You collect your child at the school gate. The teacher smiles and says they’ve had a lovely day. No concerns. A pleasure to have in class.
Twenty minutes later you are standing in your kitchen while your child screams at you about a snack, or a sock, or nothing you can identify at all. And you think, not for the first time, that you must be doing something badly wrong.
I have spent around eighteen years in education, first as a teacher, then as a specialist SEN teacher, and later as a SENDCo. I have sat on both sides of this conversation. I have been the person at the school gate saying the day went fine, and I have sat with parents who were quietly falling apart because home did not match that picture at all.
I want to say something clearly, because it often does not get said: if this is happening in your house, it is usually not a sign that something has gone wrong at home. It is more often a sign that something is going right.
What is actually happening
Children and young people who find school demanding, whether because they are autistic, have ADHD, have unmet learning needs, or are carrying anxiety or something difficult at home, often spend the entire school day working very hard to appear fine.
That work is invisible. It looks like sitting still when their body wants to move. Copying what everyone else is doing half a second late so nobody notices they did not understand the instruction. Laughing at the joke they did not follow. Tolerating noise, lights, crowded corridors, and the constant low-level demand of being watched. Holding in a question because asking would draw attention.
This is often called masking. It is not deliberate performance. It is closer to survival, and it takes an enormous amount of energy.
By half past three, that energy is gone. And here is the part that surprises people: children do not let go in front of the person they trust least. They let go in front of the person they trust most.
The collapse at home is not evidence that you are the problem. It is evidence that you are the safe place.
Why that is still so hard
Knowing this intellectually does not make the kitchen any easier at four o’clock. Parents in this situation often tell me some version of the same things.
That they feel disbelieved, because the school’s account and their own account of the same child do not match, and the school’s version is the one that carries weight.
That they feel isolated, because it is difficult to explain to family or friends why a child described as delightful all day is unmanageable by teatime.
That they are exhausted, and then feel guilty for being exhausted.
That they are frightened about what happens if this continues, particularly if their child has started to resist going in at all.
All of that is reasonable. You are absorbing the fallout of a system that is not quite working for your child, and you are doing it without much recognition.
The signs worth paying attention to
A degree of after-school decompression is normal for most children. What is worth taking more seriously is when the pattern hardens.
Look out for the collapse arriving earlier and lasting longer, or spreading into weekends and holidays. Sunday evening dread. Physical symptoms with no medical cause, particularly stomach aches and headaches on school mornings. Sleep going backwards. A child who was previously sociable withdrawing from friendships or activities they used to love. Talking about themselves harshly, as stupid, lazy, weird, or a burden. Increasing difficulty getting through the school door, or refusing altogether.
School refusal in particular is rarely defiance. It is much more often the point at which a child’s capacity to keep masking has run out.
What helps at home
None of the following fixes the underlying pressure, but each of these genuinely reduces the load.
Build in a decompression gap. Many children cannot answer questions straight after school, and the well-meant “how was your day” arrives at the exact moment they have nothing left. Food, quiet, no demands, and no conversation for half an hour will often do more than any discussion.
Lower the demands in that window deliberately. Homework, changing out of uniform, tidying up, all of it can wait. This is not letting standards slip. It is triage.
Respond to the feeling rather than the words. When a child shouts that they hate you and everything is unfair, the content is rarely the point. “Today was too much, wasn’t it” tends to land better than a debate about fairness.
Keep a simple record. Dates, times, what happened, how long it lasted. This is partly for your own clarity and partly because it is far harder for a school to set aside a pattern written down over six weeks than a worried description at a parents’ evening.
Ask the school what support is in place, and ask specifically. Rather than “is he coping”, try asking who he goes to when he is overwhelmed, what happens at unstructured times, and whether the SENDCo has been involved. You are entitled to those answers.
Look after your own reserves where you can. This is the hardest one, and I say it without any expectation that it is easy.
Where therapy comes in
Therapy does not remove the demands of school, and I would not want to suggest otherwise. What it can do is give a young person somewhere that asks nothing of them.
In my work with children and young people I am often less interested in the behaviour itself than in what sits underneath it. Frequently that is anxiety, shame, exhaustion, or a belief they have quietly formed that there is something wrong with them because everything seems harder for them than for everyone else. That belief tends to do more long-term damage than the original difficulty.
It also helps that I know the school side well. I understand EHCPs, SEN support, what schools can realistically offer and what they often cannot, and how to talk to a SENDCo. Parents frequently tell me that having someone who speaks both languages, the therapeutic and the educational, takes some weight off.
If this sounds familiar
I work online with children and young people aged 9 to 18 across the UK, and face to face in Uxbridge by arrangement. I offer a free 20 minute call for parents and carers to talk through what is going on and whether therapy is likely to help, with no obligation at all.
You are welcome to get in touch at: shabnum@shabnumhasancounselling.com
If your child is in immediate distress or at risk, please contact your GP, call NHS 111, or in an emergency call 999 or go to A&E. Childline is available free on 0800 1111, Papyrus HOPELINE247 on 0800 068 4141, and Samaritans on 116 123. You can also text SHOUT to 85258.
