hating school

Have I been there! Not only with my own children but with myself.
School was soo hard,when we finally got that breather,so help me god,I didn’t want to go back!
He is telling you something very significant. You don’t say how old he is,but he is telling you that school is soo stressful for him,that he needs changes.

If possible,ask him. Ask him why he doesn’t want to go back. Is it a specific teacher? Is it a specific class?
Is it possible to give him a day off once in a while? Taking a mental health day now and again might make going at all, tolerable.

If he won’t talk to you, ask the school. Find out what is going on,that makes him hate it so much.

It is a starting place. My heart goes out to him,and to you. Been there and done that too many times than I want to remember.

Let him know that you want to help him,and that you hear what he is saying.

I’m a teacher and I don’t want to go back tomorrow either. It’s hard to get back into the routine and harder for some of us than others. Hitting is unacceptable and I’d draw a hard line with that but letting him speak to what he dreads about going back to school might help. Ask him what he likes and what he hates about school. Let him give you one thing he hates and one thing he likes. Through conversation, try to ease him back into the idea of school.

Ask him what’s hard and what’s easy for him. Let him give you one easy thing and then one hard thing. Then ask him what’s hardest. When he tells you that, put your heads together and think of one thing that can be done to make that hard thing easier.

Good luck.

I feel for you, my son hates school too, and we have those days, I have to drag him out of bed……everyday, then tell him 100 times to get in the shower, get dressed….. and then watch him get out of the car looking pitiful….and coming home looking worse. He is defintely telling you something is wrong. I agree with the approach of going to the school to find out if you can’t get the answers from him. Of course, this is coming from a parent, that I think the school personnel know my voice, before I ever identify myself. LOL
I 100% agree with Socks about the mental health day. I use them as rewards, such as if you get up without a fight for 2 weeks, I’ll let you take a day off. I don’t make him pretend to be sick, or restrict his activities on those days, I just let him unwind. Might not be the right approach, but it helps make our lives easier. Plus, to be completely honest,he’s learning very little at school anyway, and on those “days off”, he works around the farm with his step-dad, so actually he’s learning life skills those days.

The beginning of the school year was like that. I got help from the school psychologist to give her stickers when she got to school by bus.I was at the point of having to carry her with no shoes on into the psychologists office with a pre-phone call of I’m coming.Key points try to keep your cool because it makes the child’s behavior worse seeing mom isn’t handling it.Deep breaths helped me here. I had her pick out her outfits and get everything ready the night before so we were not so rushed in the morning but there were times she chose a different outfit anyway so make sure you have lots of time.I allow her to take a toy or whatever so she can feel better about having something with her that she can show to her friends so she’ll want to go to school.Yes empathy is a good thing let the child know you are listening to her and be more apt to listen to you.We’ve tried to keep our sleep patterns the same so our return will be much easier.And most of all when they get to school just fine let them know how it made everyone’s day easier thanks to them.Good luck!