What happens after you have finished school?

It was a school morning and on the whole, our school mornings went terrible. My son really struggles with going to school, he cries, he shouts, he screams. Its more than just not wanting to go to school….why I hear you ask? Well the things he says are….

“My stomach hurts.”

“I feel poorly.”

“My clothes don’t fit.”

“My shoes are hurting.”

But I know that isn’t why. Its much more complex and harder to solve than that. And as a parent I feel like I am completely failing in solving this issue for my son. That’s if it ever can be solved. I have spoken to school about it and “he’s fine” at school…..of course I realise that is what they think but I know that he is just acting “fine”. The mental toll that going to school takes on my child is really really difficult for him to manage and for me to manage. My child plays a role at school, he tries to fit in and that is exhausting for him.  He just wants to be himself but he feels like he can’t be. There has been many a time when he comes home and says “I am so glad to be back here”. He is at his happiest just relaxing in the house – its when he has to join the outside world that he struggles.

School attendance has recently been a big thing in the news as the Department of Education had started a campaign that “Moments Matter Attendance Counts”. They had produced some quite ridiculous campaign adverts that didn’t go anywhere close to understanding the complex nature of what some people go through to get to school. The government website actually states…

“The programme provides intensive one-to-one support to pupils who are persistently absent working with them and their families to find out why the child is skipping school.”

Skipping school?? Ironic huh…I think the person who wrote that should go back to school with slang language like that!

Are you skipping school if you are so mentally exhausted you can’t go on? Are you skipping school if you have needs that aren’t being met at school?  Yes my son was acting “fine” at school but was he actually fine? And the anxiety he felt beforehand and afterward was awful.

There were times when I kept my son off for his own sake and no marketing campaign as short sighted as this one could ever convince me I was doing wrong. I knew on the days I kept him off that I was doing the right thing for him and I defy anyone from the Department of Education to tell me otherwise. However I also knew that what I was doing was not a long term solution to the problems my son faced around school. I needed help but it was obvious I was not going to get help from the school or from the Department of Education. I was not alone in this either, looking at twitter during this period there were lots of parents, school aged children and past students who had stories of their own. One particular hashtag on twitter seemed to be prevalent #notaschoolskiver and I could see why after reading the government website. Reading all the tweets from this hashtag was heartbreaking. But also comforting to know me and my son weren’t alone in this.

This particular morning had been stressful, as soon as my son awoke, I knew it was going to be one of those mornings. To make matters worse our house is so dark during the night and on a morning and my son hates lights so I keep a torch on his bedside table for him so when he wakes I don’t have to put the big light on. This morning he couldn’t find the torch and while we were both looking he accidentally headbutted me in the nose. My eyes filled up with tears – real tears and eye watering tears but I managed to pull myself round. Straight away my son was saying he wasn’t going to school and my heart sank. I wanted to scream, cry and give up on the morning already but of course I gave myself a talking to in my head. I wiped away my tears, I checked my nose wasn’t bleeding and I told myself to calm myself. By keeping calm I would help my son, his nervous system was dysregulated and so the calmer I was the calmer his nervous system would be. We got through breakfast but all the time my son was saying he wasn’t going to school, he felt poorly, his stomach hurt. I flew round the house sorting out what I needed to and trying to get myself ready while also feeling sick because I knew what was coming. My husband later said I looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

It was soon time to get dressed and at this point my son started rolling around on the floor refusing to take his pyjamas off. I had around 15 minutes left in order to get him dressed before we had to set off. It was going to be tight. I sat and waited patiently but time was ticking away. I asked my son to get dressed. He took his pyjama top off but then ran off into the corner of the room and crouched in the corner crying and saying…

“I’m not going to school, I am NOT going to school.”

Seriously what am I to do in these situations?

I had his clothes on the radiator warming as it was cold and told him that if we put his t-shirt on, it would be nice and warm. He came closer and put his t-shirt on. Once on he started ripping it off. It came off and he then said it was cold. I put it back on the radiator and we tried to put pants and socks on. He took his pyjama bottoms off and put pants on, the socks though…they were an issue, the seam of the socks on the toe was irritating to him, he said they were inside out but they weren’t. I took the socks off and we tried another pair – these were better and he kept them on. All the while he was crying and saying I am not going to school. We put his joggers on and they came straight back off. He sat for a minute then put them on. There was now just his t-shirt and jumper to go. He was refusing these and at this point I could hear his sister coming down the stairs so I told him his sister was ready and we would be going soon. He wasn’t happy that his sister was ready before him so he quickly put his t-shirt and jumper on but then immediately rolled onto his floor and over to the corner of the room and said….

“I am NOT going anywhere.”

I knew we needed to go so left his room to go get my shoes and coat. He reluctantly followed and he made it into the kitchen. We were getting closer to the door. He asked why he needed to go to school and really I did not know how to answer it for him. No answer I could give him would make him feel better.  I felt like the worst parent in the world.

Me and his sister stood ready in the hall and he reluctantly followed and got his shoes on but one was kicked straight off as he said it didn’t feel right. I put it back on him with great care but he kicked it off and said it still didn’t feel right. His sister stood completely quiet, over the last few weeks she has helped me massively by just standing quiet, not huffing or puffing like she used to do, not saying a word and it really really helps. We finally got the shoe on comfortably and we left the house. Just one last hurdle to cross and that was getting in the car. And just as he was getting in the car he kicked his shoe off again and said they were too small for him. I put the shoe back on, I strapped him in, I got in my seat, I put his favourite song on “This is Real” by Jax Jones – it has a very soothing beat, or certainly seems to calm my son, and we listened to that on repeat while dropping his sister off at her secondary school before setting off for his school. I was a wreck and it was only just 8.15am. It had taken 20 minutes from starting to get my son dressed to getting him out the door. I was wondering whether I had this in me to do for the next 10 years until he finished school, when weirdly while we were stopped at the traffic lights he asked me…

Him: “What happens after you have finished school”

Is he psychic? Does he know what I am thinking?

Me: “You decide what you want to do that makes you happy and you get a plan together to do that”

Him: “Like get a job”

Me: “Yes, you could be a fireman, policeman or a footballer. I work in an office with computers which is a nice job to have” (its not really but you have to be positive don’t you haha)

Him: “My dad wants me to be a footballer……but after school I think I am going to be a……(wait for it)………teacher”

Had I heard right???? Had he just said he wanted to be a teacher. Thank God we were stationary at the lights otherwise I think I would have crashed the car. I had spent the last hour trying to get him to school. Not just the last hour but the last two years and it was getting worse and becoming more of a mammoth task with every day that passes and I was tired, oh so tired. Every day I got him to school I felt a sense of failure for him. I had failed as a parent – we are supposed to make things better for our children and I couldn’t make this better for him. Every day I would sit at work and have a horrible feeling on me for most of the day until I saw my son again, until I saw my son was ok. I was forcing him into something that he didn’t fit in, somewhere he would never fit into and he had just said that is where he wants to spend the rest of his working life. I didn’t know if I could get him to school tomorrow never mind for the rest of his life!!!

Of course I praised him and said:

“That’s a great idea, as long as you are happy”

And who knows maybe he would make the best teacher – he would certainly understand the child who doesn’t want to go to school…..

And as for me I knew I was going to speak to school again. I wasn’t holding out much hope but I’ve got to try…..