Daughter struggling to attend school, EW potentially pursuing prosecution

Sorry for the late reply and long post but I hope it's helpful. I have tried to cut it down to length a bit but this I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to share. If you have any questions or want any more details I'm happy to answer. 

I'm autistic and I was a 'school refuser' from the ages of around 11-14. For those years I missed around 40-50% of school days due to anxiety and panic attacks. My circumstances were different to your daughter's but maybe it would be helpful for me to tell you a bit about my experience anyway and give my input as well. 

I had very few issues at school until the transition to secondary school. Any kind of transition in school creates the potential for anxiety. In this instance I had a much bigger problem; shortly before secondary school my mother was hospitalised with cancer. Sadly she died a few months into my first year. After that I started experiencing panic attacks on an almost daily basis. I couldn't understand why I was so anxious at the time. In hindsight I guess the crux of it is that my mother had been my 'safety anchor' (or 'secure attachment'). When she died it felt like nothing was keeping me feeling safe and grounded anymore. I felt like I just couldn't cope with even small changes or challenges in my everyday life. That feeling of being unable to cope ended up fixating on school.

However at that age I couldn't have told you what exactly was making me anxious. I wanted to communicate and did my best to explain my feelings. Even so I couldn't communicate because I just didn't understand my own feelings at all. Like many (most?) autistic people I am alexithymic which means I struggle to identify, describe, and explain my emotions. In other words for almost my entire life I do not intuitively understand my feelings and struggle to access them or find the words for them. I had to consciously learn almost everything there is to know about emotions. When a counsellor asked me questions such as, "How did you feel about that?" I simply was not able to answer. If I said, "I don't know," or "Nothing," they seemed to disbelieve me and thought I was hiding my feelings. Over time I learned to simply tell them whatever I thought they expected to hear. In truth I really did not know the answer. To begin with I didn't even know that I was experiencing anxiety. From my point of view I just felt like something was wrong with my body. I struggled to figure out that I was afraid because I didn't see why I would be afraid. I struggled to make sense of my experiences on a very basic level. Sometimes I wondered if I was some kind of juvenile delinquent truant who was just making excuses to skive off. About a year into having regular panic attacks I learned the terms 'anxiety', 'anxiety disorder', 'panic attacks', 'school refusal', and 'school phobia' from the internet (nobody told me). It drastically changed my outlook to have vocabulary and a framework for understanding what I was going through, as well as the knowledge that I wasn't alone and that it wasn't my fault.

Your daughter would probably really like to tell you what's making her anxious, but in all likelihood she doesn't really know. It's kind of like asking an 8-year-old with a cold to explain what is making them sick. She probably does not have the level of knowledge that she needs to explain how her mental illness works She's likely to need help identifying what her feelings are and why she's feeling that way. Struggling to communicate might make her feel frustrated or helpless. She might worry that something is wrong with her or that she is doing something wrong. Try to give her the opportunity to talk to you about what's wrong when she would like to communicate, but don't create pressure for her to explain her emotions. Reassure her that it's OK to simply have feelings and acknowledge and validate those feelings without creating the expectation that she has to explain, understand, or justify them. Over time she will learn to understand and articulate her feelings better but it doesn't have to happen right away.

I think the reason my anxiety ended up fixating on school in particular was a couple of main reasons: First of all it's difficult to cope with change, especially when you're autistic. I was going through a transitional period going back to school. I was also going through puberty (which was a nightmare in its own right for other reasons but I digress). Secondly there was a huge amount of pressure surrounding school. For your daughter the transitional period of going back to school after lockdown has likely been very difficult. 

A lot of children have been finding it difficult to return and feel anxious now that schools have re-opened, especially since the pandemic is still going on. I would probably be feeling anxious in her position as well. It's a huge change to her routine that comes with a massive amount of stimulation and demands that she is not accustomed to. She no longer has easy access to the safety of her home environment. She is likely to be soaking up the tension other people are feeling. She may be worried about getting sick with Covid. Anxiety can also make you feel physically sick which can add to the anxiety. She is probably feeling like she's under a huge amount of pressure right now. There are many very understandable reasons why she might be feeling anxious.

Also while I was looking for those other links I found this document which has a breakdown of ways to intervene with a child struggling with emotionally-based school avoidance post-lockdown that might be helpful for you.

The most helpful accommodation my school offered was that I felt overwhelmed at school I was allowed to leave class and go sit in the welfare officer's office for a while. I would usually work there quietly by myself but also we would talk about how I was feeling and she would try to find ways to support me. It wasn't much but it gave me a sense that I had a safe place to go to. Unfortunately the school wasn't willing to make certain accommodations. For example they still punished late attendance and late homework. So if I was going to be late for school or hadn't finished homework on time I usually ended up missing school because of fear of punishment. Also in year 9 the school and local authorities started applying more pressure on me and my dad for me to attend more regularly. I think the last straw was that the welfare officer started pressuring me too. I can't remember exactly what she said but it was something like, "Hasn't this gone on long enough?" and after that I just really didn't feel safe at school anymore. I stopped going to school for around a month continuously. At that point dad my decided to remove me from school.

My dad didn't have time or money to really home-school me properly but he paid a tutor to teach me for four hours per week. Otherwise I was left to my own devices. It was not a good situation. However it gave me a much-needed break from the constant strain that was being put on my nervous system. It gave me time to rest and recuperate. A year later I went back to school and I attended almost every day going forward. 

Even positive interventions to encourage school attendance, such as rewards, can backfire by emphasising the importance of school attendance, which in turn creates pressure. The pressure adds to the anxiety and damages self-esteem. It may make her feel like she is failing to do something that's really important. Try to ease the pressure and relax expectations. Put school into perspective as being only one part of life and not the most important thing. Encourage her to prioritise other things, primarily enjoying her life, as well as pursuing her own independent learning and exploring her interests in her own time and in a way that she feels comfortable with. I really wish that at that age I had not had it drilled into me that school was the most important thing. I wish I had been given permission and encouragement to enjoy myself and pursue other things on days that I didn't attend school.

It's much easier to compensate for school absence than it is to recover from mental health issues. When I ultimately went back to school I made up for lost time pretty quickly. I had best GCSEs in my year 11 cohort. I did very well in my A levels and university as well. I'm not trying to be a braggart, just trying to make the point and offer some reassurance that it's still possible to do succeed academically after missing a lot of school.

I think that pretty much covers most of what I wanted to say. I imagine a lot of it is probably irrelevant but I hope at least some of it is useful. Happy to answer questions.

Thank you for this, I think it's really valuable to get insight from somebody with first-hand experience. As you say, your experience wasn't a precise match for our daughter's, but it was similar enough to give us something to think about.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, but I'm glad to hear that things eventually got better for you. Thank you again, wishing you all the best.

Thank you for this, I think it's really valuable to get insight from somebody with first-hand experience. As you say, your experience wasn't a precise match for our daughter's, but it was similar enough to give us something to think about.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, but I'm glad to hear that things eventually got better for you. Thank you again, wishing you all the best.