This article hit really close to home, because I’m one of the kids that really struggled (and still do) to go to school. I know this is something that a lot of people instantly jump to “just make them go, you’re a shit parent if you don’t” or “the kid must be a lost hope” when this is brought up, but I wanted to share my story and experience, maybe it’ll change someone’s opinion.
I think it started in kindergarten. I had a lot of anxiety actually going to kinder, to the point where I cling to the gates at the entrance and my mum and the kinder staff had to pull me off of it. But once I was actually in kinder, I was content enough and got used to it. But things started going down hill when my mum was diagnosed with some fairly severe mental health issues and had to take heavy medication which kept her in an almost permanent state of tiredness, so she would sleep through all the alarms and even me trying to wake her up. Eventually she would wake up and take me to kinder several hours late, or I’d miss entire days. That’s when the teasing started. I wouldn’t quite call it bullying, but there was a lot of teasing which made me even more anxious about going.
When I hit prep age, things for worse. There was actual bullying, both verbal and physical in prep and grade 1. We were also low income, so had to move around a lot, ending up in whatever country town had a cheap house for rent. Starting a new school midway through the year made the bullying even worse and killed off the few friendships I had, making me even more anxious about going to school.
Not going to school enough got child protection involved, and rather than helping or trying to address the underlying issues, they decided the best place for me was a foster home. While I was there, the foster carer was working full time so she did force me to go to school, usually under threat of being beaten and abused, but while I was there I had more than 1 breakdown. They also moved me to a town over 100km away, so yet again I lost the very few connections I had at my previous school, and got to start the year half way through again. Eventually they put me back with my mum, but living in a small town, rumours and gossip spread faster than a bushfire, so I was alienated further and the bullying got worse.
Eventually I was removed by CP permanently, for other reasons, and I moved between 6 placements in the span of 4 months. I wasn’t even enrolled in a school during that time because of how fast I was being moved around. Never moved to the same town, everywhere they put me was hundreds of kilometres away from where they put me last time. Eventually it settled down and I was enrolled in yet another primary school, but by that point I was already so traumatised and anxious about everything that I would have panic attacks just walking out the front door or my house. I only managed to make it to that school a couple of days before I “graduated” and moved on to high school.
I started high school at the start of 2020. I was actually having a decent time there, they were quite accommodating and I just kept fully to myself and all was fine. I was doing a part time timetable thing where I’d leave at lunch time, since after lunch was just electives I didn’t really care about. My attendance wasn’t great, but it was okay. Small classes as well. Surprisingly, I was one of the few people who did really well with online learning. It was fantastic. All of the work, with teachers to help, without having to wake up early, or deal with any other people. I loved it and did 98% of my work, which is more than I’d ever done before.
Unfortunately not long after that, the person I was living with in a residential care house became extremely abusive. He assaulted me many times, tried to kick my door down, at least once a week he broke into an abusive spell where for at least an hour he’d be verbally abusing and berating me completely out of the blue. This was also around the time online learning was mostly ending, with students exempted from lockdowns in Vic, etc. the abusiveness took up most of my attention and I stopped going to school, completely isolating in my room.
Unfortunately I never returned to that school, because I had a falling out with an online friend group I was in, and one of the people in it abused an internal tool to figure out which school I went to entirely from my first name and the geographic area my school was in and started threatening me. Eventually the abusive kid moved out, but after that, less abusive people moved in. They were very noisy and would scream and slam doors all night, so I couldn’t really attend anything because I couldn’t get Tk sleep until 6 or 7 in the morning when they finally went to sleep. Earplugs helped, but there’s not much to be done about vibrations and such.
Now I’m finally in a safe environment where I can actually focus on school and it’s an extremely high source of stress for me. Also surprisingly, I’m not very far behind in my 2 key areas. I’m horrendous at science, but in English I’m a level ahead, in math a level behind where I should be. But without the attendance to support that, I’m fighting an uphill battle to try and fix things before it’s too late.
I was also diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, which have contributed to struggling with the noisy environment of high school, paying attention, and making friends. But I do have a major advantage since I can actually do the work, it’s purely an environment thing.
It’s easy to pass judgement based off of the “I never liked school either but I went anyway” logic, but it’s not just not liking or not wanting to go to school, there’s often much deeper seated reasons. There’s also a major lack of support and programs to assist with school attendance.
Edit: I typed this up on mobile, and autocorrect has been stuffing around with my grammar recently. I promise I’m not just an idiot