HELP! My Son Won't Go to School

Post Reply New Topic

So, my 10 year old won't go to school on Mondays, and I don't know what to do. He used to always say he was sick on Monday mornings, but now he has "panic attacks."

He has a fear of storms, particularly "super cell thunderstorms," which terrify him. He is constantly monitoring the weather and if it looks like rain, he will spend the whole day hiding in windowless rooms like the bathroom. That's legit.

Once, he was so scared of a storm, he got diarrhea and threw up. So we let him stay home. The words "panic attack" came up that day, and since then he has one every Monday. Today, it's not even rainy, but he focused on the early morning haze.

We've tried everything. Nothing has worked. Today, we went nuclear. We let him stay home, but he has to stay in his room all day with no tv, no books, no video games. Just him and a bed. This is a combo of things. It's meant to make it so being home is worse than school, but it is also punishment for what he did throughout the morning ordeal - hit, kicked, cursed, called names, threatened to kill himself and others.

We tried talking to him when he calmed down, and he said it was a combination of anxiety over the weather and his behavioral plan.

His favorite toy is his iPhone. To be able to play it when he comes home, he has to have a good day at school. There, they fill out a sheet hourly describing his behavior with a number between one and four. One is the worst, four the best. If he gets any ones or twos he doesn't get his phone. He said that it was too high a standard, that there was too much pressure. So, we said he could get 3 twos in a day. If he got 3 of them, that equalled a 1, and he'd lose his phone.

Still, we're at a loss. I guess to me it seems like the anxiety is about school, particularly Mondays. If there is anxiety at all. Honestly, it could just be that he doesn't want to go. But I have no idea what to do. My wife is afraid we're going to have to send him to some sort of special school/group home sort of thing.

I'm just so uncertain. I don't know if what we have already done is right or wrong, or what we should do in the future.

Please help.

Reading your post it sounds like you've tried everything. But, it sounds like you're avoiding the obvious of forcing him to go, no matter how sick or panicky he gets.
I feel mean for suggesting that and obviously you don't want to make him suffer. But, if you can't find any other reason for why he doesn't like Mondays (try and find out first) and don't want him to go to a special school, then maybe you should consider doing this. (Easier said then done) Maybe see if the school will allow him time to calm down and do something fun once he gets there.
I used to have mild panic attacks on the way to work, at the same time, everyday. Evenutally my body adjusted and I no longer had them. It was unpleasent, but it worked even if it took months.
Avoiding the triggers of anxiety isn't really a good life lesson, sometimes you have to go through to get over them.

Easier said than done indeed. If he was already dressed, it might be possible. Today, we started to do it, but he was in a t shirt and underpants. Is it worth humiliating him at school? I'm certain that if I tried to force him dressed, I would fail. The kid is a tank.

I go back and forth. Sometimes I think of Temple Grandin's amazing mom, about how she was unrelenting. She wasn't easier on her daughter because of Autism - she was stricter. And I think maybe I am being too soft. I am highly empathetic, and I waver sometimes when I start feeling guilty.

But then sometimes I think we're not ring understanding enough I his anxiety and issues. I can't seem to find the proper level. I really feel adrift.

No, it isn't worth humiliating him.
Apologizes for my lack of helpful advice. I hope things get better.

Sounds like a bad habit. Could literally just be something that he does every monday now because it's a monday and that is what he does. Now that hes gotten to stay home though, whats to stop it from spreading to Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc?

He sounds a bit like my daughter. So what we do when things start to get like this, which they have over things like shopping and playing outside, is I reward her for 1) not freaking out in a situation where she normally would have 2) if she freaks out, I reward her if she showed signs of trying to stop herself, 3) reward for calming down or employing calming techniques if she freaked out, 4) big time reward for sucking it up and being brave and going forward stoically with the task at hand whether we freaked out or not.

Now she goes out and plays outside on a regular basis, willingly, and she loves swim lessons.

We also started to have this problem with school. Briefly. But I quickly figured out the issue. We were punishing her for bad days, in nearly the exact same way you are, by taking away her electronics. With her, that was never, ever going to work. The electronics are how she unwinds at the end of the day, how was she supposed to reset herself with out them? The thought of possibly losing her electronics over something seemingly arbitrary (to her anyway) drove her anxiety WAY up and caused her behavior to be REALLY wicked awful. So what we did instead is we reward good days and ignore MOST bad days completely. If she had a good day she gets a very very small amount of game currency for her favorite game. When she gets enough, or if there is a special in game event, we give her all the in game currency she had earned up till that point and she can use it. For most bad days we just listen to her version of events, talk about it ONLY if she's willing, but always just give her a hug, shrug, and say, "Tomorrow is another day, isn't it?" That is most bad days.

The rest of the bad days are those rare days where she has gotten violent. IF she hits, bites, or kicks ANYONE then she loses electronics for the rest of that day and all of the next day. She may only read books or watch educational TV. Period. I know she can stop herself from doing those things. I know she can because she doesn't do them all the time or everytime and whenever she does do them she completely accepts the removal of electronics with no arguement at all. She may have a justification in her head that she will try to put forth but I always say, "It doesn't matter, it is never ever ever ok to hit, bite, or kick someone, ever. There is never ever a reason to do that so there is no justification you can give me that I will ever accept. It is always wrong to hit, kick, or bite, period." I make it very black and white for her because if I leave a grey area that's "confusing" and she'll apply that grey area innapropriately.

This has worked EXTREMELY well in conjunction with the addition of earmuffs or ear plugs in school. Her behavior has improved so much it is astonishing really.

Hey, thanks for trying. The sympathy is helpful.

CWA - This is an interesting approach. Is this what you do for all behavior issues, or just at school. I have to admit, it feels like doing nothing at all in some ways, but I am open-minded and desperate.

My son used to say that he wished school was 7 days week, and 9 hours a day. Not because he loved school, but because school should be school, no homework, no transitions, just get it done with.

How different are the weekends for your son? Is he sleeping in more? Are the weekends too short ... or too long? Take a hard, hard look at the transition.

My daughter has never done Monday's well, either, and she is NT. Again, its about the transition. She uses the weekends to catch up on sleep but at the same time it throws her off the evening schedule. It's been difficult to tackle.

If it isn't the transition, it could be that things are going poorly at school in ways he hasn't been able to communicate.

Meanwhile, talk to him in a space of time that is not Monday morning. Make it clear that he HAS to go to school, and that you want his help figuring out strategies to make it happen. See if it is possible to get his take on what is going on. If he can't talk about it in the first person, try having him help you out with a fictional story where the characters face similar challenges.

If he simply hasn't got the skills to do better at school than he is doing, punishing him at home could certainly lead to panic about school.

With our daughter we had to separate out what she could do and then figure out how we would help her do better. She has AS ADHD and learning disabilities and school will never be easy for her. We do communicate with the school about her classroom behaviour and how they are supporting her, but we don't punish her for anything that happens at school - that is the school's job.

If she is violent in a meltdown or a similarly serious incident happens, we spend time reinforcing the school's position and absolutely do not condone assault of any kind by her. Rather than punish her though, we talk about the potential consequences of violent behaviour including police and court involvement. She responds well to concrete, detailed explanations of the rules and consequences in life.

Good luck finding an approach that will work for your family. It is hard work all around.

Ten...

That was one of the years I spent sicking out of school left and right. Bullies, rules that sure seemed to apply differently to me than to everyone else, friends that weren't even really friends, instructions I didn't understand...

...I wasn't exactly faking. Those headaches and stomachaches were, to be quite frank, psychosomatic.

Eventually, I got sick of doing the makeup work and missing even more instructions and having snowballing problems. About the time I turned 12, I started sucking it up and going to school. In seventh grade and beyond, I was the perfect attendance kid, the one who was so terrified of missing something or messing something up and who hated makeup work so much that she dragged ass to school with a temperature of 102 and what was, honestly, probably a terrible case of pneumonia. Teachers would be screaming, "GO HOME!! WE DON'T WANT YOUR GERMS!!" The next day, I'd be there with a bar of soap, cough drops, and a hanky to hack into, but I'd be there.

The first thing to do is try to figure out what, if anything, he's avoiding at school and try (good luck, hah) to address it.

The next step, to be quite frank, is either to accept that some days he just can't deal with it and let him stay home (work this out with the school to avoid issues with truancy law, or let him see you try and fail to work it out and then explain the situation to him as part of why he has to go, bullies and hazy skies and supercell storms notwithstanding), march him out the door kicking and screaming if necessary, or medicate him into compliance or put him in a special school.

I wish I had some magic words that would let you get through to the kid. I understand that he is not me, his autism is not my autism, and this is not 1988 (which is when I was 10) in BFE West Virginia (which is where I was 10). I understand that it's probably not acceptable, any more, either to shove a kid out the door kicking and screaming or to let a spectrum kid wallow in his own self-indulgence until he decides of his own accord that acting that way is silly. I don't know what to do.

That's just what Saint Alan of Aspergia and Cattrina the Martyr did with me. It worked, for one family, with one ASD kid, at one time, and in one place. Your mileage almost certainly will vary.

Oh and-- THIS.

I tried, last year, to punish my son for every single time he got out of line at school. By the end of the year, I had a sullen, deceitful, miserable, tearful little boy whose behavior had barely improved in some ways and was worse in others.

I had a happy kindergarten teacher-- and in-laws (whose kids all moved 1000+ miles away the minute they finished high school) who slapped me on the back and told me to stay the course-- but we paid for it tenfold with a miserable child, a miserable mother, and a miserable home.

This year, we're talking about misbehaviors. Having to sit on the front steps and discuss the situation with a chain-smoking mother is, apparently, more than punishment enough. He is, I hope, learning some alternative skills. I HATE explaining to the innocent, beautiful little snowflake that the rules apply differently to him than to typical kids and iterating and reiterating and reiterating that he must do things like tolerating subtle bullying with his hands in his pockets and his mouth shut-- but THAT'S LIFE.

Knowing he was going to come home and get berated and punished-- usually in a downward spiral as he grew more frustrated and messed up again while simultaneously being put under a microscope and watched much more closely than his sisters-- was just more stress than the kid could deal with. Too much to ask of anyone. I did it because that's pretty much the way society treats autistic kids, and people with ADHD, and folks with Tourette's, and folks with panic disorder-- you make it disappear or you pay and pay and pay. I still tell him that that's the way the world is...

...but I also let home be a safe place for him, the way I need home to be a safe place for me, the way anyone needs home to be a safe place for them.

I think this is so crucial for our kids, to have a place they can stim and touch and mumble or whatever. Recharge and gather the energy they need to face a less forgiving outside world. We saw a big difference when I decided to give up my house to my son's needs.

Pretty much. We sort of operate under the assumption that all "bad" behaviors fall into one of two categories:

1) Oblivious behaviors- things she does that are annoying, loud, disruptive, not socially "OK" but that she just doesn't understand, isn't in complete control of yet, and things that can be worked on. This would be things like blurting out in class, or monologuing for 10 minutes about roly polies when she was asked a math question. Bumping into people. Not knowing a peers name even though she's known them for 2 years. Rigidity. All those sorts of things.

2) Anxiety driven behaviors- tics, stims, and as she gets agitated, growling, extreme obstinance, aggression, violent behavior refusal to participate, refusal to do anything. Even some passive behaviors such as wanting to stay in bed, not talking at all, staring at the ceiling, sucking on her fingers etc... fall into this category. Her big tell is tongue clicking. There is always some, but when she gets agitated there is a lot more and it will pop in mid sentence, and if she's not talking you will get a ton of it. It's subtle.

In general, criticisim about, or "Working on" or trying to control things from #1 above builds up stress which leads to behaviors from #2. For example one day she was at the library reading a book. She is anal about keeping her spot. Anal is putting it mildly. PREviously she wouldn't even mark her spot, she would simply refuse to stop reading any book until she got to the end. Well, She knows she's anal about (now) it so her way to deal is to put a book mark in the book herself. MAkes sense. So she marked her spot and then her aid picked up the book. Her aid let the book mark fall out on accident. DD6 went ape %$#@. What it boiled down to was she worked so hard to control herself and not finish the book right there ( thats what she usually wanted to do so she wouldn't lose her spot) so she controlled herself, which was stressful for her and put the book mark in. But when it didn't work out, and her worst fear regarding this situation came to fruition, all that stress and anxiety exploded.

Pretty much EVERYTHING shakes out like that, at least with her. Now,if this library incident were to repeat, she would get to a point quickly where she wouldn't want to use a book mark, she wouldn't want to stop reading the book. IF there were more negative experiences surrounding books and the library she might get anxiety preceding these events to the point where, yes she would get stomach aches, etc... and eventually refuse to read or go to the library.

So punishing things like that, makes no sense. She already feels god awful. What am I punishing? Her emotions? YOu can't punish stress out of someone- if someone is anxious over a negative outcome to an event, adding more possible negative outcomes to that event is only going to make the situation worse, not better. Once I started laying off and said look "You have a green day and you WILL get this in game currency. If you have a red day you WILL get a hug, we don't even have to talk about it unless you want to. If you hit, kick, or bite anyone, you lose your electronics for two days."

Things have been SO much better. My general impression is that at least in her case, having a bad day was just as hard on her as it is on those around her. When She has a red day now she'll tell me what happened and not only will she tell me what she did to make the day red, she tells me WHY and what triggered some of her feelings, which is HUGE because then we can discuss them. She would never tell me that before. Before I would get the sheet from her teacher. See that she had a red day and the sheet would say "dd6 growled at her teacher and rubbed mashed potatoes on the table" (or whatever) and I would just punish those behaviors rather than trying to figure out wtf she felt the need to do that in the first place. Now she has whole weeks of green days at a time... and I'm going broke buying in game currency....

That is something that we have been looking at, actually. We used to let him stay up as long as he wanted on Friday and Saturday night, but sometimes he would stay up all night and it would mess with his sleeping patterns. We thought maybe he was extra tired on Monday, and that was causing the issue.

So, we changed his weekend schedule to mirror his weekday schedule, except lights out is 1/2 hour later. He didn't even resist the change. It helped a little, but obviously not enough.



I like that fictional story idea. I am actually a decent writer. I could type one up. I'm wondering how I might structure it to get the info I want. I don't want to lead him to false conclusions.

I hadn't really thought about it that way. It could create kind of a spiral, where desperation over the consequences of bad behavior begets even more bad behavior.

i went through periods of great difficulty at school. my anxiety would build around little things (to other people) but it was the accumulation that would cause a meltdown. i understood that i needed to learn to get along in school situations but it caused a great deal of anxiety. i understand the need to know how a child is doing in school but those kind of reports caused me more anxiety. if i messed up, i quickly realized it. then i had to worry about it for the rest of the day. then i had to imagine the response i would get when i got home. of course my anxiety, caused all these scenarios to quickly escalate in my mind. by the time i got home, i was a complete wreck inside. this caused my to withdraw and it appeared to others that i didn't care and was unresponsive. i'm not sure that i could have explained what had happened. even now it may take me several days to process a strong emotional reaction. my comfort items were my books and stuffed animals. taking those away sent me into complete hysterics. it was a perfectly normal response for my parents. for me, i no longer had any anchor. without those things, my world seemed to be complete chaos with no comfort. i realize that sounds terribly dramatic but i was a child. there were many times that i went through periods where i truly thought i was sick but i think i was making myself sick with anxiety. avoiding the anxiety did not help. at the time, it would have been more helpful to find ways to decrease the anxiety around school without avoiding school. if i get into a routine of avoiding something, it takes a herculean effort to get me out of it. i'm not sure any of this is helpful with your son. i'm just trying to give you another perspective. i did learn coping skills. it just took me longer. i now have a degree and i'm married with kids. life is good.