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Not wanting to go to school

JumpyNewall

My son is 6 years old and in Year 2 at a mainstream primary school with full time 1:1 support. He has always done fairly well academically and socially with his 1:1. Although he is marginally behind the others in his class in some areas, on the whole he is accessing the curriculum adequetly. Since starting Year 2, he has had his ups and downs, but this last week, he has decided he doesn't want to go to school at all. I think its related to the increased workload and less playtime in Year 2, as all he says repeatedly is that he wants to stay at home and play, and he doesn;t want to go to school and do his work. This week he has been inconsolable enroute to school, screaming, crying and physically heaving. I've spent at least 2 hours in the car outside school before being able to coax him inside with his 1:1. He will only play and doesn't want to go in the classroom, as he thinks that means he will have to do work. School are v supportive and will do whatever it takes to heklp him. but just wondered if anyone else had had a similar situation and could give any advice on strategies to calm him down and make him see school is not so bad. Its heatbreaking to see him so distressed. Thanks

Parents

  • Hi Jumpy

    I haven't been in the same situation as you, but I have a 12 yr old who won't go to school at all at the moment.

    How experienced are the school with autism? Can they get an autism outreach specialist to come in and help with some strategies?

    I wouldn't assume that it is the work in itself that is the problem. It could be anything, and your son is probably feeling quite confused and won't be understanding exactly what's up.

    I'm wondering whether you can try to find out which things he likes at school and which things make him uncomfortable. Maybe have a set of cards of things that happen at school and get him to rate them - probably best to keep it simple at his age, have a piece of paper with 'Like' written on it and smiley/happy picture and one for 'Don't Like' and then go through the cards with him and put them on the appropriate piece of paper, maybe have something inbetween like and don't like so that there is somewhere to put things that are in between. And so on the cards have things like 'playing with other children in playground', 'playing by self in playground', 'playing by self in classroom/library at playtime', 'eating lunch', 'doing work in classroom', 'doing work with the TA by myself in a quiet room', 'doing homework at home' ...... etc. whatever you can think of. Perhaps he will say that he likes to work alone with the TA in a quiet place rather than in the hustle and bustle of the classroom - just might give pointers as to what could be changed to help him. Maybe with things that he doesn't like, you could try to come up with things that could help make it better and write these down on the other side of the card. The other option is to rate each thing on a scale of 1 - 10, but I think you probably want to keep it as simple as possible for a 6yr old. Try to make sure there are cards in there that he will like so that it seems there are some positive things.

    Have you used social stories with your son? Could this help? Maybe best to talk to an autism outreach specialist about this.

    Sharon

Reply

  • Hi Jumpy

    I haven't been in the same situation as you, but I have a 12 yr old who won't go to school at all at the moment.

    How experienced are the school with autism? Can they get an autism outreach specialist to come in and help with some strategies?

    I wouldn't assume that it is the work in itself that is the problem. It could be anything, and your son is probably feeling quite confused and won't be understanding exactly what's up.

    I'm wondering whether you can try to find out which things he likes at school and which things make him uncomfortable. Maybe have a set of cards of things that happen at school and get him to rate them - probably best to keep it simple at his age, have a piece of paper with 'Like' written on it and smiley/happy picture and one for 'Don't Like' and then go through the cards with him and put them on the appropriate piece of paper, maybe have something inbetween like and don't like so that there is somewhere to put things that are in between. And so on the cards have things like 'playing with other children in playground', 'playing by self in playground', 'playing by self in classroom/library at playtime', 'eating lunch', 'doing work in classroom', 'doing work with the TA by myself in a quiet room', 'doing homework at home' ...... etc. whatever you can think of. Perhaps he will say that he likes to work alone with the TA in a quiet place rather than in the hustle and bustle of the classroom - just might give pointers as to what could be changed to help him. Maybe with things that he doesn't like, you could try to come up with things that could help make it better and write these down on the other side of the card. The other option is to rate each thing on a scale of 1 - 10, but I think you probably want to keep it as simple as possible for a 6yr old. Try to make sure there are cards in there that he will like so that it seems there are some positive things.

    Have you used social stories with your son? Could this help? Maybe best to talk to an autism outreach specialist about this.

    Sharon

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