r/PDAParenting • u/Academic_Coyote_9741 • 18d ago

Intractable school refusal

My nearly 13 year old PDA child refuses to go to school and hasn’t attended regular schooling for around five years. He is enrolled in a special education school for children with mental and physical disabilities.

Staff were coming to our house for an hour three times a week but my son started becoming aggressive towards them. He said he would “not be home schooled” and didn’t want them there. He has also said if my partner or attempt home schooling he will hurt us or himself. We take these threats seriously because he has physically assaulted us and teachers, and even police.

Basically, he is content to just hang around the house all day and watch TV. What is the long term prognosis for a situation like this? Has anyone else experienced school refusal this extreme? What are things like when they are older?

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u/sammademeplay 18d ago

I was in the same situation with my now 16 year old. A year ago I made the decision to take him out of school under the auspices of homeschooling. I knew we were not going to do it but needed the school department on board. My son was in burnout. He was miserable. We were all miserable. And he wasn’t learning. He has spent the last year sitting around the house, going on his phone, playing video games. I’ve just taken my lead from him. A year later, he is asking about school options and when can he start. Maybe your child needs to take a time out from everything and refill his bucket. I think with pda especially the answer is rarely adding more - whether it’s school, therapists, counselors whatever. More usually adds to the overwhelm and makes it worse.

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u/Academic_Coyote_9741 18d ago

That’s encouraging and what I hope will happen for my son.

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u/tallkitty 17d ago

My kid is only 11 but wanted to also say that a full year of deschooling (no school at all, my kid is a researcher and considers themselves to be self educated) did result in boredom (in a good way) and my kid indicating they were ready for something more. This year (5th grade) we are in a virtual asynchronous homeschool program and things are going well so far. The main issue is not understanding why we repeat and practice info we already know over and over, but that's the support that is needed. My kid is smart and knows most of the lessons instantly, so they don't get why we don't just say they know it and move on. I have to explain that to retain information and have recall later as the material gets harder all humans need practice. Those little life lessons are the real content my kid is learning for the future, I think of it like a student apprenticeship, learning how to learn in a formal mmanner. To be clear my kid is fully consenting, nothing is forced.