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Morning school refusal

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ykaerF

Morning school refusal

My 13 yr old daughter literally hates mornings, takes almost n hour of arguing before she gets dressed, sometimes my bf has to yell at her to get her to listen, I know not good. I'm at my wits end, shes been doin this since she was 8, says she hates school also, but by the end of the day she's happy talking to her friends. She always says she dont care, and questions why she has to go to school. I dont think meds would help it, she doesnt like takin anything for anything. Please help.
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Janine-RO

Re: Morning school refusal

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Hi @ykaerF ,

 

I'm sorry to hear your daughter is having a rough time in the mornings - it sounds like it's making life pretty hard for the whole family, which can be really tricky. 

 

I'm wondering if your daughter has been able to communicate what it is about mornings that she finds so hard? For some kids, it can be getting started with activiites, some kids may struggle with organisation, or like you say, it may be about not wanting to go to school.  For kids who have a hard time with organisation/ time management in the morning, sometimes practical strategies can help - having a shower the night before, packing lunch the night before, setting alarms for when to have different tasks done by.  it might also be worth taking her to your family doctor for a checkup, just to make sure there's nothing physical going on (like low iron or sleep problems, for example) that could be making it really hard for her to get going in the mornings. 

 

If school itself is the issue, we do have some great resources on school refusal that might be helpful for you and your family, you can check those out here. It's great that once she is there, she's happy with her friends - that's definitely a huge part of enjoying school. 

 

School counsellors can often be  a great first option for getting some support for a young person who's not wanting to go to school, do you think this might be an option you could try? It looks like you're located in the USA, is that right? Unfortunately we're an Australian service so some of the support services we'd usually recommend aren't available, but this service looks like it could be really useful, and they can connect you to people in your area. 

 

We've also had quite a few parents who've had discussions about school refusal with their young people, you're definitely not alone in experiencing this! I will also tag you in those threads in case it's helpful for you to read about what's been helpful for other parents.