When your child is miserable at school or simply refusing to go in, it’s easy to feel desperate and lost. A school system that punishes parents and forces children to white-knuckle their way through education can compound feelings of hopelessness and fear. Here’s a short summary of things you can do to help yourself and …
When your child is miserable at school or simply refusing to go in, it’s easy to feel desperate and lost. A school system that punishes parents and forces children to white-knuckle their way through education can compound feelings of hopelessness and fear.
Here’s a short summary of things you can do to help yourself and your child navigate this difficult time.
- Put on Your Safety Mask First
This is essential first aid when the chaos of a child refusing school becomes life’s new curveball. We can’t help our child if we are completely dysregulated ourselves.
How people do this will vary, but here are a few important areas to check in on:
• Are you eating as healthily as you can? Avoiding sugary, processed foods and eating late at night can help your body rest and recover.
• Is your screen hygiene as good as it can be? Curate what you watch and engage with online so your nervous system has a chance to rest.
• Is your sleep hygiene as good as it can be? Watch out for the obvious sleep destroyers: caffeine, late-night snacking, doom-scrolling, and overstimulation. Give yourself time in the evening to slow down and attend to your heart and soul. Read, bathe, meditate.
• How is your circle of support? Do you need more support from family, friends, a therapist, or a faith community?
- Befriend the Bear
Like so many parents in this situation, you may have an angry bear inside you that wants to lash out at the school, your child, your partner, society, the Xbox…
This bear is MAD — and for good reason.
Our lives are already stretched, and when our children stop attending school, a cornerstone of support is removed. Work, health, relationships, and finances can all begin to suffer.
In your mind’s eye, take a breath and befriend this angry bear. Let it know that it makes sense. Of course it’s angry. Of course it’s frustrated and desperate.
See if the bear can feel understood. See if your empathy and compassion can soften its radioactive state.
Don’t rush this. Attend, befriend, and allow your nervous system to feel held in your own care.
- Drop the Anchor
Being the anchor for your young person means becoming their safe harbour.
It means regulating yourself so that you can help regulate them.
When they were screaming infants, perhaps you took a breath, sang gently, and curiously “Sherlocked” what was wrong with their system:
Are they hungry? Wet? Bored? Scared?
As children get older, we sometimes forget they still need that same attuned parenting.
If your child can’t tell you what is wrong with words, perhaps slow down and reconnect with the deep attunement you once used when they were tiny.
Tune in. Get curious. Be their safe harbour.
Drop your anchor and slow right down.
And if the angry bear is still nearby, see if that part of you can soften enough to let you breathe, regulate, and stay curious.
See if your child can feel the energy that tells them:
“You are safe with me. I am steady. I am on your side.”
If you are struggling with the fallout of supporting a school-resistant young person and need help, reach out for support today:
info@carolynbaynes.co.uk
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