Our son is refusing to go to school – and we feel so isolated

The affect of Covid on our children has been huge. Your son needs to feel safe and be given time to catch up

The dilemma After Covid lockdowns, our primary school-age son decided retirement is what he needs, not being at school. Initially, he returned to school happy and excited. The school ramped up the learning, saying the children were behind, and he struggled with that. There was disruption in class, which he wasn’t used to, and he lost his joy of school. He refused to go in. We had three months of cajoling him to go, persuading, begging. We tried the tough approach: “Drag him in!” That backfired. We tried the parental support approach, either his dad or I sitting in the school library. That worked, but we also have jobs to go to. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services haven’t helped us much and we got a letter from the county council threatening a fine and legal action.

He was slowly improving until February this year when his favourite teacher retired. He could trust her and she could control the class. After she left, he could not cope. Hysteria followed, real emotional grief. This led to emotionally based school avoidance occurring again. Home schooling is not an option. We feel so isolated with this.