[uncertain mom]

School has been a problem for my 14 yr old. Not the content or what is being taught, just going. Once she is there , she seems to do fine, but getting her out of bed to go is all but impossible. Now her school has allowed her to transtion in from her hospital stays and take it slow. By this I mean she only has to go to 2 classes. She is not being bullied, we have checked and by we I mean us her parents and the school. She just refuses to go. We have been trying to get her back into school for a total of 4 months. I am currently on leave from work to help her with this. That leave ends the second week of Feb. If I do not go back I will loose my house. I need her to be in school full time before I can go back. The plan was to add a class each week so she can get back. She seemed on board, but every morning is a stuggle. She yells and screams that she is not going for one reason or another.

Any ideas that could help would be appreciated. She refuses to change schools or classes. I don't know what to do, any advice would be appreciated. If we do not get her into school, they are going to have the authorities get on her and a truancy officer assigned to her. I do not want her to have to go through that, she is dealing with enough with her depression and anxiety.

Thanks in advance.

hi,

i'm sorry that you are struggling to get your teen to school. i know how important education is to someone of that age.

have you actually sat her down and asked her?. okay, i know you don't want to go, but why. is their a reason you don't want to go?. maybe it's not bullying, their could be other things contributing to it.

is their a particular class she seems to struggle in?

is something happening that you arn't aware of concerning perhaps her school timetable (maybe an uncertainty of what she's doing when?), which could be unsettling her

does she have stuff that she wants to accomplish- and she feels that she's taking a step in the wrong direction?

how is she sleeping at night- perhaps it's a case of feeling tired so early in the morning?

their's just some ideas

hope you can sort the situation out

[TorturedSoul92]

I'm sorry to hear about this. It sounds like there may be some anxiety involved. That can almost cripple a person and hinder them from getting out of bed for any task at all. Is there any other alternative if the problem persists? Is she seeing a doctor?

[Yoda]

Is she in therapy?

[uncertain mom]

Hi everyone. She is in therapy. We have talked at great length about what is going on at school and she says it is the general feeling at school. We have looked into other schools, maybe a change of approach is needed. We loooked into a catholic school and a charter school. Both have very different approaches. She was having none of it. She does not want to change schools or even classes, but yet still wont go. Her sleeping has been off lately but even when she sleeps well, it is a battle. Her therapist meets with her on Mondays and Thursdays and has gone over the school thing with her. Her Dr. even said we can no longer wait for her to get better to start back to school as she has not attended a full day since October and is missing her whole freshman year. We have been working with her to try and make school as bearable as possible and my family and the school have done everything we could think of, even giving her the choice of what classes she would attend. She also has the option at any time to go to her guidance couselor or school psychologist. She only has to go to 2 classes this week. 1.5hours and she does not need to be there until 9. Her therepist says she is not taking resposibility for anything and she needs to start. As for what her goals are, shechanges her goals from morning to night or weekday to weekend. When I try to get her to go to school and keeping my self calm and not yelling, she will yell and scream and get verbally abusive with me. I really wish she was not dealing with this at all but since she is, it seems to us and her doctors that she is not doing any of the work. That she must start to put the work in. The goal this week was for her to set an alarm since I spend an hour plus waking her up and I bring her breakfast in bed which if it is not right or what she is in the mood for she gets loud. I would love for her to be able to set an alarm but at this point, I will settle for her just going with out her feeling horrible. Aplus would be if I could get her to school without me crying right after she gets in. Does anyone have any recommendations I could try to give her that you or your family members use to help them do something or get somewhere when they are having a rough time?

[Parley]

I wouldn't be serving breakfast in bed unless my child was too sick and then I'm serving toast and green tea.

I don't know if she has a phone but mine wouldn't. Phones are a privilege and not a right. I didn't allow activities outside of school if they didn't go to school and that included internet. I think half the time my kids went to school because they feared they'd die of boredom if they didn't. I didn't allow TV's in their room but if I did, I would yank that cable quick.

tough love isn't easy and doesn't always work and many people disagree with the tactic but it worked for me. My children were not dealing with depression but I probably would have found a therapist to keep me from pushing them into despair if they were. Good luck to you and your daughter.

[Victoria'smom]

Breakfast in bed is a huge no no. Since she refuses to go to school I'd sign her up for k12. it's free, self paced, and she doesn't have to get up and go. She can catch up in her classes on her time then if she wants to enroll her back into public school. Since you work if she doesn't do work you can drop her off at the libbary on your way and pick her up on the way home. She's not rationally in control of her education so you do have to step in before she repeats 9th grade.

i do agree with the breakfast in bed thing, it's really not helping in the long run. she'll get in to the habbit of expecting things braught to her in bed all the time.

hope you can work something out. it sounds really stressfull

[Kowareta]

Being fifteen myself, I know exactly what it's like to not want to get out of bed in the morning. For me, when I really don't want to go there's always a reason behind it. I may want to avoid someone, a big test, or I'm just feeling really down about myself. I would talk to her, let her know that you aren't the enemy, and just see what's going on. Make sure she's getting enough sleep and eating properly, since that always makes teenagers extra tired. And take baby steps with her. If she goes a day reward her with something special. Then let her miss a couple days without talking about going to school. (I'm not sure how much time you have for her to miss.) Just ease into it and be supportive. Don't hover, because that will push her away, but you have to let her know that she needs to go to school to learn. Help her with whatever reason she doesn't want to go. Best of luck!