What To Do When Your Child Hates School

At some point, almost every child wants to stay home and not go to school. This is perfectly ok and natural, but what if your child doesn’t just want to stay for a day or two, what if he totally does not want to go to school ever? What if he hates school completely and doesn’t want to have anything to do with it? This could be frustrating and annoying especially for very young children, they will cry, shout, wail just to get left alone and at home.

There are many reasons that could be responsible for this behavior. Like adults, children always have a reason for the things they do or don’t do. It is also something kids use to test the limits when growing up. They are curious as to how much they can get away with, to what extent are they allowed to make their own choices about the things they do or don’t do. It could be frustrating and tiring, and you need to confront in a way that will not make the child rebel against you. You have to find out the reason why and help the child find his way back to school without using force or punishment.

Why Does Your Child Hate School?

If you are going to win this battle, first you need to figure out why your child hates school in the first place. Something has to be responsible for this behavior or in some cases, someone. Getting to the root course will get you halfway to the solution. This could be hard, especially if your child is shy or if you are not very much connected to your child. However, the following reasons below could be responsible for your child’s behavior.

1. Teaching style and routines

Kids hate routines and unfortunately, that’s all schools do, routines. Kids have to follow rules, stay in class for a period of time, the have to stay quite too, silent, listen and repeat after the teacher, write, draw, some kids find this tiring and boring and would therefore prefer to stay home. The fact that many school still rely primarily on teacher-driven lessons, is not compatible with the preferred learning style of many kids.

Schools, most of the time, forget that kids have different ways of learning and the best way to bring the best out of each and every single child is by trying to find out how best each child learns and then help them concentrate on that. Some children learn by listening to others by doing so if you subject one to the other they will feel intimidated and uncomfortable and this can lead to the child running away from school. Some children even go to the extent of pretending to be sick, and in some instances, it takes the parents quite some time for them to realize that their little one is playing a game on them.

2. Inhibited and misunderstood

Kids can sometimes be very sensitive and this could be something their teachers fail to understand or put into consideration. Because kids are not considered individually in school instead they are treated as one bunch that have the same needs, same wants and the same feeling in every issue, it is very easy for them to feel misunderstood, because their individual feeling or concerns are not addressed at that individual-personal level. When the child feels misunderstood all the time, he loses interest and focus and will therefore not care whether he does his work correctly or even dress well and as time goes on, he will hate school and will do everything he can to stay away from school, because it is a place that does not recognize his existence or respect his personal feelings.

3. Bullying

The reason your child hates school could be attributed to something or in this case, someone. Bullying is very common especially in the ages of five, six, going to early teens. If your son is the shy type, if someone in school is bullying him, instead of telling you or his teachers, he might try to deal with it in his own way and running away from school could be one of the solutions he could come up with. This is why it is very important to have a close relationship with your kids, you have to make sure that they trust you enough that if they run into trouble with someone, they will be comfortable to talk to you about it.

Bullying is really bad and it doesn’t necessarily mean some other kid is beating up your child; it could be something else, like making fun of his dress code, excluding him during group work, calling him names, saying mean things to him etc. when your child feels powerless against these other kids, he is likely to retreat to his own safe heaven and in this case that would be home.

4. Anti-social

This is another possibility. Your child may be anti-social, maybe he is the type that find it difficult to bond and connect with other kids. Note, this is natural for some kids and at some point, they will need your help to navigate this stage. Anti-social kids are mostly alone, shy, and even at the playground, you will most probably find them isolated alone keeping their distance from the other kids. Not all anti-social kids hate school, but where this is the case, you will have to step in as a parent and help your child belong. The reason they run away from school in this case is because they feel out of place in school and therefore prefer to stay home.

5. New environment

This has been known to be the case in situations where parents relocate to new places. Most kids hate their new schools in the first few weeks. This is perfectly natural and ok, because they don’t know anyone in the new school and have no new friends so they find it difficult to fit in and that makes them hate the school. The good news is this is easily out-grown, as soon as he starts making new friends and getting familiar with the environment, he feels comfortable and in some case even come to fall in love with the school.

How to Help Your Child Like School

This could be a tough one sometimes, however, it’s got to be done and with the right steps, you will make it happen and it will be easier than you think.

1. Get close to your child

This is very important as you must have already noticed. You have to have a close relationship with your child, this is will make it easier for you to help him and help yourself, not just in the issue of school but even other things that maybe affecting him. Getting close with your child will make him trust you and confide in you, and this will make it easy for you to find out the reason why he hates school as in this case.

2. Find out why your child hates school

This is the first step to solving this frustrating issue. If the first step is already in place for you, then this one will be easy for you, if not, then you will have to find a way to get it out of your child. Again it all comes down to trust. For example, if your child is lying to you about being sick just to skip school, then he does not trust you to tell you why he is running away from school. You have to close that leak first and then get him to tell you the reason he hates school.

3. Listen without judging

When your child decides to confides in you, listen carefully and let know that you understand him and care about his feelings, don’t judge him. Hear everything he has to say and when he is done, offer your own solutions to the problem, and ask him to tell you what he thinks about it. This way, you are working with him to come up with a solution and that will encourage him more.

4. Talk to his teacher

This depends on the situation or cause, if need be, go to the school and speak to his teachers. If your child is being bullied or feel misunderstood, or is new to the school, make this known to his teacher so that the teacher at his own level will be able to help him. You have to team up with the school to come up with a solution where necessary.

Finally, help your child build confidence and self-esteem. Once he feel secure and confident in himself, he will must definitely fit in every school, make amazing friends, and school will not be that bad an experience that he will have to lie or rebel to stay home. Kids will be kids, it on you the parent to help them navigate this stage of their lives.