My Child Doesn't Want to Go to School: The First Day and the Second

The short answer: on the first day, you can let it go and stay close to them for the rest of the day. If it happens again the next day, now you talk, calmly and seriously, and find out whether it is an excuse or something real at school.

Every child, at some point, wakes up and doesn’t want to go. Grown men and women wake up some mornings and don’t want to go to work. That alone is not a crisis.

The question is not whether it happened. The question is whether it is becoming a pattern.

Day one: let it go, stay close

If your child refuses one morning, and they are not ill and nothing is obviously wrong, you can let them stay home. Not as a reward. Not as a day of screens. As a quiet day where you stay near them.

During that day, don’t interrogate. Be around. Eat together. Do something ordinary side by side. Sometimes the child was simply tired, lazy that morning, or worn out from a hard week. That happens.

But keep one thing in mind: a day at home should not feel like a holiday. No phone all day, no games from morning till night. Home on a school day is a normal day, with the same rules, just without school.

Day two: now we talk

If the next morning they refuse again, this is different. Now there is a pattern starting, and this is where you begin to talk.

It is worth knowing this: according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety-based school refusal “affects 2 to 5 percent” of school-age children, and it “commonly takes place between the ages of five and six and between ten and eleven.” Those are the years when school changes: starting school, and the move towards secondary school.

The same page notes something many parents see: the stomach ache or headache can “quickly disappear” once the child knows they are staying home, then “reappear the next morning.” That doesn’t mean the child is lying. It means the body is reacting to something.

The talk only works if you are trusted

Here is the part no technique can replace. A child tells the truth to a parent they trust. If every confession at home has ended in shouting, a lecture or punishment, your child will give you an excuse instead of the reason.

So start soft: “You didn’t want to go yesterday, and you don’t want to go today. Something’s going on. Tell me. I’m not angry. I want to understand.”

Then listen to the end.

What you are trying to find out

Behind the refusal there is usually one of two things:

1. An excuse. The child doesn’t feel like it, has a test they didn’t study for, wants to stay home with a game, or has learned that “I feel sick” works.
2. Something real at school. A child or a group bothering them. A teacher who humiliates them. A friendship that broke. Feeling lost in lessons. Fear of a particular class.

How to tell the difference is in the next article: Excuse or Real Problem? What’s Behind School Refusal.

Then what

• If something real is happening at school, you go to the school and talk to the people in charge. Firmly. See How to Talk to the School About Bullying.
• If nothing is wrong, don’t make it into a big drama. But don’t let it slide either. Explain, clearly and calmly, why school matters. That talk is in School Is Your Job.

When to get help

Talk to your child’s doctor if the refusal goes on for more than a week or two, if physical complaints keep coming back, if your child panics at the school gate, or if they seem low and withdrawn most days. If they talk about hurting themselves, get help today.

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Next step

Plan the day-two talk. Check if it is the right moment, and get the first words to say. Before you talk → What to say →

Sources

• Anxiety and Depression Association of America. School Refusal. adaa.org