In state education, my child’s difficulties were either overlooked, or I was blamed.
I was told that ‘she only clings to you in the mornings because she has such a close bond with you, as you and her dad have split up’.
They said this while three members of staff tried to prise her away from me. On one occasion she held on to me so tightly that it bruised my ribs.
But ‘being at school is best’.
‘She’s always fine when you leave’. Time and again it was reinforced that the parents were the problem.
Unintentional ‘othering’
We were lucky to be able to send our daughter to private school for secondary education. Which was just as well because the state school she initially attended didn’t reply to the five messages I sent informing them that I was taking her out.
Staff at the independent school were very caring and wanted the best for her. They tried to implement the usual things to make her life easier at school; the ability to go to a quiet space when overwhelmed, taking subjects off the timetable (PE because dyspraxia and previous bullying made it hellish), giving her traffic light cards, letting her eat away from others at lunch time.
Whilst all well-meaning, however, this further ‘othered’ her among her peers. I had no idea that ’neuro-affirming’ was even a phrase.
The school said that an EHCP wasn’t needed as my child didn’t appear to have any difficulties. I wish I’d known then, before burnout, that it would have been a good idea to get the process started.
I had been indoctrinated to believe that in-person school was the only way to get an education
Once it became obvious that she was struggling, the school was excellent in helping fill in the EHCP and cooperating with an educational psychologist. However, when I was called in for a meeting with three members of staff, only for them to say ’there’s nothing else we can do to help her’, I felt lost and overwhelmed.
Support from shared experiences
I didn’t know where to turn and my child was suicidal. Thank goodness for a local SEND Facebook group where I could share my experiences and hear from other parents that they had gone through the same. I soon realised that our experience, although brutal, was far from isolated.
Someone on that group suggested internet schooling. It had certainly been easier in Covid when she was learning at home, so I started looking into it.
The virtual school we chose offered everything I had hoped for and more. The only thing I wish I had done differently was to let her have much longer to come out of burnout. She wanted so much to do well that she pushed herself before she was ready. That set us back a good six months.
Dispensing with traditional thinking
I’ve had to throw away all preconceived ideas about education and her path through it.
Her journey will not be like mine, and that is ok. It took me quite a while to get my head around it being a different path as I had been indoctrinated to believe that in-person school was the only way to get an education.
It wasn’t just me who was convinced that a different type of schooling was ‘wrong’. My child thought she had failed at life before it had even really begun.
I had spent so much time when she was in primary school guilt-tripping her into going into an environment that actively harmed her, that she was convinced that a different approach meant she was a failure, would be on disability benefits her whole life, and with no prospects for a happy future.
I didn’t realise that nine years’ worth of mainstream schooling was causing her to mask, to try to ignore her sensory distress, to lash out at others around her and, eventually, to spiral downward to burnout and suicidal ideation.
The approach at her online school is not punitive and does not cause us to feel guilt when she does not attend, because it has an ethos of happiness first. It celebrates every single milestone, no matter how small that might be. It’s building her confidence and giving her the education she deserves.
Explaining our new approach to family members has been a challenge and I have to pick my battles. Now I just say that we’ve made an informed choice for our child and this is what works for us.
We’ve both come to the realisation that the world won’t end because she’s not in school. It won’t end if she misses a lesson. It won’t end even if she never does any GCSEs. What could have ended is her life – simply because government policy assumes that being in school necessarily equates to a good education.
