May 12, 2024 • 22 mins
Do you have a child who refuses to or is unable to go to school?
Sydney mum Alice joins Justin on the Happy Families podcast today to share the day-to-day pressure of trying to help a child get to school when emotions are high and nervous systems are in fight or flight mode.
If you are deep in the trenches of ‘school can’t’, this is a not-to-be-missed conversation, with some beautiful advice and encouragement to parents who are feeling stressed, judged, and alone in their struggle to get a child to school.
In this episode:
- Emotionally-based school avoidance (EBSA)
- Reasons for 'school can't'
- School Can't Australia (Parent/Carer Peer Support) | Facebook
- Neurodivergence (Autism, ADHD)
- Importance of friendships
- Pressure on parents, judgement
- Homeschooling
- Mental health of parents
- Moving schools
- "Is it just me? Am I the only one who can't get their kid to go to school?"
- School refusal and the Australian families gripped by blame, shame, and the fear of a lost education - ABC News
Related links:
- School Refusal – Happy Families
- #533 Emotion Based School Avoidance aka School Refusal – Happy Families
- A Grown Up’s Guide to Worry Stacking – Happy Families
- Resilience: Developing Strength, Calm, & Kindness in Our Kids – Happy Families
- We Need to Talk About Parent Wellbeing – Happy Families
- Moving? How to Help your Child Settle Into A New School – Happy Families
Leave a voice memo here or email your questions/comments to podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
Find out more about joining THE QUEST at our website
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
The time poor parent who just once answers, now well
missus Happy Families. Kylie still has a sore throat. She
can't speak at all. Mother's Day was a very quiet
one for all of us. Because of that. I'm feeling
so bad for her. But today something really different on
the Happy Families Podcast. Normally, on a Monday, we will
(00:27):
talk about big parenting issues. Kyli and I bounced the
ideas around. On Wednesdays we do interviews. Today though I'm
going to do a bit of both. I've got a
special guest joining me on the podcast today to talk
about a really big parenting issue. Alice is a Sydney mum.
She has one child. Freedom Autism and ADHD are the diagnosis,
(00:49):
and Alice joins me now to talk about her recent
appearance on four Corners two weeks ago. Today, Four Corners
put together a really really insightful television show about what's
known as school can't typically known as school refusal, my
preferred term and in the research literature is known as
(01:11):
emotion based school avoidance, and so to talk about kids
that won't go to school, kids that are refusing to
show up kids that just you can't get them out
the door. Is a mum who's going through it and
has done for some time. Alice, thanks for being here
on the Happy Families podcast. It's just a delight to
have you here and to have you so willing to
talk about something that is so hard and so surrounded
(01:32):
by so much judgment. Really good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Thanks, Justin. And you're exactly right about the judgment. It's
been judgment since day one. People tend to assume it's
just that you're a soft parent, and you know, you
just need to crack down in your kids and make
them go to school, which you know I did for
a while. It was literally dragging my child into the
classroom and having the teacher restrain her in the classroom
(01:58):
and shut the door and lock the door. And yeah,
not surprisingly, that didn't actually work.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
If we went right back to the very beginning, when
did this start and how old is Freda.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Nout Frida's now ate just about to turn nine. This
happened when she was in her first year of school,
so kindergarten or prep, depending on where you are. Even
on day one, she had a bit of trouble going
in which is not that surprising. But as time wore on,
it became harder and harder for her. The goodbuyers in
the morning became more and more challenging, and eventually it
(02:29):
got to the point where she would become so distraught
that she would sometimes try and run across busy roads.
She would climb a tree and stay there for an hour.
She would try to scale the school fence, and it
became almost impossible. Her being restrained by the teachers actually
really traumatized her and actually set us back and made
(02:51):
it harder because it felt then like school wasn't a
safe place. These were the adults who were meant to
be keeping her safe, who were meant to be safe people,
and she didn't feel safe with them because they had
restrained her and made her even more scared.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So potentially impossible question, or maybe one of those obvious questions.
It could go either way. But where did it come from?
Like day one, it's pretty much as soon as she
starts school. I mean, I'm doing the maths here, and
I'm thinking this was around around COVID if she's nine
years old.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now, yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Did start before COVID, So I don't actually think that
COVID was a factor for her. I know that it
has been for a lot of kids, but not so
much for her. She's never really been able to articulate
what it is. She's always wanted to go to school.
She really likes it when she's there.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it. I really want to
be there. But tell me that I've got to go
and I fall apart.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah. Yeah, So she says, you know, I really want
to be there, I just don't know how. And you know,
you sort of ask is it because of this? Is
it because of that? You know, you kind of let
her talk for a while, and she still can't put
a description to it. One thing that I've observed at
school is that they're quite intense places, right you know,
(04:08):
you get into the playground at the start of the day,
it's noisy, it's busy people running around everywhere, and then
the bell rings and then there's more noise and more
business to line up, get into the classroom, et cetera.
And then there's all of these transitions throughout the day,
which is something that a lot of autistic kids. Frind
challenging and Freda certainly does and sometimes unknown. So you
(04:31):
don't know, you know, there's last minute changes or you
don't have a good idea of what's happening that day,
and just the sensory overwhelmed throughout the day, the noise,
the business, the lights. They're having to sit still is
pretty it's pretty intense for neurodivergent kid. So I think
(04:52):
that that certainly is a factor in it. You know,
for her, certainly, the trauma of being restrained at school
was a big one.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And I know.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Certainly now that one of the reasons why she finds
it hard to go when I take her is that
she most of those instances of restraint actually happened when
I was dropping her off rather than her father, and
so she sort of has links that to me a
little bit, not that it was my fault or anything
like that, but that it occurred then. So there's a
(05:23):
kind of an association.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I suppose, Alice, you have a reasonably flexible work life.
You've got a little bit of autonomy in when you work,
where you work, and how you work, which certainly is
to your advantage. What would you be doing if you
were a typical parent with a standard nine to five
and you've just got to show up at work. How
did you get around this?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I do not know. Honestly, I do not know.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I don't know how anybody can manage that unless they literally,
you know, had their child restrained every morning. Yeah, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And that's assuming you can.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Get them out the door and into the car again
without physically dragging them into that, which is, you know,
terrible for your relationship and obviously for their mental health.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So I don't I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm very very fortunate to be able to work from
home and to have very understanding manager and head of
department who just trust me to just get my job done,
you know when and how I can.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Watching you on the show, I can imagine that there
would have been some blowback. People would have been saying,
oh this soft parenting, Look at how soft and gentle like.
This kid just needs boundaries. You've already described that, you've
gone through the forceful I'm taking you. You will be restrained,
you're staying, we're locking the door. That didn't work, no doubt.
You've had psychological intervention, You've had experts trying to guide
(06:47):
you in this process. Clearly nothing is working at this point.
What has been the most useful the most effective, the
most successful process for you in getting free to school.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
To be honest, moving schools was a big factor. She
had trauma around that particular school. They were not at
all helpful in terms of disability support, and in fact,
they again blamed it directly on parenting. In fact, her
first learning plan included a point that their parents were
to do a parenting course instead of them talking about
(07:22):
their disability adjustments they were going to make. So it was,
you know, even the principal restrained her at one point,
which you know they're not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Do at all. But so we moved her to a
new school. We were really lucky.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It's just such a lucky dip with public schools as
to the one that's in your area and how good
they are or not. Up the road from where I live,
there's another school that is fantastic with autistic kids, but
we're not in the couchment for that. So fortunately her
dad moved in the couchment for this other school and
they have supported us from day one. Day one, she
(08:01):
had a learning support person with her. Her teacher was
really open to trying new things, and Freda's very very
good at masking, and so people often don't see They're like, oh,
she's finding class. But her teacher could see through that
and knew when she was having a bit of a
hard time, so she'd go and suggest, you know, do
you want to go and get a drink? Do you
(08:21):
want to go for a walk. She even set up
on her desk, for instance, three little pictures and Freda
could walk up point to one of them, and the
teacher knew that that meant she just wants to needs
to go outside for a minute, just to help her
sort of to calm her nervous system down. They have
been so wonderful. She had a bit of fear around
(08:42):
going to the library, for instance, so they said that's okay,
we'll just take library completely off the table for now.
She would stay and do some drawing with one of
the learning support officers, and eventually they introduced that the
learning support person would choose a few books for her.
They'd look on the catalog together and she'd choose it
for a few books for her. Then Frieda. It was
(09:04):
all led by Frida. Frida then said I'm ready to
go to the library, so she would go and she
would sit there, didn't borrow any books. I didn't put
that pressure on, and then eventually it got to the
point where she, you know, is good to borrow books.
And that really personal and compassionate approach and also an
(09:27):
approach that understands how kids work was the thing that
made the difference. So with Frida, the second that I
put any pressure on in terms of going to school,
in terms of going into the classroom, her nervous system
at that point is already so fired up. She's already
in fital flight, and you put that extra pressure on
(09:48):
and it just pushes it like completely, you know, off
the scale. So I know that for me, I have
to calm my own nervous system and let her do
it in her time and tell me when she's ready.
And that might sound like self parenting, to me, that
(10:09):
sounds like working with the kid you have, working with
what works for their brains.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah. Yeah, Alice, thanks for being here on the Happy
Families podcast. Have you ever thought about homeschool? Sorry, dumb question.
I'm sure you've thought about homeschool a lot of times,
but you've persisted with regular school. Why have you stayed
with keeping her enrolled and trying to get her to
go to school?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So, first of all, it's because she loves school and
she wants to be there first and foremost. She has
a great group of friends. She's always always gotten on
very well with other kids and made friends easily. She's
going fifty percent of the time at the moment, which is,
you know, a fast improvement on the I think it
was fifteen percent one term that she has.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So there's that factor.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's also finances life. I cannot afford to stop working.
I live in It's expensive, and her father works in
a job where he needs to be on site every
single day, so he wouldn't be able to do any
of that, so it would fall entirely to me, and
financially it's not sustainable. But also in terms of mental health,
(11:21):
you know, that's an enormous load for one person to bear,
and it's not That's not how we meant to live,
you know, isolated in our homes, teaching our kids. I
know the people who do home school very successfully, and
I know that that can be done, but at this
point in my life, I don't feel like that's a
feasible or sustainable option for us.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
We had a couple of kids who were really struggling
with school, and one who was just not fitting in
that we weren't dealing with school refusal at a pathological level,
although there was definitely a thing we're having the kids
at home too many days, But it was really a
question of this child does not fit in school. The
(12:03):
school curriculum, the school requirements, the school parameters, boundaries, frameworks,
they just don't work for this particular child. It's been
we did a complete nothing term at the end of
last year. Term one. This year was really really hard.
Term two, it seems like it's finally coming together for
this particular child and we're starting to really enjoy having
(12:25):
her around. But I'll tell you what the impact that
it has on your life. It is, like you said,
it's full time, Like there's no capacity, there's no room,
there's no space for anything except hardcore. Let's go, We've
got to get some school work done. And then there
are still challenges, like it is so hard, such a
hard thing to be a homeschool parent.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So yeah, it really really is.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I have so much admiration for people who do it
and bring that energy and creativity and you know, just dedication.
I have so much admiration for people who do that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Ye hardest thing hardest thing is just keeping away from screen.
So we've had an institute really full on screen limits
to make sure that the work gets done, because otherwise
the kids will just sit there and do it all day. Anyway,
let me ask you, in your experience with this, and
clearly you've been doing this for several years now, what
(13:19):
advice would you give to parents who are just struggling
with kids that won't get ready, won't get out the door,
won't go and get stuck in and make school work.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I mean, I don't really have a good answer to that,
because I'm still figuring it out myself. I mean, I
think I would say, first and foremost, trust your instincts.
Don't listen to the world that is telling you you're
a bad parent, because every single parent I know whose
child is struggling to attend school are some of the
(13:51):
most engaged, passionate parents I have ever met. It's not
about neglect. It's not about being lazy, by any stretch
of imagination. Fact quite the opposite. But I would say,
you know, try and dig a bit deeper to find
out what's going on, why it's happening. If you can,
if your child's able to articulate that, and the biggest
thing for me has been joining the school Can't Facebook group,
(14:15):
just knowing that you're not alone, talking to other people
about things that have worked for them and things that haven't,
and advocating for your child at school as much as
you as much as you can, because I mean, I
think my experience with Frida's first school was quite negative,
and I hope that that's not the case for everyone.
But we had to push really really hard for even
(14:36):
quite quite basic accommodations that should have been provided under
the Department of Own policies, you know. But yeah, I mean,
if you have any answers to that, I would love
to hear them, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, Well, I don't know that we've got really great
research around this. It's such an underresearched area. It's very
hard to get research on this, especially from a prospective
point of view, because you don't really know that a
school a child is going to have an emotion based
school avoidance response until you're sort of two weeks, three weeks,
four weeks in and then you suddenly go, oh, we've
(15:08):
really got a problem here. So it's hard to get
in prospectively before the problem and get that data. We're
going to be talking about it a fair on the
podcast over the next little while. But basically, I think
Alice and our experience has been this and yours likewise,
having really concerted, empathic conversations with the school, making sure
(15:28):
that you can be on the same page and that
there's good alignment, and making sure that you're advocating, as
you said, for your child. I love that you moved
your child's school. It's horrible, it's frustrating. You shouldn't have
to do that, but I love that you were courageous
enough to do it when you realize that the school
that you were attending, or that she was attending or
not attending, as these might be, was not working. I
(15:48):
still think things like the kids being invited to be helpers,
making sure that they've got great relationships with other kids,
and of course that's hard when you've got kids with
all these additional needs, they tend not to have have
strong relationships.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it depends. Like I have found.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
You know, there is that stereotype of autistic kids not
having great social skills, but I find that that Frida,
a lot of her friends are neurodivergent and there's great
social skills with it. They just get each other. It's
because their brains are similar and they give each other
space for their differences, and you know, they can find friends.
But I understand too that is challenging for.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Some other kids.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's not the case in freeda situation, but yeah, that
is hard, and I guess building that bond with school
can help and certainly does help engage some kids who
are having some challenges. Like you said earlier about one
of your children, that I think schools are just not
suited to some kids' brains. You know, the schools work
(16:52):
for a really certain type of kids, and that's great,
but there are a lot of brains that don't fit
into that, you know, not just not just kids with disabilities,
kids who you know, might learn in a more hands
on way or learn by doing different things.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And I think that's one.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Of the challenges too, Like most schools are kind of
set up in the same way they were, things in
a similar way, and it doesn't allow for us being different.
And that's no shade on teachers at all. They do
an unbelievable job, but you know, when they're in classroom
with twenty five to thirty kids, how do you accommodate
(17:30):
these different ways of learning?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You kind of have to take a broad approach. I
suppose to.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Try and capture as many as you can, but that's
not going to fit for all children. And that's a
real shame because I think, you know, some kids get
through school, they struggle through school, and they end up
coming out and feeling like they're you know, like they're
a bit stupid, or like something's wrong with them. And
those kids could have been could have done amazing things
(17:58):
had they been able to learn in a way that
works for them, you know, And so I think the
world misses out in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Is that kind of what you've found with your child
who struggled with school? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Not just us. We asked the question on back on
Saturday the third Back on Saturday the third of May,
we said, is it just me? Or am I the
only one who can't get their kids to go to school?
And the number of responses it was just enormous. At
the end of this month, we're going to get a
whole lot of listener responses. But people pretty much said,
that's why we went to homeschooling. A whole lot of
people pointed back to the Four Corners episode and one
(18:34):
person said, they just drag them kicking and screaming. Advice
given by most is damaging children care givers beyond measures.
There are a whole lot of people who just said,
when you've got kids that are refusing to attend school
or who are struggling so much to be there, even
if you do get them, they're not mentally present enough
to learn.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Exactly if their system is in fight or flight mode.
Their rational brain is off line. They're not taking anything in, right,
So it's you know, they're going to be present as
a body, but their brains are not online, right, They're
not taking anything in and that's so it's kind of
pointless doing that, pushing them when they're in that state.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, and one person said this, and this is what
we did when when our kids were at school, or
when our youngest was at school, we had this approach
where rather than fighting in the morning, because because Kylie
is at home as a full time caregiver for the kids,
Kylie basically just said, all right, the morning will be
what it will be, and by taking the pressure off,
(19:35):
the kids would get out of bed they would get
themselves organized and they would eventually get to school, sometimes
on time, sometimes an hour late, sometimes two hours late.
But when they were moving themselves through the morning the
right way, it just it made a huge difference and
one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yeah, and probably to you as well, right, Oh, once
you drop that, everybody is calmer. And that's what I
found I had to do with Freda as well. In
the mornings. You just kind of drop your expectationtions of
what it's going to be, and you know you.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Can go through.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You can have exactly the same outcome whether you're you know, pushing,
pushing or not pushing, but you know one way is
going to make you, yeah, have fewer gray hairs, and
you know, keep your relationship with your kids positive.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I think, well, Alice, I've really enjoyed the conversation. I'm
really grateful for it. There are no easy answers. That's
a really, really big difficult thing. We're going to link
to the Australian School Can't Facebook page in the show
notes as well as the Facebook page where we've asked
the question is it just me, so more people can
join the conversation and participate. Good luck. I'm hopeful that
(20:39):
over the next little while you see progress. Do you
think that Freda will get back to school in a
full time capacity anytime soon?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I am not sure. It's sort of a take it
day by day, yeah situation. You know, when you have
a positive day, you know, her dad said so many times, Oh,
I think she's turning a corner, and I'm like, don't
say that.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And today's she turns another corner and starts heading home
again exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
So it's you know, one good day is one good day,
and I think you just you take it like that.
I am not sure, honestly, I am not sure, but
I think she's in a far better place to be successful.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
At returning to school full.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Time than she was previously, and that's the biggest difference.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Well, thanks for chatting with me and thanks for speaking up.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Thank you. Justin I'm really looking forward to hearing this podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's Alice is a mum to Freda based in Sydney
and dealing with the challenges around school refusal or motion
based school avoidance. Look no easy answers, but we are
going to continue to talk about this on the podcast
over the next little while and see if we can
be as helpful as we can, try and get hold
of some experts some guidance. The Happy Family podcast is
produced by Justin Rowland for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce, our
(21:48):
executive producer. For more info about how you can guide
your children successfully, regardless of whether they're attending school happily
or not attending school at all, visit us at happy
families dot com Today no
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
The time poor parent who just once answers, now well
missus Happy Families. Kylie still has a sore throat. She
can't speak at all. Mother's Day was a very quiet
one for all of us. Because of that. I'm feeling
so bad for her. But today something really different on
the Happy Families Podcast. Normally, on a Monday, we will
(00:27):
talk about big parenting issues. Kyli and I bounced the
ideas around. On Wednesdays we do interviews. Today though I'm
going to do a bit of both. I've got a
special guest joining me on the podcast today to talk
about a really big parenting issue. Alice is a Sydney mum.
She has one child. Freedom Autism and ADHD are the diagnosis,
(00:49):
and Alice joins me now to talk about her recent
appearance on four Corners two weeks ago. Today, Four Corners
put together a really really insightful television show about what's
known as school can't typically known as school refusal, my
preferred term and in the research literature is known as
(01:11):
emotion based school avoidance, and so to talk about kids
that won't go to school, kids that are refusing to
show up kids that just you can't get them out
the door. Is a mum who's going through it and
has done for some time. Alice, thanks for being here
on the Happy Families podcast. It's just a delight to
have you here and to have you so willing to
talk about something that is so hard and so surrounded
(01:32):
by so much judgment. Really good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Thanks, Justin. And you're exactly right about the judgment. It's
been judgment since day one. People tend to assume it's
just that you're a soft parent, and you know, you
just need to crack down in your kids and make
them go to school, which you know I did for
a while. It was literally dragging my child into the
classroom and having the teacher restrain her in the classroom
(01:58):
and shut the door and lock the door. And yeah,
not surprisingly, that didn't actually work.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
If we went right back to the very beginning, when
did this start and how old is Freda.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Nout Frida's now ate just about to turn nine. This
happened when she was in her first year of school,
so kindergarten or prep, depending on where you are. Even
on day one, she had a bit of trouble going
in which is not that surprising. But as time wore on,
it became harder and harder for her. The goodbuyers in
the morning became more and more challenging, and eventually it
(02:29):
got to the point where she would become so distraught
that she would sometimes try and run across busy roads.
She would climb a tree and stay there for an hour.
She would try to scale the school fence, and it
became almost impossible. Her being restrained by the teachers actually
really traumatized her and actually set us back and made
(02:51):
it harder because it felt then like school wasn't a
safe place. These were the adults who were meant to
be keeping her safe, who were meant to be safe people,
and she didn't feel safe with them because they had
restrained her and made her even more scared.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So potentially impossible question, or maybe one of those obvious questions.
It could go either way. But where did it come from?
Like day one, it's pretty much as soon as she
starts school. I mean, I'm doing the maths here, and
I'm thinking this was around around COVID if she's nine
years old.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now, yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Did start before COVID, So I don't actually think that
COVID was a factor for her. I know that it
has been for a lot of kids, but not so
much for her. She's never really been able to articulate
what it is. She's always wanted to go to school.
She really likes it when she's there.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it. I really want to
be there. But tell me that I've got to go
and I fall apart.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah. Yeah, So she says, you know, I really want
to be there, I just don't know how. And you know,
you sort of ask is it because of this? Is
it because of that? You know, you kind of let
her talk for a while, and she still can't put
a description to it. One thing that I've observed at
school is that they're quite intense places, right you know,
(04:08):
you get into the playground at the start of the day,
it's noisy, it's busy people running around everywhere, and then
the bell rings and then there's more noise and more
business to line up, get into the classroom, et cetera.
And then there's all of these transitions throughout the day,
which is something that a lot of autistic kids. Frind
challenging and Freda certainly does and sometimes unknown. So you
(04:31):
don't know, you know, there's last minute changes or you
don't have a good idea of what's happening that day,
and just the sensory overwhelmed throughout the day, the noise,
the business, the lights. They're having to sit still is
pretty it's pretty intense for neurodivergent kid. So I think
(04:52):
that that certainly is a factor in it. You know,
for her, certainly, the trauma of being restrained at school
was a big one.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And I know.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Certainly now that one of the reasons why she finds
it hard to go when I take her is that
she most of those instances of restraint actually happened when
I was dropping her off rather than her father, and
so she sort of has links that to me a
little bit, not that it was my fault or anything
like that, but that it occurred then. So there's a
(05:23):
kind of an association.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I suppose, Alice, you have a reasonably flexible work life.
You've got a little bit of autonomy in when you work,
where you work, and how you work, which certainly is
to your advantage. What would you be doing if you
were a typical parent with a standard nine to five
and you've just got to show up at work. How
did you get around this?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I do not know. Honestly, I do not know.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I don't know how anybody can manage that unless they literally,
you know, had their child restrained every morning. Yeah, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And that's assuming you can.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Get them out the door and into the car again
without physically dragging them into that, which is, you know,
terrible for your relationship and obviously for their mental health.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So I don't I really don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm very very fortunate to be able to work from
home and to have very understanding manager and head of
department who just trust me to just get my job done,
you know when and how I can.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Watching you on the show, I can imagine that there
would have been some blowback. People would have been saying,
oh this soft parenting, Look at how soft and gentle like.
This kid just needs boundaries. You've already described that, you've
gone through the forceful I'm taking you. You will be restrained,
you're staying, we're locking the door. That didn't work, no doubt.
You've had psychological intervention, You've had experts trying to guide
(06:47):
you in this process. Clearly nothing is working at this point.
What has been the most useful the most effective, the
most successful process for you in getting free to school.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
To be honest, moving schools was a big factor. She
had trauma around that particular school. They were not at
all helpful in terms of disability support, and in fact,
they again blamed it directly on parenting. In fact, her
first learning plan included a point that their parents were
to do a parenting course instead of them talking about
(07:22):
their disability adjustments they were going to make. So it was,
you know, even the principal restrained her at one point,
which you know they're not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Do at all. But so we moved her to a
new school. We were really lucky.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It's just such a lucky dip with public schools as
to the one that's in your area and how good
they are or not. Up the road from where I live,
there's another school that is fantastic with autistic kids, but
we're not in the couchment for that. So fortunately her
dad moved in the couchment for this other school and
they have supported us from day one. Day one, she
(08:01):
had a learning support person with her. Her teacher was
really open to trying new things, and Freda's very very
good at masking, and so people often don't see They're like, oh,
she's finding class. But her teacher could see through that
and knew when she was having a bit of a
hard time, so she'd go and suggest, you know, do
you want to go and get a drink? Do you
(08:21):
want to go for a walk. She even set up
on her desk, for instance, three little pictures and Freda
could walk up point to one of them, and the
teacher knew that that meant she just wants to needs
to go outside for a minute, just to help her
sort of to calm her nervous system down. They have
been so wonderful. She had a bit of fear around
(08:42):
going to the library, for instance, so they said that's okay,
we'll just take library completely off the table for now.
She would stay and do some drawing with one of
the learning support officers, and eventually they introduced that the
learning support person would choose a few books for her.
They'd look on the catalog together and she'd choose it
for a few books for her. Then Frieda. It was
(09:04):
all led by Frida. Frida then said I'm ready to
go to the library, so she would go and she
would sit there, didn't borrow any books. I didn't put
that pressure on, and then eventually it got to the
point where she, you know, is good to borrow books.
And that really personal and compassionate approach and also an
(09:27):
approach that understands how kids work was the thing that
made the difference. So with Frida, the second that I
put any pressure on in terms of going to school,
in terms of going into the classroom, her nervous system
at that point is already so fired up. She's already
in fital flight, and you put that extra pressure on
(09:48):
and it just pushes it like completely, you know, off
the scale. So I know that for me, I have
to calm my own nervous system and let her do
it in her time and tell me when she's ready.
And that might sound like self parenting, to me, that
(10:09):
sounds like working with the kid you have, working with
what works for their brains.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah. Yeah, Alice, thanks for being here on the Happy
Families podcast. Have you ever thought about homeschool? Sorry, dumb question.
I'm sure you've thought about homeschool a lot of times,
but you've persisted with regular school. Why have you stayed
with keeping her enrolled and trying to get her to
go to school?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So, first of all, it's because she loves school and
she wants to be there first and foremost. She has
a great group of friends. She's always always gotten on
very well with other kids and made friends easily. She's
going fifty percent of the time at the moment, which is,
you know, a fast improvement on the I think it
was fifteen percent one term that she has.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So there's that factor.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's also finances life. I cannot afford to stop working.
I live in It's expensive, and her father works in
a job where he needs to be on site every
single day, so he wouldn't be able to do any
of that, so it would fall entirely to me, and
financially it's not sustainable. But also in terms of mental health,
(11:21):
you know, that's an enormous load for one person to bear,
and it's not That's not how we meant to live,
you know, isolated in our homes, teaching our kids. I
know the people who do home school very successfully, and
I know that that can be done, but at this
point in my life, I don't feel like that's a
feasible or sustainable option for us.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
We had a couple of kids who were really struggling
with school, and one who was just not fitting in
that we weren't dealing with school refusal at a pathological level,
although there was definitely a thing we're having the kids
at home too many days, But it was really a
question of this child does not fit in school. The
(12:03):
school curriculum, the school requirements, the school parameters, boundaries, frameworks,
they just don't work for this particular child. It's been
we did a complete nothing term at the end of
last year. Term one. This year was really really hard.
Term two, it seems like it's finally coming together for
this particular child and we're starting to really enjoy having
(12:25):
her around. But I'll tell you what the impact that
it has on your life. It is, like you said,
it's full time, Like there's no capacity, there's no room,
there's no space for anything except hardcore. Let's go, We've
got to get some school work done. And then there
are still challenges, like it is so hard, such a
hard thing to be a homeschool parent.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So yeah, it really really is.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I have so much admiration for people who do it
and bring that energy and creativity and you know, just dedication.
I have so much admiration for people who do that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Ye hardest thing hardest thing is just keeping away from screen.
So we've had an institute really full on screen limits
to make sure that the work gets done, because otherwise
the kids will just sit there and do it all day. Anyway,
let me ask you, in your experience with this, and
clearly you've been doing this for several years now, what
(13:19):
advice would you give to parents who are just struggling
with kids that won't get ready, won't get out the door,
won't go and get stuck in and make school work.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I mean, I don't really have a good answer to that,
because I'm still figuring it out myself. I mean, I
think I would say, first and foremost, trust your instincts.
Don't listen to the world that is telling you you're
a bad parent, because every single parent I know whose
child is struggling to attend school are some of the
(13:51):
most engaged, passionate parents I have ever met. It's not
about neglect. It's not about being lazy, by any stretch
of imagination. Fact quite the opposite. But I would say,
you know, try and dig a bit deeper to find
out what's going on, why it's happening. If you can,
if your child's able to articulate that, and the biggest
thing for me has been joining the school Can't Facebook group,
(14:15):
just knowing that you're not alone, talking to other people
about things that have worked for them and things that haven't,
and advocating for your child at school as much as
you as much as you can, because I mean, I
think my experience with Frida's first school was quite negative,
and I hope that that's not the case for everyone.
But we had to push really really hard for even
(14:36):
quite quite basic accommodations that should have been provided under
the Department of Own policies, you know. But yeah, I mean,
if you have any answers to that, I would love
to hear them, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, Well, I don't know that we've got really great
research around this. It's such an underresearched area. It's very
hard to get research on this, especially from a prospective
point of view, because you don't really know that a
school a child is going to have an emotion based
school avoidance response until you're sort of two weeks, three weeks,
four weeks in and then you suddenly go, oh, we've
(15:08):
really got a problem here. So it's hard to get
in prospectively before the problem and get that data. We're
going to be talking about it a fair on the
podcast over the next little while. But basically, I think
Alice and our experience has been this and yours likewise,
having really concerted, empathic conversations with the school, making sure
(15:28):
that you can be on the same page and that
there's good alignment, and making sure that you're advocating, as
you said, for your child. I love that you moved
your child's school. It's horrible, it's frustrating. You shouldn't have
to do that, but I love that you were courageous
enough to do it when you realize that the school
that you were attending, or that she was attending or
not attending, as these might be, was not working. I
(15:48):
still think things like the kids being invited to be helpers,
making sure that they've got great relationships with other kids,
and of course that's hard when you've got kids with
all these additional needs, they tend not to have have
strong relationships.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it depends. Like I have found.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
You know, there is that stereotype of autistic kids not
having great social skills, but I find that that Frida,
a lot of her friends are neurodivergent and there's great
social skills with it. They just get each other. It's
because their brains are similar and they give each other
space for their differences, and you know, they can find friends.
But I understand too that is challenging for.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Some other kids.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's not the case in freeda situation, but yeah, that
is hard, and I guess building that bond with school
can help and certainly does help engage some kids who
are having some challenges. Like you said earlier about one
of your children, that I think schools are just not
suited to some kids' brains. You know, the schools work
(16:52):
for a really certain type of kids, and that's great,
but there are a lot of brains that don't fit
into that, you know, not just not just kids with disabilities,
kids who you know, might learn in a more hands
on way or learn by doing different things.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And I think that's one.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Of the challenges too, Like most schools are kind of
set up in the same way they were, things in
a similar way, and it doesn't allow for us being different.
And that's no shade on teachers at all. They do
an unbelievable job, but you know, when they're in classroom
with twenty five to thirty kids, how do you accommodate
(17:30):
these different ways of learning?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You kind of have to take a broad approach. I
suppose to.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Try and capture as many as you can, but that's
not going to fit for all children. And that's a
real shame because I think, you know, some kids get
through school, they struggle through school, and they end up
coming out and feeling like they're you know, like they're
a bit stupid, or like something's wrong with them. And
those kids could have been could have done amazing things
(17:58):
had they been able to learn in a way that
works for them, you know, And so I think the
world misses out in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Is that kind of what you've found with your child
who struggled with school? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Not just us. We asked the question on back on
Saturday the third Back on Saturday the third of May,
we said, is it just me? Or am I the
only one who can't get their kids to go to school?
And the number of responses it was just enormous. At
the end of this month, we're going to get a
whole lot of listener responses. But people pretty much said,
that's why we went to homeschooling. A whole lot of
people pointed back to the Four Corners episode and one
(18:34):
person said, they just drag them kicking and screaming. Advice
given by most is damaging children care givers beyond measures.
There are a whole lot of people who just said,
when you've got kids that are refusing to attend school
or who are struggling so much to be there, even
if you do get them, they're not mentally present enough
to learn.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Exactly if their system is in fight or flight mode.
Their rational brain is off line. They're not taking anything in, right,
So it's you know, they're going to be present as
a body, but their brains are not online, right, They're
not taking anything in and that's so it's kind of
pointless doing that, pushing them when they're in that state.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, and one person said this, and this is what
we did when when our kids were at school, or
when our youngest was at school, we had this approach
where rather than fighting in the morning, because because Kylie
is at home as a full time caregiver for the kids,
Kylie basically just said, all right, the morning will be
what it will be, and by taking the pressure off,
(19:35):
the kids would get out of bed they would get
themselves organized and they would eventually get to school, sometimes
on time, sometimes an hour late, sometimes two hours late.
But when they were moving themselves through the morning the
right way, it just it made a huge difference and
one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Yeah, and probably to you as well, right, Oh, once
you drop that, everybody is calmer. And that's what I
found I had to do with Freda as well. In
the mornings. You just kind of drop your expectationtions of
what it's going to be, and you know you.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Can go through.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You can have exactly the same outcome whether you're you know, pushing,
pushing or not pushing, but you know one way is
going to make you, yeah, have fewer gray hairs, and
you know, keep your relationship with your kids positive.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I think, well, Alice, I've really enjoyed the conversation. I'm
really grateful for it. There are no easy answers. That's
a really, really big difficult thing. We're going to link
to the Australian School Can't Facebook page in the show
notes as well as the Facebook page where we've asked
the question is it just me, so more people can
join the conversation and participate. Good luck. I'm hopeful that
(20:39):
over the next little while you see progress. Do you
think that Freda will get back to school in a
full time capacity anytime soon?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I am not sure. It's sort of a take it
day by day, yeah situation. You know, when you have
a positive day, you know, her dad said so many times, Oh,
I think she's turning a corner, and I'm like, don't
say that.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And today's she turns another corner and starts heading home
again exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
So it's you know, one good day is one good day,
and I think you just you take it like that.
I am not sure, honestly, I am not sure, but
I think she's in a far better place to be successful.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
At returning to school full.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Time than she was previously, and that's the biggest difference.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Well, thanks for chatting with me and thanks for speaking up.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Thank you. Justin I'm really looking forward to hearing this podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's Alice is a mum to Freda based in Sydney
and dealing with the challenges around school refusal or motion
based school avoidance. Look no easy answers, but we are
going to continue to talk about this on the podcast
over the next little while and see if we can
be as helpful as we can, try and get hold
of some experts some guidance. The Happy Family podcast is
produced by Justin Rowland for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce, our
(21:48):
executive producer. For more info about how you can guide
your children successfully, regardless of whether they're attending school happily
or not attending school at all, visit us at happy
families dot com Today no
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