So-called ‘school refusal’ must be tackled with compassion, not hard-hearted discipline

‘Watching a child suffer the pain that comes from being unable to meet one of society’s basic expectations can be intolerable.’

Having been generationally touched by the pain of familial mental illness, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at how terribly misunderstood and stigmatised some presentations of it remain this far into the 21st century.

Most families will experience mental illness and 40% of us will suffer from it. Given this prevalence, I was astonished and saddened by the hard-hearted tenor of so much recent public discussion about children who are unable to attend school due to acute social anxiety, depression, neurodiversity or a combination of all and other unidentified factors.

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“School refusal’’ – as a child’s inability to attend the classroom is mostly, though not quite accurately, described – is a real and terrible affliction that Guardian Australia has reported on extensively.

The most recent Australian Curriculum Assessment And Reporting Authority data found that 40% of school-age students were “chronically absent’’. But experts say a serious dearth of detailed research makes the phenomenon at best opaque when it comes to obtaining psychological insight and policy responses.

The recent government response to a Senate inquiry into school refusal – more accurately labelled “school can’t’’ to reflect the painful reality of young people unable to attend – will do little to garner desperately overdue understanding and remedies.

Only parents and families who have had to deal with a child unable to attend school will understand the heartbreak and anguish it brings for everyone involved. Recent media coverage of the government response and a Four Corners feature again illustrated to me how little understood – or sympathised with – it is by those who are unaffected.

As someone touched by it, I was listening closely. I was shocked and angered, as I know many families of the afflicted were, by the judgmental nature of some public comments. So many people responding to these stories advocated a “tough-love’’ approach from parents.

“Just make them go,’’ was the tone of so much of this ill-conceived advice. “Just put them in the car and drop them at the school gate.’’

This fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the problem.

To sit among young people afflicted by school can’t and their families, and to hear of their experiences, is absolutely heartbreaking. Every day the child is unable to attend compounds their sense of worthlessness and sometimes their suicidality. It’s not uncommon to hear young people say they’d prefer to die than set foot in a classroom again, such is their fear and anxiety.

Publicly it is often equated with truancy – with “playing the wag’’. This could not be further from the truth. To sit with a child who wants nothing more than to be able to go to class, to be with a cohort and to leave their darkened bedroom, but cannot due to an amorphous black cloud of anxiety and fear, is truly crushing and perplexing for carers.

The acute sense of failure for the parents is dramatically magnified by a profound absence of psychological support and by uninformed yet seemingly widespread public perceptions that they should just “harden up’’ their parenting act. Watching a child suffer the pain that comes from being unable to meet one of society’s basic expectations – what seems like the simple act of going to school – becomes almost intolerable.

Some parents have to quit work to care for kids teetering on a suicidal cliff because they can’t leave their bedrooms. Families disintegrate. Marriages split. Parents speak of their own trauma that comes from watching – day-in, week-in, month-in, year-in –their childrens’ suffering and the “will-he-or-won’t-he today?’’ anxiety that comes with it.

Then there are the things parents do along the way as they discover that you simply cannot make such children attend school.

“I would almost physically get her into the car every day, effectively brutalise her, and drive her to school. She would be absolutely silent and physically shaking with fear as we approached the school. I’d all but force her out at the school gates and drive off. Before I’d get home the phone would be ringing to say she would have to come home again,’’ says one parent I know well.

So much for tough-love, a wicked contradiction in terms that has no place when it comes to school can’t or refusal – or whatever it is you want to call it.

The only answer is a genuine love born of understanding and compassion – and immense patience.

Related:Why the Guardian is investigating the deep failings in Australia’s school system

For parenting such a child is completely counter-intuitive. It demands you be there constantly, reassuringly, but that you remove any overt push towards – or expectation of – school attendance, while concentrating on gradual mental health improvements. All easier said than done, of course, given human nature, the dire state of public mental health services – and a general ignorance about and understanding of school can’t.

Using the “back in my day’’ horse whip of so-called “tough-love’’ (tragically laughable misnomer that it is) on a child who can’t go to school will only make things so much worse. Calling on parents to show it is also a hard-hearted roadblock to greater understanding of an affliction that can only be countered with compassion and genuine love.

• Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.