School Can’t Journey
First published by Tiffany Westphal to the School Can’t Australia’s Parent / Carer Peer Support group 5/5/2022. Reproduced with permission.
The description that follows is a summary of my observations of the collective experience of members of School Can’t Australia and my personal experience.
There are phases to the school can't journey. We don't always move through them in a linear fashion. Sometimes we revisit earlier phases again later, but it's helpful to acknowledge these phases exist, so we can orient ourselves to the experience.
The Orientation Phase:
In this phase we become aware that our child is having difficulty meeting the societal expectation that they attend school. We expect compliance, schools expect compliance, but our children are unable to comply. We often seek to use whatever strategies we have used with our child before, to gain their compliance. Sometimes these get short term results, but often they just add to our child's distress as they fail to address the underlying issues. We become frustrated and distressed ourselves, even more so if our ability to attend to our employment is impacted, and we are anxious about financial security. At this point it is not uncommon for both the parent and the child to be very distressed. Sometimes there is the added complexity of the breakdown of relationships between parents, as there are disagreements as to how to manage the situation. As parents we may feel angry, frustrated, confused, anxious about our child's mental health and anxious about our child's future.
The Discovery Phase:
This phase is characterised by detective work. It's a time to be curious. We are reminded by Dr. Ross Greene that 'Kids do well if they can'. This lens change reminds us that our child would go to school if they could and leads us to seek to understand why. We ask lots of questions and gather information:
• What has happened?
• Why does my child not feel safe at school?
• Why does my child not feel competent at school?
• What is behind the anxiety?
• Why is my child chronically stressed by school?
• Why does my child seem to be displaying signs of trauma in relation to school?
• What are the stressors?
• What can my child tolerate and what can't they tolerate?
• Is their current school suitable?
• Do we need a different school or a different type of education experience?
• Where can we find a more suitable education experience?
Often, we seek allied health assessments to find out if the child is Autistic, has ADHD, generalised anxiety disorder, a learning difficulty like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia or something else. These assessments give us information that help us understand how to support our child. This process of discovery and learning about the problem takes time. There are wait-lists, and lots of experiments to see if something helps. We might trial a medication, or several, searching for something that helps.
If our relationship with our child has been impacted by our use of a behaviour focused compliance approach for a prolonged period of time then it might be difficult to engage our child in the process of discovery. We might first need to repair this relationship. This takes time.
During this phase many find it beneficial to build a team of formal and informal supports around them, to provide support to their child and themselves. Often people we hoped would be helpful, turn out not to be helpful, and there can be a period of significant adjustment.
Restoration Phase:
The restoration phase has repair and recovery as its focus. Time is taken to repair our relationship with our child, to restore our child's mental health, to restore our own nervous system to a sense of calm along with our child's, to discover optimism about our child's future and to develop confidence that there is a way forward.
We learn to accept that the path our child takes might look very different from the pathway most other young people take. We learn about capacity and how to both respect and support our own capacity and that of our child. We learn to accept that this is where our child is at now. Often this is a time of questioning cultural norms related to education, disability and or mental health. It can be a time of letting go. There might be grief. We often help our children re-frame their experience, from one of personal failure to one of being failed by a system that was supposed to support them, whether that be the education system or the mental health system. Sometimes this re-frame is about how we have failed as their parents and comes with an apology. When we know better, we do better. With a stronger, and more open relationship, based on empathy and trust, we can now clarify our understanding of the problem and learn more from our child about the underlying problems contributing to school can’t.
Collaboration Phase:
This stage of recovery involves collaboration, action, and reflection, as we embark with our child on an ever evolving 'action learning project'. We’ve unpacked the problems. We’ve taken time to understand our child's nervous system and the support it needs. Now we collaborate with our child, and those on the support team, to find solutions to the problems that make it difficult for our child to attend school. Solutions must support them where they are at now, rather than where we wish they were. We monitor and review, watching for signs of rising stress, to keep our child operating in their window of tolerance. We advocate on their behalf as needed, hopefully working with a supportive team who are responsive to our child’s needs. We review, we make changes. We are vigilant.
This is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time. Give yourself and your child the gift of time and compassion. Look with soft eyes, listen with an open heart and draw from the lived experience of those who have travelled the road before you. You are in this for the long game and your child’s health is the priority. No matter where you are on this journey – remember you are not alone.