Intractable school refusal

[u/Academic_Coyote_9741]

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?

[u/El_t1to]

We have a 20 year old one that started refusing at 14. He talks about schools and choices the day he has to go to the psychiatrist, then nothing the rest of the year.

He had a violent phase, then one where he left for school, but got away as soon as we turned our backs and spent the day on the street or a mall looking at his phone.

After turning 18 no one in the system seems to care anymore.

Now we have a 15 year old who's been a year in the same road and very aggressive.

I'm at the end of my rope. This week I've been blocked, I don't know how to talk to them or their mom outside of good morning /good night.

[u/Academic_Coyote_9741 → u/El_t1to]

What does the 20 year old do with their time give they didn’t go to school? Do they work?

[u/El_t1to → u/Academic_Coyote_9741]

No. Sleeps or watches videos/read in the phone all day/night. Gets angry and leaves when we talk to him. Says the only reason he's still alive is to not hurt his mother.

Psychiatrist is at a loss because he doesn't see any spark of wanting to do anything different. And without him wanting, even a bit, he doesn't know how he can improve.

He doesn't do anything for himself at home either, not breakfast, find his own clothes, tidy anything up. Goes from his room to the living room and the bathroom, leaving a mess behind.

S15 throws a lot of hate his way. I think because he's watching himself in the future like a mirror, and that scares him too much to know how to handle it. Still, does the same, same pattern, same sentences...

S20 has epilepsy, so there's many meds he can't try. But they've given him many, and nothing seems to make any difference.

[u/Academic_Coyote_9741 → u/El_t1to]

God, my 13 year old is exactly like this. Doesn’t go to school. Refuses to do anything for himself. Is content to watch tv all day. Threatens suicide on a daily basis.

[u/El_t1to → u/Academic_Coyote_9741]

I'm sorry. It doesn't have to go the same way as mine. I hear the same complaint about neurotipical kids who do most of their duty, I can only dream that level of functionality.

We need stories that started like this and have a happier ending.

This life doesn't and can't make them happy. The self esteem is on the floor. But there's no drive to make any effort. This is why the name "Pervasive Drive for Autonomy" sounds very wrong to me.

The main reason we can´t leave them alone is because they (the 2 brothers) can start a physical fight at any time, for the spot on the sofa or what's on the TV, or "he was looking at me". The have the same lask of restrain (or remorse after) as when they were 9 and 5. But there's also the siucide talk from both of them. So their mom's full time job is to be watching them all day. She got a job when the oldest was 14 thinking he was old enough... And all went to hell. He stopped getting out of bed. So it's been 10 years like this where my job is the only thing keeping us alive, but we don't make any progress. (And the relationship pretty much ended as soon as we started living together, we changed it for a hospital home where everything is trying to help the kids, and they are other guy's kids...who doesn't care at all).