High School Isn’t Working

A mother’s story of school can’t. Navigating the journey when high school isn’t working for your child…

This year my daughter could have been in year 12. Instead, just turned 17, she lives with her best friend and works a full time job. She is very independent, she is street-wise, many say she seems beyond her years yet she has had very little formal high school education.

There was a sadness for me (sometimes still is) knowing our daughter wasn’t following my path, as I loved my years at school. I expected my kids would follow my path. This is the problem, as parents we want our kids to have what we had (or at least enjoy the parts of our youth we also enjoyed) and have the experiences we feel you should have in your younger years.

We also have a son who is three years older than our daughter and although he did change schools in Year 10, high school was a happy period of his life. He had a great group of friends, loved his senior years at school and he enjoyed the milestones of school formals, end of year exams, graduation and applying for university degrees. He ticked mum and dad’s boxes.

The reality is this traditional educational pathway isn’t for everyone and when it comes to our kids we need to remove our own expectations from how our kids should be and what is right for them. There should be no boxes to tick – actually in life we shouldn’t feel we need to tick any boxes! So we had to learn to accept our daughters path was going to be different.

Instead we need to learn to see our kids for who they are, we need to understand what they are experiencing and be open to what works for them. We learned this the hard way.

It’s not that my husband and I are ones to put pressure on our kids or have super high expectations. We lived a good life on the Northern Beaches. The kids had a carefree childhood, attended the local public school and got involved in lots of community activities with lovely groups of friends and their families. High school is when everything changed for our daughter.

The adjustments to high school, the changes in friendship groups, the school can’t that resulted, the change of schools, the bullying and mental health issues (with lock-downs and covid thrown at us as well) – this also changed our family.

I am writing this to share with other parents our experience of school can’t, the options we discovered on the Northern Beaches and to give some hope if you have a child going though a similar experience.

For a while I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I catastrophised about where our daughter might be now at age 17. We were at our whits ends trying to figure things out, find the help we needed and stay united as a family as chaos reigned for a few years.

We are so grateful that the light appeared and we are where we are right now. Our daughter got through the tough days and the tough weeks and she is content with where she is in life now.

We are well aware that every kid is different, that some can’t find their way around and out the other side. There are many obstacles parents have to jump especially when it comes to dealing with schools, government bodies and organisations who either don’t have the answers, don’t have the resources or the band-width to help, and sometimes just don’t understand.

Our daughter’s story is complex, as are most who end up as ‘school can’t’ kids, but I won’t go into details, just a few discoveries that might help.

1. Consider the why. Why can’t your child attend school? The answer is usually complex and we know there may be a number of reasons and every child is different. This is where listening to them, building a good rapport with your child, gaining trust and mutual respect and just holding the space so they can work through whatever is going on may help. They may have learning difficulties or other disabilities. You may want to have tests done with professionals who can start to eliminate the possibilities. Mental health may be a concern. Anxiety and self-confidence issues seem to be rampant amongst high school kids. It is likely you will need some support from professionals for them and your family. Is there bullying and friendship issues. It may be a combination of all. Alongside managing the schooling there will be finding out the why and this is not an easy process but essential. I am still considering the why for our daughter. I don’t believe we have fully got to the bottom of it and we may never. I know a lot of what went on for her and yet she is still processing it as are we. The whole journey of working out why she couldn’t manage at school covered most of her high school years and then there was no school. That’s it.
2. Talk to the school. It’s important that your child’s school knows what’s going on and the struggles you are going through to get them to school. Schools have psychologists and counselors who may be able to help. Also year advisors who can check in with your child. They may have ideas on how routines can be adjusted so they feel more comfortable at school. They also need to know if there are any issues with teachers of other students. Even if you child doesn’t want you to talk to the school I believe it’s essential especially if down the track you need to explain why your child can no longer attend that school or needs to move to another school or home schooling, you need some documentation to work through the systems.
3. Try another school. We tried two other schools before removing our daughter from school all together. This isn’t always the solution but a different environment, different location and students may be the answer. In saying this we made these moves while consulting our daughter. There was a certain school she didn’t want to go to. That would have just caused more angst. In fact because any Northern Beaches school was going to be a problem for our daughter due to friend groups and bullying we had to talk to the education department. It wasn’t easy finding the right person to help but with their ultimatum “she has to go to school at her age” we put it to them “Find a school then!”. This worked but not without a lot of ringing around and pleading (and probably covid lockdown in between was on our side). This final school didn’t work for long but they were the ones who signed her out of school into a transitional TAFE course (more about that below).
4. Ask about alternative options. Schools obviously don’t like to share that there might be school alternatives. Some don’t know about the alternatives and others just believe all kids can get to school and will manage with some counseling and adjustments (which we know often doesn’t work). If your child is seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist and if they have ongoing mental health issues there are some places that offer kids somewhere to stay away from home and get an education. Most are government run and not easy to get into and often there are many boxes to tick! There are also amazing not for profits that have places for kids to learn in a different environment short and long term. There are not many – and this is another problem we are faced with in Australia! We tried, we failed – both in regards to not being accepted and/or our daughter refusing to go but it’s important to look at all options until you find the right path.
5. When kids get to year 10 they can be considered for a TAFE transitional course. This is the path our daughter took. This course is not at every TAFE. It runs for 10 weeks and they have two intakes a year of only a small group and the school has to be willing to sign them out of school into this course. I hope by now there are more courses available like this since School Can’t seems to be on the increase. It’s called Certificate II in Skills for Work and Vocational Pathways. When we attended the first interview I was in tears. Someone actually understood what was going on for our daughter. The lady running this course said it often surprises schools that kids who couldn’t get to school attended her classes everyday (and they have to) in order to receive this certifcate yet they couldn’t manage at school. Once completed, they can then consider new options for their education usually at TAFE. This was a game changer for us. Soon after, covid lockdowns began which stalled our daughters studying but it did allow her to move on to a new chapter. She was happy and feeling more content in herself and that’s what was important.

6. Consider home schooling. There are a number of ways this can look. When we let go of our expectations to get our daughter past the school gate, we looked at home school options. This was just before covid changed our world! Today schools are across home schooling and maybe your school will offer this option. After investigating how I could home school our daughter, we discovered the Australian Christian College online programme. I was working from home part time and could adjust my work days but I realise this is not an option for many people. This worked for a while but we soon realised that our daughter found it very hard to focus on any learning due to other mental health issues. I have however heard of home schooling working well for some kids.
7. Back your child. Don’t let school rules, school policies, the department of education, other parents or anyone else who tells you what you should be doing effect your decision making around what will work for your child. I know this isn’t easy. At first I was determined to get her to school. Then I had to battle the concerns I had about how far behind she was at school. Then I had to get over the nerves I had walking into schools to talk to them about my child. I felt like I had done something wrong. I was loading myself with guilt and it wasn’t helping. I wanted answers for what was going on for her but I wasn’t seeing things clearly due to my own stresses. I learned over time to breathe, to be clear about what we wanted, to fight the system when my gut was telling me what she needed and I also learned to give her space and just accept no matter what was coming at me from others. I was the parent of a child who was struggling and I felt others were talking about me. I cared (a lot) and then I didn’t. The minute I changed my perspective I felt confident in the battles we needed to fight and the path to take. Then we started to see a glimpse of light.

I often said to myself “This too shall pass” because it’s true. Nothing stays the same forever. You work through the challenges day by day and then things gradually change. Kids mature. You find something that works eventually.

Our daughter has learnt about the world through experiencing life and built resilience due to the challenges she faced when she couldn’t manage with school life. We know that when she is passionate about something she will be ready to learn and then there are so many pathways that will allow her to delve into some education whatever that may look like.

I do believe our world is different today and there are so many paths for our kids to learn, support themselves and follow their passions. Life is about learning and you don’t need a formal education to live life. Our daughter may not have been schooled the way society wants all our children to be schooled but we are ok with this. It’s her path.

I came across so many other families and their children struggling with this same issue and if you are reading this I am guessing that school can’t is possibly what you are also struggling with as a parent.

Please know that you are not alone and also know that our kids will be OK as long as they have our love and support. It may be challenging but they need to know you have their back no matter what and together you will work though this and find the right path for them.

Look after yourself. One of the biggest lessons I learned on this journey with our daughter was to look at what was going on for me. My responses to the challenges and how they were helping – or not. I learned a lot about myself. I had to adjust my outlook and sometimes my own behaviours. My motto became “contagious calm” because I realised that our kids feed off our own emotions. Sometimes it was about me not her. Changing perspective gave me new understandings. Giving her space and time also allowed us to work through it all and find the best way forward. We stopped battling, started accepting and soon new paths appeared before us. We learned to remove the pressure on her and us, we listened without passing judgment, and we did our research. We were our daughters biggest advocate, we had her back and her mental health was our priority. It wasn’t always easy but over time this approach helped us find answers and allowed us to see the light.

I hope you can also find the light when it comes to your child’s schooling and pathway in life.