As a parent, one of your key responsibilities is ensuring your child gets a full-time, suitable education, usually by attending school regularly. But what happens when your child starts refusing to go? When each morning feels like a battle, when your child complains of headaches or stomach aches that don’t seem to have a clear cause, or when you dread getting a call from school asking you to pick them up early. You are not alone.
Many parents face this difficult situation, and it can be incredibly stressful. What your child may be experiencing is known as Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) a term used when emotional difficulties are the main reason a child struggles to attend school.
What is Emotionally Based School Avoidance?
All children experience anxiety. It is a perfectly healthy response to life’s challenges and forms part of the body’s broad ways of dealing with our emotions. Anxiety occurs when we believe we are under some form of threat, The physical release of adrenalin within the body can prompt the “fight/flight or freeze” response.
Whilst it is usual for children to have anxieties about school, some children can become extremely anxious and feel they are unable to cope which leads to them seeking to avoid attending. Whilst staying off school immediately reduces their anxiety; it is not getting to the root cause of the problem. The longer the child is off, the greater their anxieties can become. They can worry that they have fallen behind their peers, feel left out of friendship groups and then find it harder still to return. This cycle can become very hard to break and can lead to significant time away from school. Emotionally Based School Avoidance is a broad term used to describe significant difficulties in attending school due to emotional factors.
Children and young people with autism can be more vulnerable to anxiety than neurotypical children. But whilst not all anxious children go on to be diagnosed with autism, it may be a sign that your child has special educational needs and requires more school support than others within their cohort.
How schools should help
Firstly, school attendance is everyone’s business; not just the responsibility of you as a parent. You may have noticed a greater focus on school attendance lately. That’s because the government is working to improve attendance across the country, especially after the pandemic. The latest guidance, Working Together to Improve School Attendance (2024), says clearly: schools should work with families, not against them. The guidance makes clear that treating the root causes of absence and removing barriers to attendance, requires school and local partners to work collaboratively. You can read more about school attendance here.
Here’s what support you should expect from your child’s school:
- Absences should be handled sensitively
If your child is too anxious to attend school, talk to the school honestly about what’s happening. Schools can and should authorise absences for illness, including mental health reasons.
- In most cases, your word as a parent should be enough to explain an absence.
- Only where the school has genuine and reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the illness should medical evidence be requested to support the absence. Medical evidence for recording absences should only be needed in a minority of cases.
- If evidence is requested, it shouldn’t always mean a GP letter. Notes from mental health professionals, email summaries, or even a conversation can be enough.
This approach avoids putting extra pressure on both parents and healthcare providers and keeps the focus on supporting your child.
- Tailored in-school support
If your child is struggling with school attendance:
- Speak to the school early, let them know you want to work together.
- The school’s pastoral or wellbeing team should work with you to understand your child’s worries and look at solutions.
Some examples of support include:
- A “soft start” to the school day, with quieter entrances or earlier arrival.
- Meeting a familiar teacher in a safe space before joining lessons.
- Curriculum adjustments if your child is overwhelmed by academic pressure.
- Mentoring or peer support if friendship issues are a concern.
Whatever support is put in place, it should be reviewed regularly to check if it’s helping.
If your child is off school, agree on a plan for staying connected to learning, whether that’s through online platforms or work sent home. Falling behind can add to the stress and make the return harder.
What if school support isn’t enough?
Sometimes, the strategies schools can offer just aren’t enough. If your child continues to struggle, the school (or you as a parent) may need to involve external services, such as:
- Early Help services from your local authority.
- An EHC (Education, Health and Care) Needs Assessment, to see if your child needs extra support through an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan).
- Referrals to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) or your local Mental Health Support Team.
- A review of an existing EHCP if things have changed significantly.
Your local authority’s role
If your child is not receiving suitable full-time education due to health issues (physical or mental), the local authority has a legal duty to step in under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996.
This includes children in:
- Maintained schools
- Academies and Free Schools
- Alternative provision
- Independent schools
The local authority may offer:
- Online learning platforms
- Temporary placements in resource bases or specialist centres
- Specialist AI robots to attend your child’s classes, with your child joining remotely
However, many of these are not offered on a full-time basis and your local authority should work with you and your child’s school if appropriate, to understand how much your child can cope with, a plan for building this up to full time education and eventually a re-integration into the school environment.
Emotionally Based School Avoidance is a real and growing issue. It’s not about defiance or laziness; it’s about anxiety, fear, and the need for understanding. As a parent, you play a vital role but you’re not in this alone. Your child’s school and local authority have responsibilities too.
Don’t be afraid to speak up, ask questions, and seek help. The earlier the support begins, the better the chances of helping your child return to school with confidence.
Giving you the full picture
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure of your rights, Tees have education specialists who can guide and support you through the process.
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