School-based anxiety often looks like headaches, tummy aches or angry behaviour, especially in the morning before school. The resultant behaviours can look like signs of ADHD, but can there be other issues?
Often labelled as school refusal, school avoidance, school can’t … Whatever name you use, increasing numbers of parents find themselves with no alternative but to homeschool, and it’s not always an easy decisions to make.
This article outlines our decision to homeschool our daughter, and the developmental movement program we undertook during the next three years, that helped us both, and enabled her to successfully return to school. It also makes a case for such a program to be introduced as part of mainstream education, suggesting assessment for school readiness for 6-7 year olds.
Rather than expecting all children to be school-ready at a certain age, we need to be asking “are their nervous systems sufficiently developed for classroom learning”? “How well are they able to take in and process information?”
We learn through our senses, taking in information through our eyes, ears, skin, nose and mouth. this is supported by a healthy body and good foundation in muscle development.
Most importantly, though, learning is supported by knowing that the adults around them are there to offer nurturing and safety.
This article was written from the perspective of a parent whose child didn’t fit the system, but also drawing on my own experience of being in a classroom in the 1960’s. Not much has changed! I’d had the same symptoms of anxiety 40 years earlier – tummy ache before school, migraine headaches…
Classes have become smaller, children are no longer caned, and the curriculum has evolved – but the underlying issues of school anxiety are still there! A “one size fits all” approach to learning still doesn’t meet the needs of so many children. Our children are letting us know, loud and clear! Through their behaviour they are crying out for help.
Homeschooling – not by Choice but by Necessity
School anxiety in children means that many parents are not homeschooling by choice, but necessity, often struggling to balance the needs of their child, with a financial need of regular employment. My experience was 20 years ago, and, being older, I was in the fortunate position that our family was able to survive on a single income. For many parents today, this is simply not possible.
I also had the opportunity to do further study and ongoing research. The perspectives presented here are based on our homeschooling experience.
My experience as a therapist during the last twenty years shows me that we were not the only ones with a child who struggled to fit into the mainstream education system.
Our Journey
My daughter started asking to be homeschooled as a six year old in her in her second year of school. I have no idea where the idea came from, but homeschooling had certainly never entered my mind. I fully expected that she would start school at five, complete the standard 13 years, and come out transformed somehow. A bit like the proverbial “product on an assembly line”!
Realising that I was medicating her to suppress her anxiety in the classroom I decided I needed to learn more about education philosophy. Meantime, I asked for her to be changed to a less stressful class. When this this didn’t work, we changed schools.
Homeschooling was never a lifestyle choice, but one that I now realise was made by necessity. After two years of deliberation, I finally came to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t continue trying to suppress her needs in an environment that was clearly unsuitable.
School Anxiety was Increasing
Eventually, she was spending one or two days a week at school, with the remaining days spent “putting her back together”, so she could return to the classroom! The turning point came when the school contacted me asking “what can we do to help her to stay at school?” Realising that I didn’t want my daughter to be manipulated to “fit the system”, I finally accepted that homeschooling was our only option.
Looking for answers, and researching different approaches to education, I came across The Extra Lesson program. This program uses a series of simple floor exercises to replicate the early movement patterns, strengthening the foundations for learning.
I undertook the training, and we gradually did all the floor exercises together. These included rolling, tummy creeping, gradually progressing to crawling and more complex movements. The shared experience was healing for us both. I also trained in a program of listening therapy, with Integrated Listening Systems, which integrated movements with listening, and we did this together.
Strengthening the Nervous System
We were strengthening her nervous system from the ground up, laying the foundations for all later learning. As such, we were addressing the underlying factors contributing to her school anxiety that had made it difficult for her to be in a classroom. After three years of homeschooling she was more than ready to return to school and successfully completed her final six years of high school.
Since 2005 I have since been bringing this program to children in my local area and have seen many positive results. Many of these children have come with diagnoses such as ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism. Assessments show that despite the diagnosis, there were underlying commonalities that could be addressed by recapitulating early movement patterns. This strengthens the nervous system, building pathways in the brain to support learning.
With a more ability to process incoming sensory information, the children felt safer in the classroom. Feeling safer, they were more open to learning, that is, taking in and processing information received through their senses. They also developed better coordination and motor skills in the process, which also made it much easier to sit still, maintain focus, and benefit from classroom instruction. Gains include self esteem, behaviour, coordination, reading…social skills. Some children making friends for the first time!
Towards a New Paradigm of Education
The increasing incidence of school refusal and school can’t highlights the need for change. Our children are telling us this through their behaviours. My experiences with my daughter were 20 years ago, and the education system is still trying to push an academic curriculum onto children that are not developmentally ready. Nothing has changed!
Let’s start by assuming that simply because a child has reached a certain age that they are ready to sit in a classroom, focus and process new information.
Many would say that, with increasing numbers of children struggling to fit in, our current education system needs a complete overhaul. We are still operating with an approach developed to meet the needs of industrialists in the nineteenth century. The world that today’s children have been born into considerable different.
Are we are trying to fit twenty-first century children into a nineteenth century box? A box where testing and analysis is given priority over developmental readiness for learning. A box where we choose to prescribe mood-stabilising and attention-enhancing drugs to children, to compensate for stress, anxiety, disengagement and developmental immaturities.
Rather than assuming that the child has a problem, I believe we need to be asking what gifts does this child bring, and what do they need to support their learning potential?
“Does this child’s nervous system have the maturity to enable them to feel safe in a classroom?”
How do we develop an approach to education that supports lifelong learning? An approach that supports each child’s unique pathway of growth and development, allowing them to be an effective participant in not only today’s world, but also the world of the future?
Helping Ourselves to Help our Children
Sometimes the best thing we can do to help our children is to work on our own emotional wellbeing. This was certainly true in my case. The more I worked on my own growth and development, the more I was able to support my children’s learning and development. The ripples of change spread out to those around us.
As a counsellor with over 20 years experience of working with children, I understand the challenges faced by today’s parents. Parenting support is available through parenting blogs and regular emails with parenting tips and a free eBook, Tips for Raising Happy, Healthy Children.
I believe we need to work together as a community to help our children. It has been said “it takes a village to raise a child”. We are all part of that village. You’re not in this alone.
What Next
Some suggestions to consider:
- Personal therapy, building closer relationships based on understanding and connection.
- Every step we take is a step towards greater understanding, we are making the world a better place for our children, and our children’s children.
- Talk to your child’s school, their teachers… build a healthy relationship, get to know them – be their ally, not their judge.
- Research options – find what works for you and your family. Maybe, like us, homeschooling is a viable option
- Perhaps your child would benefit from a developmental program that addresses the underlying issues that your child is struggling with.
- Take action, and be the change you want to see in the world
Conclusion
School refusal is a symptom, but it is not the problem. If the child doesn’t fit the system, do we need to change the child, do we change the system, or do we adapt to meet the needs of both?
“Effective education is always a balance between tradition and innovation, rigour and freedom, the individual and the group, the inner world and the outer world.” – Sir Ken Robinson
For many of us, the decision to homeschool is not a lifestyle choice, but a necessity. A decision not taken lightly, but one taken through the need to support our children’s health and wellbeing
Towards the Future
I would like to see an education system that not only supports diversity, but also understands that children do not all develop at the same rate. Children’s needs on starting school are variable, and a “one size fits all” approach to education means that many are missing out on a stable foundation for lifelong learning.
Further Reading
- School Refusal – or is it School Rejection?
- Understanding ADHD – an Holistic Approach to Healing
- Sensory Processing and Dyslexia
- Is a Diagnosis of ADHD or Dyslexia Really Necessary?
References
- Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself. Penguin Books. UK.
- Goddard Blythe, S. (2012). Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning – the INPP Screening Test and School Intervention Programme. Wiley-Blackwell. UK.
- Goddard, S. (2023). Reflexes, Learning and Behaviour – Analysing and unblocking neuro-motor immaturity. Hawthorn Press. UK.
- Robinson, K and Kate. Imagine if… Creating a Future for Us All. Penguin Books. UK., odeToda
