My Son Refused to Go to School: What I Learned About School Refusal and Anxiety

If your child is refusing to go to school, crying before school, having panic attacks, complaining of stomach aches or becoming completely overwhelmed at the thought of getting through the school gates, I want you to know something.

There is usually a reason.

It might be obvious.

It might be something you can talk about together.

Or your child might genuinely have no idea why they feel the way they do.

That was something I had to learn through my own children.

Because I have five children, and I have experienced school refusal in different ways with more than one of them.

And every child had a different reason.

School refusal used to break me every morning

I remember standing outside my son’s bedroom in the mornings trying everything I could think of to get him out of bed. I’d start positively, I’d try to encourage him, then I’d try cajoling, bribing, reasoning, bargaining and ultimately begging. Eventually I’d be standing there wondering what on earth I was supposed to do.

He would bury himself under the duvet. He would scream. He would cry. Sometimes he’d swear at me. And eventually on the worst days I’d lose my shit too.

I’d be screaming, crying and begging because I just wanted my child to feel better. I wanted him to go to school. I wanted life to be normal. And the really confusing thing was that sometimes, once he actually got out of bed and got moving, he could be absolutely fine.

It wasn’t always as simple as he hates school. Sometimes it was the thought of school. Sometimes it was a particular subject. Sometimes a particular teacher. Sometimes it was because of his friend telling him about something in school and he didn’t want him to miss it. Sometimes I couldn’t work it out at all and that was one of the hardest parts.

The shame and guilt I carried as a mum

There was another part of school refusal that I don’t think we talk about enough. The shame and the guilt.

Because when you’re standing at the bedroom door for the fourth time, trying to get your child out of bed, it can feel like every other child in the country has managed to get themselves to school except yours.

You see other parents dropping their children at the school gates. They seem to get out of the car, say goodbye and drive away and you’re still there. Your child is screaming and crying as you try to get them out of the car. You’re trying everything you can think of. Talking, reassuring, pleading, bargaining.

Sometimes physically trying to get them through the school gates while they are completely overwhelmed. And you can feel the judgement of the other parents around you. Or at least, that’s how it felt to me. You start wondering what they must think.

Why can’t she just get her child into school?

What’s wrong with that child?

What’s wrong with her parenting?

And then there are the silent tears.

The tears running down your face as you sit in the car after another battle.

Maybe you eventually get them into school.

Maybe you don’t.

Maybe you drive home because you simply have no fight left.

And you sit there thinking:

Why can’t I do this?

Why can everyone else manage it and I can’t?

Am I being too soft?

Am I not being firm enough?

Am I making this worse?

That feeling of being watched and judged can make an already impossible situation feel unbearable.

But I wasn’t failing as a mum.

And neither are you. We are trying to get our children through something we don’t fully understand yet.

And once I stopped looking only at the behaviour — they won’t go to school — and started asking why?, everything began to make much more sense.

Because my children’s reasons for refusing school were not all the same.

And they weren’t because I hadn’t parented them properly.

There was something underneath the refusal that needed to be understood.

And sometimes, the child doesn’t even know what that something is yet.

Why does a child refuse to go to school?

School refusal isn’t always a child simply deciding that they don’t want to go.

There can be so many things underneath it.

Anxiety.

Friendship difficulties.

Bullying.

Sensory overwhelm.

Feeling behind academically.

Changes at school.

A difficult relationship with a teacher.

Trauma.

Fear of being away from home.

Or something happening inside the child that they don’t yet have the words to explain.

My five children are all different, and their experiences of school were different too.

Sensory overwhelm and neurodivergence

My eldest has autism and ADHD alongside medical health challenges.I remember reading an English essay he wrote for his Junior Cert about a day at school. He described the clock in the science room as the constant tick for every single minute of the 56 minute class; that sound was the only one he could hear. Drowning out everything else in the room. To him, the sound was like a bomb going off in his brain.

Imagine being expected to sit in a classroom and concentrate when something that sounds completely ordinary to everyone else feels unbearable to you.

Even smells could turn his stomach. The school environment could feel completely overwhelming because so much of it was outside his control.

Friendship problems can be huge

One of my other sons was in fourth class when his class was split. He was left without the friends he had been used to having around him.One of his friends, who had been diagnosed with autism, was allowed to choose two favourite friends to go into his new class.My son was the third friend. He wasn’t chosen.That might sound like a small thing to an adult.

 It wasn’t small to him. He screamed. He cried. He had panic attacks. I remember literally peeling him off me and handing him to the teacher because I had no idea what else to do.

Sometimes anxiety shows up in the body

Another of my sons had experienced trauma. At school, his teacher thought he had ADHD.I spoke to a counsellor because I knew there was something else going on. He would complain of stomach pain and sickness and use physical symptoms as a reason to avoid school. The symptoms were real. His body was telling us that something was wrong, even when he couldn’t necessarily explain it. And this is something I think parents need to understand about anxiety.

Children don’t always say:

“Mum, I’m experiencing anxiety because…”

Sometimes they say:

“My tummy hurts.”

“I feel sick.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t know why.”

Or they scream and cry and completely shut down.

What if my child doesn’t know why they are refusing school?

This is the bit I really want parents to hear.

Sometimes your child does know why.

Maybe someone is bullying them.

Maybe they’re frightened of a teacher.

Maybe they’re struggling socially.

Maybe they’re falling behind and are terrified that everyone will notice.

Maybe the noise and busyness of school are overwhelming them.

And sometimes you can sit down with your child and talk it through and they can tell you exactly what’s wrong.

But sometimes they genuinely don’t know.

I’ve seen this with children who say, “I don’t know. I just don’t want to go.”

And that can be incredibly frustrating for a parent.

Because you’re thinking:

But why?

What happened?

Tell me what is wrong so I can fix it.

But anxiety doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes the conscious mind doesn’t have an obvious answer.

The child’s body is saying NO before they can explain why.

That’s why I believe it’s important to look beyond the behaviour.

Instead of only asking:

“How do I get my child into school?”

We also need to ask:

“Why does school feel unsafe, overwhelming or frightening for this child?”

And if your child genuinely can’t tell you, that doesn’t mean they’re making it up.

It doesn’t mean they’re being difficult.

And it doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a parent.

It may mean there is something happening underneath the conscious level that needs to be explored.

This is one of the reasons subconscious and hypnosis work can be so useful in my approach with anxiety.

We don’t always need a child to have the perfect explanation before we can begin to understand what their mind and body are responding to.

How do you break the cycle of school refusal?

There isn’t one magic answer.

What helped my children wasn’t always the same thing.

But some things made a huge difference.

Talk when everyone is calm

Trying to have a deep conversation in the middle of a school refusal meltdown usually isn’t the best time.

When everyone is calm, create space to talk.

Not an interrogation.

Not “Why are you doing this?”

Just curiosity.

“What is it about school that feels hardest?”

“When did you first start feeling like this?”

“Is there a part of the day that feels worse than another?”

And if they say “I don’t know” — don’t assume they’re refusing to tell you.

They may genuinely not know.

Look at what happens around the refusal

Notice patterns.

Does it happen every Sunday night?

Only on certain school days?

Before a particular class?

When a particular teacher is there?

After weekends?

After a friendship problem?

Does your child feel better once they actually arrive at school?

Or do the symptoms continue throughout the day?

Sometimes the pattern tells you something your child can’t put into words yet.

Work with the school

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

Talk to the school.

Tell them what you’re seeing at home.

Ask what they are seeing during the school day.

Sometimes the picture looks completely different from each side.

And sometimes adjustments, additional support or simply having one trusted adult in the school can make a huge difference.

Get support for yourself too

This is something I wish more parents talked about. School refusal can break you down.You can spend every morning in fight-or-flight before you’ve even had breakfast.You can feel angry, guilty,embarrassed, exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally. You can start dreading Sundays because you know Monday is coming. Get support for yourself too.Talk to your GP, your child’s school, a counsellor or therapist, or the appropriate child and adolescent mental health supports where needed. The best support I found are other parents that have gone through this too. That is why I do this work as I am coming from lived experience not just a book and it does make a difference the look in the eye of the person across from you who has the same battle scars.

You don’t have to carry this on your own.

Your child’s anxiety today doesn’t have to become their anxiety forever

I want to finish this with hope because I have lived this too.

One of my sons was told that he should leave school. He was told he would never get through his Leaving Cert. He was struggling so badly with anxiety and school due to his diagnosis that one teacher actually told him  to quit - said she hopes shes wrong and he will be waving his results in her face but she doesn’t think so that he would never pass.  It took me three weeks to get him in the door again after that comment. But he did. He passed every subject.

That experience changed the way I see anxiety in children. I was always the anxious child myself so I can feel the empathy and the terror going into school causes in our children. 

What you are seeing today isn’t necessarily a prediction of who your child will become.

A child who is refusing school today is not a lazy child.

A child having panic attacks isn’t a difficult child.

A child who is overwhelmed isn’t a failure.

And you are not a failure as a parent because you can’t force your child through something that their nervous system is experiencing as overwhelming.

Sometimes the behaviour is the part we can see.

The real work is understanding what is underneath it.

You don’t have to figure this out alone

If your child is struggling with anxiety, panic attacks or school refusal, the first step isn’t always getting them through the school gates at any cost.

Sometimes it’s understanding why the school gates feel so difficult in the first place.

That’s the work I now do with children experiencing anxiety — helping them understand and change what is happening underneath the anxiety, rather than simply trying to force the behaviour to change.

I offer a 12-week programme for children experiencing anxiety, with support for parents along the way.

Because I know what it is like to stand outside that school gate.

I know what it feels like to have your child screaming and crying while you are desperately trying to get them inside.

I know the judgement.

The guilt.

The silent tears.

And I know that there can be another side to it.

Your child can feel safe again.

They can learn to understand their anxiety.

And school refusal does not have to define their future.

If your child is struggling, you can find out more about my Children’s Anxiety Programme and see whether it feels like the right support for your family.