Question 1

What is school refusal, and how is it different from truancy?

Accepted Answer

**Anxiety-driven inability to attend**, as distinct from **choosing not to attend** — and the distinction matters because the two need almost opposite responses, while the attendance register records them identically.

**How they differ in practice:**

**In truancy**, the child typically conceals the absence from parents, shows no distress about school itself, and is often elsewhere doing something they prefer.

**In school refusal** — increasingly called **emotionally based school avoidance** — the parents know, the child is **at home and visibly distressed**, the distress peaks on school mornings and eases at weekends and holidays, and there are frequently **physical symptoms**: stomach aches, headaches, nausea, which are genuinely felt and not fabricated.

**What tends to sit underneath it:** anxiety disorders, unmet special educational needs — **undiagnosed autism or ADHD is a very common thread** — bullying, sensory overload, difficulty with a specific subject or teacher, or something at home the child does not want to leave.

**Why the standard response can make it worse.** Attendance enforcement — warning letters, penalty notices, fines — is built for truancy. Applied to an anxious child it **raises the pressure on a family already trying everything**, and can escalate avoidance rather than resolve it.

**What actually helps:**

**Identify the cause** rather than treating attendance as the problem. Attendance is a symptom.

**Involve the school early** and ask specifically for a support plan, not just monitoring.

**A graded return** — partial timetable, a safe place to go, a named adult, a soft start — usually beats an all-or-nothing return.

**Keep mornings calm and predictable**, and avoid negotiating at the door.

**Get needs assessed**, because unmet need is so often the driver.

**Involve the GP** where physical symptoms dominate.

**Do not let it drift.** Longer absence is harder to reverse, and the longer a child is out, the more the return itself becomes the frightening thing.

Question 2

What does school readiness actually mean?

Accepted Answer

Far less about academic skill than parents expect. The things that predict a good start are self-regulation, independence and language — not reading, writing or counting. What schools actually look

Question 3

Why does my child behave worse for me than for everyone else?

Accepted Answer

This is one of the most common and most demoralising things parents notice, and the explanation is genuinely reassuring: it usually means you are the person your child feels safest with. The

Question 4

How do you raise a concern with your child's school?

Accepted Answer

Through the right person in the right order, calmly and in writing where it matters — because schools have a defined process, and going outside it early almost always slows things down. The order

Question 5

Why do autism and ADHD assessments take so long, and what does the pathway involve?

Accepted Answer

Because demand has risen far faster than assessment capacity, and because a credible diagnosis requires multi-source evidence gathered over time rather than a single test — the two compound into

Question 6

What are common reasons for toddler defiance and how can I respond?

Accepted Answer

Understanding toddler behavior is key to addressing defiance. Common reasons include a desire for independence, frustration, and testing boundaries. Effective responses involve offering choices, validating emotions, and maintaining consistency.

Question 7

Why does my child suddenly prefer one parent?

Accepted Answer

Because parental preference is a normal developmental phase, it is extremely common, and it is usually about the child's needs rather than about either parent's worth — though it is genuinely painful

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