned to school and got all the grades she needed to do her A-levels and get the university place she wanted. <\/p>\n
Looking back, I feel incredibly fortunate that for both of them this blip caused no long-term harm at all. By being allowed to follow their interests and focus on their natural abilities, both girls are now flourishing. My older daughter, 24, recently graduated from the Royal College of Music as a violinist, while my younger one, 20, is in her final year at Goldsmiths, studying music.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Social anxiety has left my son trying to avoid going to school<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n At the time, though, they were trying to put the brakes on the relentless conveyor belt of the exam system in the only way they knew how, by stepping off it.<\/p>\n Data published by the DfE last year showed that in 2024 more than 170,000 children in England missed at least half their school lessons \u2014 a record high. This equates to 2.3 per cent of pupils who were \u201cseverely absent\u201d, missing at least 50 per cent of possible classes in 2023-24, compared with 2 per cent in 2022-23.<\/p>\n New figures published by the market researchers Censuswide in December, found that half of all secondary school pupils in England have avoided school in the past year because of anxiety. Half of those put it down to exam and grade pressure and fear of falling behind. Girls said they avoided school an average of 26.4 times a year, compared with 16.7 times for boys. <\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it is any coincidence that this sits alongside the latest statistics on child anxiety in the UK, which show that more than 500 children a day in England alone are being referred to NHS mental health services for anxiety. That is double the rate in 2019, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists.<\/p>\n As parents, we tend to blame ourselves first. But is not the more uncomfortable truth that we feel like cattle prodded into colluding with a system that prizes our kids\u2019 exam performance above all else, for the sake of school results and international education league tables? Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learnt.<\/p>\n \u2022 My teenager refuses to go to school \u2014 a mother\u2019s story<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n 1. Regulate yourself first<\/p>\n If you have spent years emotionally and financially investing in your child\u2019s education, and believing everything hinges on certain grades or universities, staying calm can feel almost impossible in the moment your teen won\u2019t move from their bed to go into school. But the key to dealing with a young person who refuses to go to school is regulating yourself first. Only then can you help to regulate your child.<\/p>\n Before you go into their room, take a few slow breaths. Say less. Lower your volume. Know when to step away. Only when the stress levels drop, yours as well as theirs, will they feel safe enough to explain what\u2019s really going on for them.<\/p>\n 2. Talk honestly to the school <\/p>\n I lost count of the number of times I explained my daughter\u2019s absences as migraines, as I tried to put off admitting she did not want to come in.<\/p>\n But starting a dialogue with your child\u2019s school sooner rather than later can stop things escalating. Many schools will work with your child by offering extra support like later start times, changes to their timetable, reduced subject load and personalised learning plans. They can also screen for issues that might be contributing, such as ADHD, autism, learning difficulties and social anxiety. <\/p>\n \u2022 Read more parenting advice, interviews, real-life stories and opinions<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n 3. Listen to understand, not to fix<\/p>\n By this stage of parenting, \u201cDo as you\u2019re told\u201d no longer works. This is the time to pivot into walking alongside your teenager while they work out what they need. Listen without interrupting, dismissing or jumping to solutions. Sometimes the most helpful response is simply being there. If you feel stuck, try asking, \u201cHow can I help?\u201d or \u201cWhat would make this feel more manageable?\u201d<\/p>\n Your aim is to help your teenager to feel more empowered, to understand they still have some control over what happens to them and that they can learn to cope with anxious feelings.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s happening regularly, take it seriously. Physical refusal to go to school is often a last-ditch signal of distress, not defiance.<\/p>\n 4. Accept your limitations<\/p>\n Forcing a teenager to go to school when their nervous system is overwhelmed rarely ends well, and by the teenage years it is often physically impossible anyway.<\/p>\n Allowing them space to explain what is wrong and to regulate themselves is not \u201cgiving in\u201d. Accepting that your child cannot go in right now will not make the problem worse, but turning it into a tug of war almost certainly will. This stage is not for ever, but piling on pressure can prolong it.<\/p>\n 5. Reframe what\u2019s happening<\/p>\n The term \u201cschool refusal\u201d suggests your teen is making a choice. More often, when your child\u2019s nervous system is flooded, their bedroom feels like the safest place to be.<\/p>\n Try shifting your mindset from seeing them as \u201clazy\u201d or \u201cselfish\u201d to seeing them as struggling with feelings they can\u2019t control. Your teenager wants to cope with school just as much as you want them to, but right now it does not feel possible.<\/p>\n If it helps, think of it as you would a physical illness. You wouldn\u2019t shout at them for that.<\/p>\n