Child won’t go to school
What can I do if my child won’t go to school?
Help us change lives by making a donation of any amount:
Some autistic children find the school environment and the demands of the school day extremely difficult, which can lead to absence or ‘emotionally based school avoidance’. This term might seem to suggest that the child or young person is choosing not to attend school, but they actually might be unable to tolerate school.
Reasons
This school avoidance may continue until the reasons behind it are addressed. Below, we will look at some of the reasons and suggest strategies to help your child attend school and reintegrate into the school environment.
The additional pressures autistic children and young people may face at school include:
- Finding it difficult to make and maintain friendships due to social skill needs.
- Having difficulty processing information and understanding questions in class.
- Struggling to organise themselves and prioritise tasks.
- Experiencing sensory differences such as sensitivity to noise, light, and smells.
- Striving for perfection in their work and seeing anything less as a failure.
- Misunderstandings due to taking things literally.
- Finding changes in routine difficult.
- Struggling to cope with transitions such as moving between classrooms for different lessons or changing teachers.
- Feeling stressed during unstructured times such as break times and lunch times.
- Finding it difficult to be away from family members and family routines
Parents are legally required to ensure that their child receives a suitable education by regularly attending school (or taking part in other suitable education, such as homeschooling). If your child is absent from school for more than a few days, due to illness, stress, or another condition, a medical certificate may be needed. If your GP can’t provide this, try contacting another health professional such as someone from CAMHS (Child Adolescent Mental Health Services). You should inform your child’s school and the local authority and discuss alternative arrangements for education.
Talk to your child about their experiences and feelings at school. For example, try asking them what their favourite lesson was that day or ask them to score parts of their day out of ten.
You could say, for example, ‘How much did you enjoy maths today with a score out of ten?’ ‘That’s a lower score than on Monday, why did you give it a lower score?’. If needed, use visuals such as a 1 to 10 scale to support the discussion.
Try to identify any patterns to their absences. Are they avoiding a certain lesson or person?
Speak to a member of staff who knows your child well. It may be that your child is showing signs of stress or worry in school at certain times or in certain lessons.
Alternatively, it may be that your child displays different behaviours at home than they do in school. Sometimes, children might bottle up their emotions in school and then release them at home once they’re in a more familiar and comfortable environment.
Consider whether your child may be being bullied or might be misinterpreting the actions of other people as being hostile when they are not.
For children who don’t use verbal or written communication, schools should consider:
- the views of parents, carers and others who know them well
- observations of the child in school
- a behaviour diary
- a home/school communication book.
Ways of offering supporting
It’s important to take action early if your child starts to show signs of being hesitant to go to school. Some possible strategies include:
- Encouraging them to talk to you about their concerns. It might help to have a one to five or one to ten scale of ‘not scary’ to ‘very scary’ and asking your child to rate different lessons and situations in the school day to identify key areas of concern.
- If you can get a copy of a map of the school, ask your child to colour in the areas of the school as green for ‘not scary’, yellow for ‘a bit scary’, and red for ‘very scary’.
- If you know why your child is hesitant to attend school, share this with school staff.
- Create a ‘worry book’ in which your child can write down any worries they have during the school day. Consider reading this back and discussing their worries with them as part of their evening routine. Work together to find ways that they may be able to cope with similar situations in the future or identify changes the school could put in place to make these situations less stressful for your child.
- If needed, identify strategies that your child can use to express their emotions, such as with a stress thermometer or traffic light system.
- Explore different calming strategies that they could use to help regulate their emotions- such as exercise or deep breathing.
- Reward and praise for having a go or succeeding at a task they find difficult- such as putting on their school uniform or walking into school.
- Provide structure and routine at home. Visuals may support this.
- Help them to further develop their social skills.
Strategies to discuss with the school
Your child may need different support strategies depending on the reason for their school avoidance. For example, there may be a specific issue that the school can help to resolve- such as bullying.
Some other triggers and strategies include:
- The school environment. Many autistic children have sensory differences. Meeting these sensory needs may help to reduce your child’s anxiety around school. An occupational therapist may be able to support with identifying and managing your child’s sensory needs.
- Would your child benefit from more or different support in school? Such as support transitioning between lessons or specialist input from a speech and language therapist.
- Identify coping strategies that your child may be able to use in school. Discuss these with the school SENCO. This could include having access to fidgets, a time out card, or other interventions.
- Ask the school to make reasonable adjustments at the start and end of the school day. For example, a familiar member of staff could meet your child at the entrance to the school, your child could be given time to engage in hobbies or interests, or they could be allowed to arrive at school slightly later or leave school slightly earlier to avoid busy crowds.
- Discuss with the school whether your child may benefit from additional breaks in the school day- such as time in a quieter area of the school or time to run outside.
- Your child may wish to discuss how they are feeling with a familiar member of staff at the end of the school day. They could talk through the day with the member of staff and give each lesson from the day a score out of ten.
- Your child’s interests may help them in their learning. For example, if they are interested in cars, could they count cars in a counting maths lesson? Staff being aware of and talking about your child’s interests with them may also help to develop positive relationships with staff.
- Would it be possible for the school to reward your child for small steps of achievement?
If your child is going back to school after a period of absence, they may benefit from starting on a part time timetable and then building up gradually. It may work better than your child trying to complete a whole day and feeling overwhelmed.
Ask the school whether autism awareness training could be organised for the staff.
The school can also organise opportunities for students to learn about a range of medical conditions, additional needs, and disabilities. This information could be shared in assemblies without mentioning any individual students. This may help to build a more positive and accepting school environment which could benefit your child and other students.
Schools should work with you and your child to identify and address areas of the school day that are causing your child stress. This will help your child to feel safe, accepted, and ready to learn.
The return to school may cause your child to feel anxious so careful preparation may be needed. Involve them in this process and share as many details as possible, such as
- which room they’ll go to first
- what time they’ll go there
- how long they’ll be there
- why they’ll be there
- what will happen next.
A visual timetable may help.
Before your child can access learning, they may need support in increasing their self-confidence, emotional wellbeing, and reducing their stress.
What if this doesn’t resolve the problem?
If you feel your child needs more support to return to school and to make progress in their learning, discuss this with the school.
If you feel that anxiety or another mental health condition may be contributing to your child’s school avoidance, talk to your GP about making a referral to CAMHS. They have a team that can advise you on psychiatry, clinical psychology, counselling, and other therapies.
The school could also involve the Education Welfare Officer. They work with schools, pupils, and families to support students’ attendance.
If your child continues to find it difficult to attend school, you may decide to choose a different school or consider home education.
If your child has a profile of pathological demand avoidance (PDA), talk to their school about support strategies. The typical strategies for autistic students may need adapting to suit students with a PDA profile.
The PDA Society has useful information (see our useful resources below). You could also suggest that school staff read more about helping children with PDA at school.
Useful resources
The Autism Education Trust has a pdf on how school stress and anxiety can lead to school avoidance: School stress and anxiety – how it can lead to school refusal and impact on family life.
The school could use the National Autistic Society’s learning resources for schools and the Autism Education Trust’s guide Promoting autism inclusive attitudes to help other students learn more about autism.
The PDA Society has useful information for families and carers, and guidelines for education settings.
If you need to find local autism services (schools, counsellors, local groups, diagnostic services) in your area, you can search on the National Autistic Society’s Autism Services Directory
You can also meet other autistic people and their families on the National Autistic Society’s online community
Make a donation
If you would like to help Chinese Autism, you can make a donation by following the link below. Thank you !