A mother from Co Offaly says her son has been unable to attend school for almost three years due to “severe school-related anxiety”.
“I never imagined that getting my child an education could become such a battle,” the woman says, in response to an Irish Times call-out regarding children’s school attendance.
She has a 13-year old son who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of 10.
She says his difficulties with attending school began in second class. In third class, he would cry the “whole way to school”.
“It became increasingly clear that the staff did not have the training, resources or specialist support needed to understand or help him.
“Instead of receiving the support he needed to remain in education, his attendance deteriorated until he was barely able to attend at all.”
She feels the system was “failing him”.
“Over time, school became associated with fear and panic rather than learning and friendships.”
For starting secondary school, he received a place in an autism unit but, she says, “he couldn’t do it”.
“After three years away, even walking through the school gates was simply too much. When the first day came, he was terrified … he completely shut down.”
“Over the past six months, he has barely left the house. His confidence has disappeared. He worries constantly about how he looks and what other people think of him. He is terrified of being bullied or being seen as different.”
“He isn’t choosing not to have an education. He isn’t lazy. He isn’t badly behaved. He is a frightened child who has spent years becoming more and more afraid of something that other children take for granted.”
She says he needs proper specialist support, understanding and a gradual pathway back into education.
School refusal: Parents and experts call for compassionate approach to classroom anxiety
“Every child deserves that chance,” she says. “My son shouldn’t have had to become this unwell before anyone listened.”
Another woman, from Co Tipperary, has two children who were diagnosed with autism aged three. She believes they also have pathological demand avoidance.
Her son is 14 and in secondary school and her daughter, aged 12, is in sixth class.
Both children have places in autism special classes in mainstream schools but she says neither can attend because “the school environment and everyday demands have resulted in severe autistic burnout and significant regression”.
She says her son wants to go to school but can’t. “Everything in his body, his nervous system, is shocked.”
Similarly, her daughter “loved” school but found it “too overwhelming”. She says there have been incidents of her daughter trying to jump out of the car on her way to school.
She says her daughter went to school for 20 days last year, which was grounds for “celebration” for the family.
“I am now facing the possibility of prosecution because of their school absences, despite spending years trying to get them to attend and repeatedly asking professionals and services for help.”
“My concern is that Ireland’s answer to the autism education crisis cannot simply be to open more autism classes.
“Six children with six completely different profiles in one classroom does not automatically mean they are receiving an appropriate education.”
A mother from Co Cork, who wants to remain anonymous, says she spent four years supporting her son back into school, which required her to wait outside the school each day and led to her giving up her job.
She says it was “horrendous” financially, emotionally and mentally.
Her son, aged 12, was diagnosed with autism 3½ years ago.
She says he is only now attending school independently again as he received a place in an autism unit.
She says he is doing “amazing” and she has since been able to return to her job, supporting other children in similar situations.
She says the country is in a “crisis situation” and “parents and children are suffering in silence”.
Another mother, from Co Louth, says her daughter, now aged 13, “desperately wanted to go to school” and “tried so many times”.
She says she never fully settled after the Covid-19 pandemic and the issue grew while she was in fourth, fifth and sixth class of primary school, missing 43 days of sixth class.
“She’s only four days into secondary school and already it’s been tough. By the time she gets home, she’s completely overwhelmed.”
She has started to monitor her heart rate and on one day at school, it reached 153 beats per minute.
Another mother, from Co Cork, says her daughter doesn’t refuse school but, rather, can’t attend.
She says she has frequently vomited due to anxiety on the way to school.
Her daughter, aged 14, attended a secondary school of more than 1,300 pupils for eight weeks of first year but, after that, she could no longer attend.
She says there are “stringent and inflexible systems and rules in place to try to manage the numbers”.
She says it is “traumatising” for her daughter, who has started to receive counselling.
She has since moved to a smaller school but it is not in her community – nonetheless, she is doing “better” as “supports and structures” are in place.
“We have been struggling trying to get my nine-year old son to school for the past three years and it has got increasingly worse,” says one mother from Co Clare.
Last year, her son, who was recently diagnosed with autism, missed 11 weeks, and in the first week of returning to school this year, he has missed two days.
She says the “root of his behavioural issues” is school because during the summer he had no anxiety, meltdowns or threatening and violent behaviour.
“The school system is broken,” the mother says. “The structure of the children’s day hasn’t changed in 100 years but our children cannot be compared to children 100 years ago.”
She says her son is unable to eat or use the toilet at school as he is so “tense” and is masking his autism.
The family are considering homeschooling him.
One mother from Galway has made the decision to home-educate her daughter, who is 14 and in her second year of secondary school.
Her daughter, who has been diagnosed with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, struggled after December of first year in secondary school.
By June, she was “completely burned out” and felt anxious over the summer about returning to school.
The mother says the decision to home-educate “feels like a weight lifted off her and me”.
* The Irish Times has removed the names of some of the parents.