HELP! My Son Won't Go to School

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It is always possible to simply state that what you have been doing isn't working and we're going to try something new to see if we can do this better. As long as you are breathing you have another chance.

It has been a long run of trial and error, regrouping and trial again in our family, but our daughter will soon be 13 and she is gaining insight, self-directed strategies for coping and improved problem-solving skills and social skills. There is still a lot for her to develop into as she matures but we feel good about where things are going (even on bad days we can still see progress)

Your concern and willingness to consider other options and strategies will go a long way for your child.

You mention that you still have to be the dad. That is true.

I had to come to terms with the fact that this child was going to change my perspective on "good" parenting. I care a lot less about report cards than I ever thought I would, I allow all of my children to choose more than many other parents I know are comfortable with and my child misses school once in a while because she needs a day to recharge. We are forging our own path for sure.

Is it just Mondays? Perhaps ask his teacher for a list of the days activities on a Monday and show it to your lad... guage his reaction to each task on the list, maybe there is a class or something that is on the Mondays that he cant cope with right now, or simply cant cope with on a transition day (which Mondays invariably are).

For example, my boy HATED Mondays. Turned out it was because his school has assembly (whole school) on Mondays and the noise and commotion of 600 kids with teachers and a bunch of parents all in the one space was more than he could deal with but at the start he couldnt tell me that it was the assembly that disturbed him. It was like he didnt really get that it was the problem, he laid the problem on the whole day instead.

Once we clicked what the trigger was and arranged for him to enter quietly from the side when everyone was seated and quiet we found he stopped being so distressed. It will never be his favorite day but at least we can now work around the root cause.

Good luck, its not easy, but he is certainly worth the perseverance!

I urge parents to push children to do things outside comfort zone.

Anxiety becomes worse, not better, as child is allowed to avoid things that make him uncomfortable.

Also see if there are small changes at school that would help, but don't allow child to avoid things, because that is path to becoming lifelong anxious avoider of things.

Yes, you still have to be a Dad. And no, you cannot let the beloved little snowflake completely and totally get away with murder, even in the name of making home a safe place.

"Safe" doesn't mean that there are no rules, he's totally in control of the environment, and anything goes. The only environment I got to totally control (at least as long as no foul odors were issuing from it, no vermin infested it, and the door could still be shut) was my room. And there were still rules and things that didn't go in there.

It means something more like, "You are not going to be re-punished for the mistakes you made in the world today. At least, not unless we know for sure they were deliberately malicious, careless, or infernally stupid. There is a different set of rules here-- an easier set of rules here. We're going to help you figure out how to solve problems so you don't get punished out in the world so much, but the world does not get to make all the rules here."

And-- DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP. Even if you weren't doing the right thing (and you may have been, 'cause nobody died and made BuyerBeware God yet), you were TRYING. Nobody gets out of this parenting biz without screwing up a few things royally. Kids bounce. It's more important that they see you screw up, acknowledge the screw up, and fix it than that they see you model how to do everything perfectly-- unless, of course, you plan on them growing up to be perfect . Et cetera.

Thanks for all the advice and support. I'll let you guys know what kind of a plan we come up with.

Before we started homeschooling, we had so many problems with school with our son, and he did start having school-avoidance behaviors. Find out what is going on there. Go in and observe if you have to. You are apt to find all sort of things that you will look at as obvious problems that the school either does not understand or does not want to be bothered changing. You won't catch all of it b/c people's behaviors (Your son's, his teacher's and his classmates') will be altered by your presence. I would still be surprised if you found nothing. Your son's persistence strikes me as being more than just a transition issue. It may also be that he is happy during the weekend and the contrast between happy weekend and miserable school week are at its most obvious on Mondays.

I would analyze what he said about the behavior plan, very closely, to see what is going on with that, too. Do they punish him for things he cannot help, and therefore cannot change regardless of the incentive structure? Are the punishments proportional? Do they punish by taking away things he needs to de-stress? How can stress be lessened during his day? Is he having social issues that may not be bullying but that are stressing him out? Does he have executive function issues that no one is helping him with? Are his methods of de-stressing loud or disruptive, and they insist on him stopping it, without providing another outlet that he finds to be equivalent? Are things that they think are calming actually stressful for him?