24th Nojovember. School refusal in Hot town, summery in the city - 2017

The thing about the phrase ‘school refusal’ is that it puts the onus on the child. As a general rule the child would like to be in school but the school make it a tough place to be. School refusal is usually something that neurodivergent children experience.

Anyway, I feel that youngest may have ADHD. They are constantly in trouble at school and their descriptions of how school feels increasingly gives that impression. On top of this, without me saying anything to them, they sent me a tiktok and asked me to read the comments because they described “what my brain is like”. Most of the comments were made by people with ADHD diagnoses.

Things that youngest (14yrs) has said

• I really try to make my brain listen, i think I’m listening to the teacher and when they’ve finished talking I have no idea what they’ve said

• how can they expect me to sit for an hour? My legs just want to move!!

• it’s so boring! They just talk all the time!

• I just don’t understand the instructions they write on the board, it makes no sense

Last night I challenged them to sit still for five minutes because, while watching telly (their choice of programme) because they were jumping up and down from the sofa, balancing a half empty bottle of water on the back of the sofa and punching it, trying to pour the water on me etc. this is totally normal behaviour for them.

For an ADHD diagnosis the person needs evidence of these ‘behaviours”’ before they were 12 and we were so focused on eldest and their autism needs that I just didn’t notice anything that may have been going on with youngest.

Anyway. Youngest just hasn’t gone to school this week . I’ve been in constant contact with the head and head of house to try to sort things out but I feel the buck is being well and truly chucked at me.

Youngest has no motivation to go to school because as soon as they are there they get into trouble. It’s as though the teachers have labelled them and it’s straight to isolation for misdemeanours that show what I keep telling the school. That they need to make reasonable adjustments to support youngest. But it’s such a battle. They just see ‘naughty’. But as someone with years and years of experience working with children, someone with qualifications in children’s development, learning styles, autism and ADHD, mental health etc etc I can safely say I have never met a child who misbehaved just because. There was always a reason behind it.