Episode 73: When School Feels Impossible

Kristy: 00:07
Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I’m Kristy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the unique challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith, family, and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let’s stand firm together. Hi everyone, this is Kristy. Welcome to episode 73 of the Unshaken Podcast. Today we’re talking about kind of a situation that I think a lot of us have experienced either with our kids or when we were the kids. It’s how we handle a situation when a kiddo just doesn’t want to go to school. And this is not a defiance issue. It’s there’s like something legitimate driving it. So I think, you know, for starters, we can, you know, we can all picture that situation where kiddo has a stomachache or crying, melting down, shutting down, begging, a bargaining, you know, we’ve seen it all, right? Miss the bus. I can’t imagine how they possibly could have missed the bus, except they were dragging their feet. And it’s just really stressful. It’s a difficult situation. They’re feeling something big. It’s difficult for them. We always want our kids to start off their day happy and to have a good day. And we want them to feel happy and safe at school. That’s where their friends are, it’s where their teachers are. But it’s what they do, right? We go to work or take care of the house and they go to school. Uh so if they don’t want to go to school, then I think we need to start asking questions right away. So we ask, like, what’s going on? Why don’t you want to go to school? Maybe they answer you straight out, more likely they don’t. So we take our cues from their from their behavior, from their choices, from their emotional state. And some of that stuff that happens is, I mean, it’s stuff where we want them to be grounded. It’s stuff where we want to take away their, you know, their video games or their phone. Like, seriously, you can’t act like this in the morning. But at the same time, what they’re doing doesn’t necessarily reflect the motive, like the reason why they’re doing it. So I think starting from a place where we’re saying, like, quit being lazy, school’s not supposed to be fun, it’s it’s supposed to be school. Those sorts of things, those sorts of judgment-based comments, quit being a brat, why are you dragging your feet? I just think that doesn’t help. It’s human. I get it. Those are some of the first things that I have wanted to say when my kids were a little unhappy about going to school in the morning. But at the same time, the refusal is something, it’s a a clue, right? It’s just sort of the symptom of a problem. So, you know, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about um some of the things that um that we’ve seen. Let’s just talk this through. I raised two girls here. Most of the time they went to school with no issues, but every now and then there would be a a stressor. And almost always with those two, my kids were super dependent on routine and the same things happening in the same order, and um very, very sensitive to like to being pushed on time. And so when they didn’t want to go, the issue almost always was that they were out of their out of their normal sequence of events, and they like they just didn’t feel like they could could pull it together. They were just too thrown off. I have a school full of students who have seen some really horrible things at school. Uh a lot of them have been bullied or abused or just underestimated. People have not presumed their competence, they have been caused to do work that’s years below their grade level. I could give you any number of reasons why, like legitimately, why they don’t want to go to school.

Tony: 04:30
One of the big things that that we have to kind of drive towards, and and a lot of this happens, of course, in the mornings. And we’ve talked about before on this podcast how like mornings can be hectic, you know, because so many things are trying to happen all at once. There’s a lot of moving pieces. If mornings are hectic, and if they’ve left you wondering, are you just missing something? Kristy and I are we’re we’re both parents. We’re you know, we’re parents to three amazing kiddos. Some mornings you’re just scratching your head, what’s going on? And if that’s you, you’re not failing as a parent. It’s important that we need to get more information before we try to come to some sort of conclusion. Like I think it’s really important to really put on our detective hats and get curious and talk to our kids. Maybe it’s not in that morning rush that we have deeper conversations, but it’s after school, even after dinner, when things are kind of slowing down and the day is wrapping up, maybe that’s when a more curious conversation can happen to truly get to the root of it. But I think it’s important to start this conversation. If you’ve been left with scratching your head, you’re not failing as a parent. We’ve all been there. And if you are feeling this way, number one, you already know that you care. It’s just about making sure that we have all the information that we need so that we can make the best decision for our kids. Trying to do this in the morning is probably the worst thing, you know, to do because like everybody’s trying to get out the door in the morning. And so come back later and and ask some concrete questions. I know Kristy asks our kids all the time, what was the best thing that happened to you today? What was the worst thing that happened to you today? Who did you have lunch with? Those kind of like concrete questions can be your first clue, especially like what was the hardest thing? Because if the hardest thing is something that you hear that it’s repeated day after day after day, whether it’s a class, whether it’s a person, whether it’s a a transition, whether it’s a a certain task or a certain place, maybe it’s some sounds, you know, maybe it’s a fear that keeps coming up or a stressor that keeps coming up. These things, I think these are like clues that get you started on the path of truly figuring out what’s keeping them from launching in the mornings when they’re having a tough morning. I think also we need to be flexible with how we’re communicating with our kids. Uh some kids explain with words and they’re able to verbalize it. Some kids do better writing stuff down. Maybe there’s a notebook where it’s a no-judgment notebook or something that like they’re able to write and say anything that they want without fear of getting in trouble or something where they can just express themselves. So maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s short answers, maybe it’s drawing. You know, if you’re if your kid is an artist and and they draw a lot or or they’re they paint or something like that, maybe maybe there’s something in in their drawings that can give you some kind of clues. There’s all kinds of ways that our kids are going to communicate to us. So we need to not try to focus on just the words that come out of their mouths. If if they’re able to communicate that way. There could be a variety of ways that our kids are looking to communicate with us. Being curious, it’s not being passive about the behavior, it’s not giving them a free pass. It’s really about refusing to punish a story that we don’t have the full story of yet. We need to make sure that we have all the information before we make any decisions, you know, about our kids or for our kids. I think we’ve talked about it on this podcast before. You know, it says in James at the very beginning of James, be slow to speak and quick to listen. We need to take that to heart. We need to make sure that how we are first communicating and first investigating with with our kids that we’re not angry with them. Keep that spirit of curiosity, because I really do think that that keeps the door open of communication as we’re trying to diagnose what’s going on.

Kristy: 09:34
You know, something I have experienced is how often do we ask a kid, why did you do this? Or why do you need this? Or why don’t you want to go to school? Why whatever? And they say, I don’t know. Invariably they say it in a sweet little, you know, honest to God, I don’t know why voice. And I’m grateful for that because the truth is they might not know why it feels so bad, or why it just feels overwhelming, you know, and it’s by conversations that maybe we can tease out some of those, some of the details or the things that staying at home might be protecting them from. It could be as direct and and straightforward as bullying, but it might also be a teacher that I would hope inadvertently, but um is embarrassing them. It may be a situation where they think something is embarrassing and there’s nobody involved in it at all. When I was a kid, I had an inhaler and I was always embarrassed for the other kids to know that I needed my inhaler. It could be that they don’t understand something, that they’re in a unit of math that they just don’t get, and one day they freaked out and cried in class, and now they’re embarrassed and they don’t want to go back. It could be because they always struggle with math or they always struggle with reading, and it just feels too much. It feels overwhelming. In the case of my students, it could be that the sensory is too much, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights that some of us don’t hear at all, or just the brightness of the lights, or it could be anything, their scratchy tag in their shirt, or the scratchy fabric that their their chair has on it, or or whatever the case may be. When you add up a couple of those things and trying to pay attention and trying to learn, like that can be really difficult. They’re telling you, my tummy hurts, or my eyes are tired, my eyes can’t see. Take them seriously. Their tummy probably does hurt, you know. It’s that stressful, anxious stomach. Uh I mean, I’ve had it, probably most of us have had it, but it’s also super easy to in the morning be like, your tummy doesn’t hurt, what’s really going on, you know, in that gruff way that that we parents sometimes have. So tell me what’s happening with your eyes. Have you had any headaches? Maybe the kiddo needs glasses, and it’s just never been one of those things that we discovered before. And I think a lot of times, especially when they’re little, but honestly, even into their teenage years, sometimes when they say, I just don’t want to go, what that means is I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s horrible there. I feel terrible. I feel something’s just not working out, and they they can’t put their finger on it, or they can’t, they don’t have the language to clarify for us what it is that’s not working. It could be a safety issue, it could be access, it could be, you know, a health thing, or uh, like I said, it could be as easy as glasses. I don’t see, and I’m not seeing the board. It could be anything like that. I think the way maybe to get why won’t you go, maybe that’s the starting point. But what happens if you do go? What happened yesterday? It’s what happens when they’re present that makes them want to be absent. And so I think that’s the place we need to end up focusing.

Tony: 13:01
If our child keeps saying something like feels wrong, but we can’t get to the to the root of what that thing is, we still need to take what they’re saying seriously and not be so quick to dismiss it because if there is something that is constantly being repeated, that matters. And I think that we need to keep that in context as we continue to gently dig to figure out what is actually going on. Um as parents, I think we can show some compassion to our kids and can say, hey, I believe you. This is hard. It’s not about the extremes of being dismissive and forcing them out the door at the same time not doing the other extreme of and just letting them stay home all day, every day. That’s not gonna work either.

Kristy: 14:05
There are times when it may not be something that’s happening even to them. It could be something that happened to another student. You know, it may be a situation where they’re afraid if they tell that somebody’s gonna get in trouble, that it that it might be them who gets in trouble, or that they could be getting a teacher or a friend in trouble. You know, we never really know what goes on in the mind of a little kiddo. It could be somebody said, if I tell you this, do you promise you won’t tell anybody? And they was like, they’re like, Yeah, you know, I promise. And then the kid drops a bomb. Now our child doesn’t know what to do with that. I promised I wouldn’t tell, but if this is a really bad thing, and so now I don’t want to go to school, you know, because of it.

Tony: 14:54
Because of the sticky nature of what could be going on, I think it points to a path that you know may require school partnership. This should be the case from day one anyway, that you know, there should be partnership between parents and the school. Even if everything is going great, there should be partnership because you just never know when something’s gonna be needed. So having a strong partnership between home and school can really be beneficial.

Kristy: 15:32
I agree completely, Tony, with everything that you just said. I’m thinking back to me telling my mom something and her saying, Do you want me to call your teacher? Do you want me to call the school? And me saying, like, no, no, please don’t call my teacher. Please don’t, you know, please don’t go to the office, please don’t don’t interfere. Um, and I so if I think that um talking to our kids and and maybe not making that promise ourselves, right? Like, promise you won’t go to the office. Well, no, I can’t promise you that until I know what’s going on. Part of protecting their dignity is maybe just not going around them in that way.

Tony: 16:13
If it is directly impacting our kid, there are so many tools that we have, whether it be like accommodations with an IEP, for example, there could be treatments with a doctor or with the doctor’s help. Different tools that we have that can help support, and all of the tools can be utilized to provide a really supportive plan for our kiddos to be successful in their education careers. Ultimately, getting back to school and helping to understand why school is hard or or has become hard, those things are not in competition with each other. It’s not a tug of war. Can we get our kiddos back into school where they’re learning and and they’re being successful and understand why it’s been hard and help them to get over that obstacle, whatever, you know, whatever that obstacle might be. When we show compassion, we might be afraid as parents that if we show compassion that the avoidance will get worse. But honestly, I think the compassion opens the door or keeps the door open to communication. If we’re on the other extreme of, you know, we can be afraid that if we’re too firm, that it’ll permanently wound the child. It’s not choosing one or the other, it’s finding the balance, and it’s also knowing our kids the way that we do, knowing which tack to take. And that may change over time. You know, there may be times where we need to be a little bit more firm, and there may be times where we need to be a little bit more compassionate. We just have to stay open to what our kids are communicating and ultimately communicating to them that, hey, we love you, we’re in this together, and we’re gonna figure this out together. Hopefully, if we do that, we can find a successful path forward.

Kristy: 18:29
Sometimes the right answer is to find the right path forward. And sometimes the issue is so much bigger than we realize, and it can come out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s the right answer is changing schools. Sometimes the right answer is dropping the AP honors classes and going back to a more manageable workload. Sometimes it means a really major change has to happen, and we have to be open to those things too. It’s hard, right? It’s so hard. It can be so disruptive to a family when parents have to be at work, when there’s no more vacation days left, when you can’t be late again. There’s so many pieces involved, but we are lucky if it’s a quick fix. Sometimes it’s a one-off, right? If this is something that happens once a quarter, maybe we can be at peace with that. Just call it a day of rest or or whatever. But when it’s regular, when it’s repeating, I think that’s when we really have to take notice.

Tony: 19:37
I absolutely agree. In the extreme situations where possible, we we need to be open to those extreme changes of possibly changing a school with our middle baby. There was a really bad bullying situation that was going on, and my work schedule was flexible enough that we could make the decision to pull her out and have her go online and be with me where I was able to monitor her education. And we did that for a couple of years. Again, we had that flexibility to be able to do that. Not every parent does. Whatever is going to work for your schedule and for your family, you have to make the best decision for your family and for your kiddo that’s going to work in a long-term situation if it is an issue that warrants a long-term change. Like Kristy said, sometimes it’s a simple one-off, hey, I just need a day. Cool, take the day. You know, and you move forward that way. That’s okay too.

Kristy: 20:48
It’s really identifying those triggers. One thing that we did as a family was kind of talk through, okay, who do you have at school? What adult do you have at school that you can go to in the middle of the day that you could get a hall pass and and you know, do a little fib and say you’re going to the bathroom or whatever, and like go to this trusted adult who will receive you and listen to you and support you and help you and you know, call your mom outside the you know, the official log in the office. Um, you know, who do you have that will advocate for you on campus like that? Like who is your safest adult? And being that it was a teenage situation, tell me three friends that you have day or night that they would answer you. And I think sometimes having those sort of support people set up ahead of time, I think that can really help because when a child or a young adult, a teenager has a problem, they’re in a situation where they don’t feel they have options, they don’t have control. They’re not able to make decisions independently. Like they’re part, you know, there’s there’s rules, there’s you know, guidelines around everything when you’re at school. I think that can be very overwhelming and scary, and it can make it really hard to want to go back the next day. And so, you know, even talking through things. This happened to you at school, and I I totally understand that was so scary, or that was so embarrassing, or I know you felt like you just didn’t know what to do. If that happens again, what are some things we could try? You know, if that happens again, could you go to the library and just take a few minutes and look at a book, read a book? Is there a homeroom teacher you could go back to? Like just kind of exploring those options, whether they’re little kids or or big kids. Sometimes there is like a mechanism in place. I think most of the time they’re gonna not want you to go talk it over with their with their teachers, at least for myself. I have found out that there is a workaround in place. You know, you can quietly go and talk to this lady in the office who will help you with that difficult situation, or will find a way for you to have a few minutes to just sit and collect yourself before you have to go back to class or, you know, whatever the case may be. I remember when our our youngest was really little, as I’m talking, I realized this is our emotional kid. There would be times where she would just really struggle and be in the office crying, and I would get a call and it would be, hey, it’s Jennifer from the office. You know, I have E here. Really upset. Sometimes just being able to say, put her on the phone, or tell her mommy, you know, whatever the secret code word. We always had secret code words for things. Tell her mommy said teacup, and she’ll know what that means. I think just having options, rehearsing the problem at home before it happens at school or before it happens at school again, and giving your student options and letting them have some agency when they’re back in that situation can really help.

Tony: 24:11
As part of this, and as part of helping our kiddos have people that they can go to. We as parents, also need to have people that we can go to as well. Make sure that we’re not trying to figure out everything on our own all the time. Sometimes we don’t have the ideas. We don’t sometimes we have no idea what it is that we need to do to help our kids. And we need to lean on other parents that we trust. We need to lean on the teachers that are there with our kids, you know, day in and day out. We need to lean on others and you know, not try to do everything on our own. Yes, we know our kids the best, but at the same time, we’re not expected to be an expert in everything all at once. When we are at the point that we’ve run out of ideas, we need to bring other people that we trust into the fold, you know, so that we can do the best we can and come up with solutions to be able to help our kids. I would hope that part of that process is going to be praying with our kids. I think it’s something that’s just powerful to be able to pray with our kids, just for them to know that we have their backs when we pray and when we do it in that sort of intimate way with them. I think that’s just a powerful image, of course, just praying on our own and just, you know, asking for guidance, asking for discernment as we try to navigate these things.

Kristy: 25:54
I think letting them know also that that’s always an option for them. You’re having a tough minute at school, just you know, in your heart, in your brain, say a few words to God. Ask him to come and help you, ask him to come be with you. He hears you no matter where you are, or even if you can’t say the words out loud. I think that’s just a really powerful, first of all, because he will help them, but also just knowing that you have a tool, knowing that there’s something you can do when you feel helpless, when you feel overwhelmed, that there is somebody that you can always reach out to. I think that can go a long way for a kid.

Tony: 26:32
Tomorrow may still be hard. School matters, and our kids, whatever they’re struggling with, that matters. We need to listen first. We need to slow down, we need to listen before we slap some kind of label on whatever we think is going on, and instead look for what is actually underneath their refusal to go to school or or something like that. We need to look for the things that are going to help, especially when we can’t solve whatever’s going on alone. Keep moving in compassion, in love, towards truth and towards responsibility with support rather than dismissing and causing shame. And that’s not gonna help anybody, whether it’s you, whether it’s the whether it’s the kiddo, you know, we need to always show that love and compassion to our kids so that we can be able to move forward in a better way.

Kristy: 27:36
One thing that just occurred to me, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but there are at most schools, there’s a guidance counselor or in a lot of cases a school psychologist, you know, sometimes they might be shared across multiple campuses. A lot of times there’s a social worker attached to a school or to a handful of schools. If push comes to shove, those are people that you can get involved, you know, that can sometimes help see the way to the bottom of you know issues that may arise at school.

Tony: 28:12
We hope again that this is helpful for you. If you know of parents that are maybe struggling with this, share this episode with them. Share any prayer requests with us. We would love to be able to pray for specific things for your families. We we do pray for you guys when we pray for our Unshaken family. But if there’s specifics, we would love to be able to pray directly for those things. So let’s pray, guys. Father, we come before you today, again, thankful that that you are compassionate and that you do hear us, whether we pray out loud or whether we pray in our hearts. We know that you are always listening, you’re always uh attentive to the prayers that that we bring to you. So, Father, just continue to give us discernment as parents, continue to help us be quick to listen, help us to be slow to speak, so that we can truly communicate better with our kids. Father, we we thank you that that you gave us your son and that because of what your son did, we can have a right relationship with you. We thank you so much for Jesus, and it is in his precious name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys so much. Hope you guys have a great day and a great rest of your week, and we’ll see you next time.

Kristy: 29:45
Bye, friends. We love you.