12 Strategies to follow when your child refuses to go to school on a regular basis

Recently, on a live session with an expert Psychologist on Parentune, these were some of the common concerns which were raised by many parents -

 “Their child does not want to go to school.”

 “The child cries a lot in the morning while waking up and needs a lot of coaxing before going to school.”

“Angry outbursts and inconsolable crying by the child has become an everyday drama at their home early in the morning.

This disturbs the energy of the house along with their peace of mind which has a cascading effect and leads to an unsettled day for them thereon.” Most of the parents are facing a similar issue since children have returned to in-person school and are seeing far more of it than the previous years before the breakdown of the pandemic. Faking sickness, incessant crying and not-stop repetition  ‘school nahi jana, school nahi jana’, clinging to you,or refusing to get into the school uniform, or hate-filled rantings about the teachers or the school are some of the common scenarios we have been witnessing in our homes early morning every now and then these days. 

Here are some of the tips that would help you get your child back to school:

1. Empathize with your child: Be more understanding and instead of telling him ‘We are getting late, make it quick’, you can say ‘I know its difficult to wake up early in the morning and I had a similar feeling while waking up but we still have to go to school.’ 

2. Don’t lose patience in the process of waking up your child:  Make sure you don’t lose your calm and get angry with the child, as that would result in your child throwing a tantrum and eventually he might start crying which will cause further delay thereby making things further difficult for you. Instead go up to your child, hold his hand and tell him ‘ Let’s get ready, you can do it.’

3. Be firm and be respectful: keep your instructions short and simple, by talking about the present. Avoid mentioning what happened yesterday, or stop predicting the future by mentioning what all he might have to face  if he continues to do this. However, be firm in your tone by saying “We have to go to school, even if we don’t want to.” 

4. Give yourself an extra 15 minutes so that you wake up early accordingly and don’t lose your patience when a child throws tantrums and outrightly refuses to go to school.

5. Identify the cause if you feel there is more to this than meets the eye: If the underlying issues include routine problems like workload, peer pressure, anxiety, no fun at school, incomplete assignments, fear of teachers, child requires more sleep etc, help your child develop problem-solving skills rather than finding an escape route by refusing to go to school and staying back at home. However, if you feel the issue is more serious and needs intervention then try out the following strategies: a) If your child is dealing with anxiety or depression, seek professional help from a counselor and/or mental health professional and collaborate with school for support. b) If you feel a child is being bullied, investigate the issue further with the help of his classmates and involve the school teachers, if need be.c) If your child is one of those who resists structure and has issues with taking instructions from authority figures, sit with him and try to figure it out. Seek professional help if need be.

6. Make staying at home boring: This can be done by taking away the gadgets and making the day at home less appealing. Set up a home routine similar to school.  They can be made to wake up and get ready at the same time as school, with limited access to TV and internet during school hours. Encourage the child to complete school work and reduce the entertaining activities outside home such as  sending them to play outdoors or taking them out for shopping. 

7. Work on their motivation by using the rewards such as allowing them to stay up late for half an hour or watch 15 minutes of extra TV, if they listen to you and go to school.

8. If a child still refuses to go to school regularly use consequences  such as withholding something, for eg, not letting the child watch TV or play their favorite video game for a day. Do not punish your child as this might create animosity and prove to be ineffective in changing the undesirable behavior. 

9. Do not lie to cover up for the child’s absence from school by writing a fake reason in the leave application such as child being unwell or out of town. This would further motivate them to keep taking off whenever they wish to, rather let the child face the natural consequence such as extra school work, or supporting a weak student in their work, or being made accountable for absence from school for not being able to prove any genuine cause for the same.

10. Set firm limits and create a culture of accountability in your home: This can be done by giving clear and consistent messages. For instance, statements like “It’s time to get up for school, I know you don’t want to go to school but we cannot allow you to remain at home.” This makes the child clear of the rules of the house and not try to push the  boundaries.

11. Keep a log for your reference of your child’s absences from school with a thorough written record of reason for absence along with the date. You can show it to the child if need be, as a reminder how often he has been missing school. 

12. Be in constant touch with the class teacher of your child and make them aware of the genuine challenges your child is having, if any. In case you are struggling to send the child to school on a regular basis if he outrightly refuses to go to school for no genuine cause, let the teacher be aware of the same as well.

Patience, persistence and openness to problem-solving are the mantras which  might work here.  Don’t lose your wits if your child refuses to go to school on a regular basis, and just try out the above mentioned strategies. These strategies might work out for you!! Do share your valuable feedback in the comment section below.